Again, partly just for fun, alot of the important academic work done in the field of economics is on how and why markets behave irrationally. Not to get political, but free market fundamentalism is a failed policy when it comes to gvts. It stands to reason that it's not an adequate way to explain the world market in soccer players.
Just trying to name the alumni... Definite alumni Bocanegra McBride Convey Hahnemann Howard Psuedo alumni: These were in MLS really as a holding pattern until Europe opened up again Gibbs Friedel Non-MLS Reyna Spector Demerit (wasn't good enough for MLS but fine for EPL ) Who am I missing?
OT, but I made the point to a mod somewhere, in a PM, that if bigsoccer had a policy limiting the manner in which we criticize players (i.e., criticize their play, don't use their play to criticize their character, only criticize their character over character issues...if US Soccer has its TO, then you can bash the guy on his character), that would lower the overall temperature and lead to posters treating each other better. It's kinda tough to expect posters to take Landon's inconsistency as an excuse to want to do a Buffalo steamer on Bianca, and then turn around and write, excuse me my esteemed co-poster, but I beg to differ. It's the "broken windows" theory of policing. If police crack down on littering and graffiti in a neighborhood, it raises everyone's standard of behavior. If such low-level crimes are tolerated, it generates a lack of respect for social norms, thence to open air drug markets. Just a thought.
I don't think the world soccer market has to work anywhere close to perfectly to provide a decision-maker with very useful information. With few exceptions, our most talented players (will) have egos and ambitions to match their talent and (will) want to be as well-paid as possible. And, again with few exceptions, soccer clubs are not in the business of giving money away - they want value in return for the Euros ($$) they spend. So look closely at who spends how much for whom - it's good information. As an example, we can compare two lists: 1) Top ten US GKs based on salary [#1 GK = highest paid] 2) Any BS poster's Top 10 GK's I'm not sure I could list 10 quality US GKs off the top off my head, but I'm sure all of you can ... TH KK BF MH QW BG CS bing bing bing. Anyway, you make your list and compare it to the 'salary list.' I hope there's solid overlap, because if there's not, you probably don't know what you're talking about. Let me go further. When you are picking your 3 GKs in 2010 [no, not now for 2010], start with the 'salary list' and start paring that down. No, you won't just grab the three highest-paid GKs, but that list will be a practical starting point. In our case, we have the complication that European Leagues and MLS have different salary scales, and not all our players can move freely from MLS to Europe. But with many US GKs in MLS to choose from, when Manchester United reached out for Tim Howard and gave him a big contract, that said a lot. Maybe a useful experiment would be to list the highest-paid MLS GKs and see how that list compares with yours. Then do the same exercise for our GKs in Europe. If it makes life easier, limit each list to five or six.
Actually, I bet all you would need are salaries, transfer fees, and "homesickness" dummy variable to explain the soccer markets very, very well.