Being happy and willing to leave to leave to play at a much lower level league are two different things. Don't know the player in question. May have been told to find another club because he had no future. Mexico could also have been offering a better contract. Without a doubt - a large part of a players success in many cases is simply opportunity. The overlap in ability between payers at different levels is very large once you get away from the guys at the very top. You could take guys off the bottom the MLS benches and replace them in games with some players in adult amateur leagues and you wouldn't know the difference in cup games and scrimmages. Toronto was the worst team in the east. Its like talking about Liga FPD and using Liberia as your reference. Some will argue Costa Rica is better than MLS, yet few would credibly argue the bottom of that league is stronger than the best USL teams. Similarly Olimpia is trotting out 35 year old Carlos Costly as their striker - a guy that was a marginal player when he played in a much weaker MLS and he was in his prime. The fact that the two Canadian teams with fB teams were so bad - Toronto was #15 out of 15 in the East while Vancouver was #14 out of #15 in the West points out the challenges I see with the current talent level. Even your shocked Ottawa team was among several teams tied at #4 for the fewest wins in the league. In a 30 team league 3 of the bottom 4 in total wins last year were the 3 Canadian teams. So when you are talking of level of USL which part of the USL are you talking about, and you claim the CPL will be so much better, what is the basis? Again what made NASL the second division in your mind? If you go by Open Cup games I think NASL was just marginally better - certainly below margin for error.. And Open Cup wasn't like CCL where teams start in different points in their season or teams had different levels of motivation. Both USL and NASL wanted to do their best and were in season.
You are way overhyping the USL. They are below Honduras and Costa Rica level for sure. I have seen enough usl games to without a doubt say that league isn’t anything to get to worked up about. A lot of route one football that just doesn’t warrant to high a praise. There are players that go to pretty decent European clubs straight from Costa Rica it isn’t a bad league. Saprissa has in strong years done things that no usl club has ever gotten close to achieving You honestly believe the mls will be a top league in the world by 2020? How could it possibly get there? Just because there is a lot of money in the usa? Since the other thread didn’t hit on the point I was making. Here is another mls fan in 2014 also arguing it was only a matter of time the mls was on liga mx level due to money https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/ho...iga-mx-top-clubs-under-33-salary-cap.2009937/. This isn’t any where close to a new idea among mls fans. That argument is literally made every year
Spending so much energy to exaggerate USL quality and putting down CPL below it... I have USL in my backyard with TFC II and I'd rather go see D3 Ontario league. The difference isn't as night and day as you're trying to sell. Bottom line is the USSF has not brought Canada the results justifying status. It speaks volume when the CSA itself made itself a major stakeholder of the League to ensure it's success and growth No one cares about silly comparison, we care that the league will have the quality to attract fans and grow the pool so that the national team becomes once again a regional power. This belief that Canadians are genetically engineered to be less talented is silly as before the 90s, Canada was better than the US. Programs goes through cycles and some improve and other declines
Don't waste time arguing with US fans and MLS diehards. They simply can't see how pathetic the league really is even compared to Concacaf region. Right now MLS is about the 8th or 9th best league in the region and well below Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama and imo MLS is only slightly better than Caribbean leagues once you take out the DP's. The CPL can easily surpass MLS in less than 5 years if they actually go with the plan they're laying out. MLS is not a high bar, so why do people think the CPL can't be better? MLS will go winless for a lot longer than 2 decades if they keep doing the same things. Once CPL gets going MLS can forget about doing well in the CCL because CPL teams will eliminate them like Mexico and Costa Rica always do.
How many Americans can name an American soccer league other than MLS? There are few enough fans that I don't think convincing the public that they have improved from D3 to D2 should be important to USL. It would be like Sonic working hard to convince people that their fast food is more popular than Checkers when both of them are way less popular than McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King.
Further evidence that it isn't just MLS improving but the whole region doing it as well. Santa Tecla 2 - 1 Sounders FC Highlights | @santateclafc | @soundersfc #SCCL2018 pic.twitter.com/LEtuqvHvoB— Concacaf (@Concacaf) February 23, 2018 Olimpia 1-1 New York Highlights | @CDOlimpia @NewYorkRedBulls #SCCL2018 pic.twitter.com/Pwp5qVUSfN— Concacaf (@Concacaf) February 23, 2018
CPL doesn't exist so there is nothing to put down. You have been making claims that it will be higher than USL and I've been questioning the validity of that assumption from an analytical perspective. I just pointed out that three Canadian entries in the USL are among the bottom four of the 30 teams in wins. When you then have to take that talent and spread it among 8 additional teams it is obviously going to get much thinner. So when you claim a league that is focusing on Canadian content will have a higher standard, I just question the basis of that presumption. One mitigating circumstance is that contrary to your statements, Canadian players do find there way to other MLS and USL teams. I don't think there are nearly enough to stock the teams with the type of quality you believe the league will have, but it will help. I'm not familiar with D3 Ontario league nor have I seen TFCII, but I'll agree that I could take a group of players from a local men's league and give the bottom half of the USL teams an even game - especially it was played under friendly rules with 6 or more subs where fitness was less an issue. So there are probably a number of players fairly close in ability to what you find on TFCII and Ottawa. While I'm sure there are some good players within 25 miles of Ontario Canada, I'm not sure there anywhere near as many as there are within 25 miles of Ontario California. There are a heck of a lot of young players from LigaMx and MLS systems and top college programs in the area.
I completely agree that MLS has helped the rest of the region. However I'm not sure this makes your point other than Mayen was developed in an MLS academy. Given that both goals were from a player that managed a handful of appearances over a 3 year period in a much weaker MLS, I think it speaks more to the being in pre-season than anything else.
It as if you like basing the level of a typical SPL on Celtic, or back in the day, Rangers. Saprisa and Herediano are at a completely different level than Liberia and Guadalupe. The former have several state of the art practice fields while smaller clubs had tiny stadiums that hold a few thousand people. I won't claim much knowledge on Honduras other than their top teams are not at the same level of Costa Rican teams. However I am quite familiar with Costa Rica. as a good friend takes teams down there all the time so I know players that have played friendlies and trained there. In terms of pros, half the players from Red Bull team that tied Olimpa were former USL players (Long, Muyl, Davis, Adams, Etienne). BTW - many of these players were then USL based kids that beat Chelsea 4-2 in a friendly a couple of years ago which give you an idea of their quality and the difference being in pre-season form vs mid-season.
Higher budgets, better wages that will allow the league to get better talent. Ottawa Fury were shown the CPL financial data and reports said they were shocked by how high the CPL budget would operate on. CPL will have a minimum salary comparable to the CFL which is $54k. The MLS B teams have had a poor track record at developing talents. Let me break a myth for you. MLS does not develop the best Canadian talents. MLS does not possess the best Canadian youth talent either. There's lots of it in Canada but you don't know how it works in those parts so I'll elaborate. MLS ignores: U- sports (universities), our D3 (PLSQ and L1O) and none-MLS academies (The national team has more starters from none-MLS academies than from MLS). There are talented guys in League 1 Ontario but MLS are very bias towards their own academy. You can't know what's put there if your not looking. That's a fact that MLS academies aren't looking outside their system. CPL however, will. It's more likely to have the most talented pool of youth players than MLS. I hope you notice on the fact that in use the word youth. The best youth prospect came from non MLS academies. Liam Millar killing it at Liverpool? Mississauga, Kris Twardek? Ottawa. Davies? Edmonton even Larin, Sigma FC but he got drafted because he played in a US university but he was already Larin way before then and no MLS teams had any idea of his existence. So, you should let go of that myth that MLS develop and possess the best Canadian out there, because that is far from being the truth. CPL are more likely to find them and acquire them. The CPL is completely aware of the current state of the pool, therefore a higher number of internationals is being explored with the goal of restricting that number as the pool expand. Investors aren't pouring all that cash to offer USL level of football. The goal is between NASL and MLS as you can see, the league never mention USL and by the way, one of the 1st thing the league did was to reject the USL teams as they deemed it too low. That's nothing new, it's been like this for years. That's why I think a lot of your assumptions are based on not having the knowledge on what's going on in Canada outside the USSF, I'm always amused by this assumption that Canadians are genetically predisposed to be less talented than Americans. Iceland has significantly less players than California, yet, I wouldn't bet against them in a US vs Iceland match. The US was always more populous than Canada, yet, before 1990, Canada was a better team than the US. We have a broken path in our pyramid. CPL will fix it by occupying the top 2 divisions which will bring in more talent to the top league instead of losing them
You are picking out the Red Bull’s who have one of the strongest development systems in the country and use their usl team well unlike almost everyone else to overhype the usl. The usl like Costa Rica has different levels with teams that are stronger and weaker. I have seen usl players go from Central America to the usl and from the usl to Central America. They aren’t exactly out of place in either situation. It isn’t as if when they go to Central America they look leaps and bounds better than players down there. I have yet to see a usl player go down to Central America and tear up a league. When they move to the usl they can earn starting spots and we aren’t talking about the strongest Central American players starting for usl clubs. Olimpia if they had played at home in front of their fans would likely be the favorite. So contrary to your typical overhype of us soccer there are actually several teams in concacaf that are usl level. If you plug in Central American teams into the usl some teams like Saprissa could win it on good years. Honduran clubs along with some Guatemalan and Panamanian teams that have gotten results against mls teams could be somewhere in the middle. You also didn’t answer my question. Other than the usa is a wealthy nation what makes you think the mls will be a top league in the world in 4 years? Here is yet another thread of someone making the same argument you are in 2009. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/le...r-mls-vs-mexican-clubs.1094240/#post-18176944 There is just a whole of mls fans through the years that have made the same argument yet we never see it on the field
Jesus... there`s no way MLS becomes a top league the way it is now. Like I said many times, Toronto FC is the deepest and best MLS team ever and they wouldn`t survive Europa Group stage nor Copa Libertadores and it ain`t remotely close. I shouldn`t be surprised at some over-hyping USL just by looking at how overhyped MLS is
Can't win CONCACAF when the pyramid is a mess #NASL announces cancellation of 2018 season: https://t.co/gVzxlciWep pic.twitter.com/10bD9ciSS0— NASL (@naslofficial) February 27, 2018
Fine, then I expect you back here in 2022 armed with actual game results - the only metric that counts for us fans. Not flowery commercial language from the MLS Board of Governors meetings. I don't care if MLS has the most hot dog vendors per stadium seat in the world.
I guess this confirms that MLS is nowhere near winning the CCL Panama Tauro FC bested FC Dallas on aggregate. Aggregate win for @TauroFC who are now into the @CONCACAF @TheChampions quarter-finals, and looking to make 2018 even big for Panamanian football #ClubWC https://t.co/JFCfvBsBDB— FIFA (@FIFAcom) March 1, 2018
>Accuses someone of being ignorant >Misspells "Germans" and "academies". Ah, the irony. Anyway, your team will never catch up to Mexico, get used to it. We will always be better than you. Learn Spanish, you're in America after all. Your league will not catch up either, look at what happened in Frisco tonight. u.s. clubs are 0 for 2 so far in this CCL. MX 4 for 4. The gap is wide and will widen.
I dunno, I think TFC/Tigres is 50/50 and the winner of that match will win the tournament, so MLS would be pretty close to winning the CCL by that measure!
I'm just glad that the new format will (after a year) make it such that MLS teams aren't so far removed temporally from their qualification... FCD qualified as 2016 Shield winners, then didn't even make the playoffs in 2017. I hope and expect Seattle and NYRB to do better tonight.... (Yes, I know NYRB didn't do much better than Dallas last year - but they at least had a better 1st leg.)
I have to agree with that statement, TFC is the best team MLS has ever produced. If they play their A game, remains healthy, they have a chance, but the margin for errors style remains very thin. I will be watching that one with great interest.
I was there when America faced Montreal at Olympic Stadium. We got beat soundly on the second half. I don't think current TFC could beat 2015 America. Are they better than in 2015? Is Benedetto and Peralta still there?
The team is pretty different from 2015 so that's kind of an odd point of reference. I think there are only three players from that team who are on this one. Regardless, this America is better. Both because of a better roster but especially coached much better than in 2015. Even still, this Toronto team might have a chance against the 2015 America, but we're still talking like 70/30. Peralta is still here, but Benedetto is now with Boca Juniors. The forward line has been a rotation of Peralta, Henry Martin who has had somewhat of a breakout season so far, and Jeremy Menez who was the big offseason acquisition.