There is a limit on foreign players, though due to US Labor Law that dictates a green card holders has the same employment rights as an American citizen, players rarely stay "foreign" for all that long. Reality is that the international player cap and the salary cap usually end up in the same place. That said, despite expansion -- and in some cases, because of expansion -- salaries in MLS have grown steadily over the last few years as the league has infused more money into payroll and more aggressive owners have come into the league. In 2016, there were 20 teams and average payroll was $8.7M. In 2019, there were 24 teams, and average payroll was $12.0M. That wasn't all the new teams; it was pretty common in 2016 was team payrolls to be as low as $5M. Nine teams had payrolls under $6M. In 2019, the lowest payroll was $8.6M for the Rapids, and only 7 teams came in under $10M. Add in the academy boom -- where a ton of homegrown Americans are actually coming through -- and the league is likely at its most talented despite having 2.5x teams it had not too long ago.
If the CBA is approved the average salary will be $500,000, which implies salaries of at least $15 million for each of the 30 teams.
It also means that MLS salaries continue to close the gap on the Championship (average a bit under 600k sterling) and will begin to open a gap on the other Top 5 D2s
of course he can. The Turkish league is not what it was many years ago. I think the quality may be below MLS, which has come up a whole lot.
Not sure about Turkish league quality but that korean cb now plays for Napoli is a stud. He played Turkish league last yr. If you have talent , they will find you. In wright's case, he surely not talented enough for greg.
Way below. And that's still understatement. https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/country/#/yr/2023 And MLS is probably at or above Belgium.
the point is scoring in the Turkish league is surely not what it would have meant 20 years ago. You disagree?
I think there's a lack of adjustment in perception of MLS' strength, after rapid gains were made the last few years from the rich getting richer in America during the pandemic, as well as the implementation of the academy system. The floor and ceiling were raised by a lot. (This is not to mention the bias against MLS from America not nominally being a soccer culture.) It's pretty pointless now to argue anything beyond the top 5 leagues/UCL are "clearly superior" to MLS. I don't know where MLS falls exactly, but it's probably around top 10 in the world. When you get into your Belgiums, Netherlands, Portugal, etc. of the fb world; it's really nitpicking what success in 1 league vs. the other means. That applies to Brazil & Argentina in the Americas as well. And MLS now buys a lot of up and comers + solid vets from those leagues. They generally do well, but then you have plenty of American domestics who are equal to or better than them. Plus MLS spends a lot of $ to buy & retain players. Walker Zimmerman probably makes more than all our center backs at 2.3m/yr. Follow the $...he's been our best CB the last year or two, outside arguably Miles Robinson (another MLS player, who started there cuz he's American, then was held hostage by Atlanta because he was too good). There's questions how a player from a 2nd rate league in Europe does in MLS & vice versa now. MLS has more talent than plenty of those leagues. But the style, w/out pro-rel, doesn't involve as much urgency, & the fans aren't as passionate to put a lot of mental pressure on you. Though it's easier to adjust to those factors over time than it is to develop more talent. So it's very individual as to who will translate to higher level leagues or int'l play. A Brandon Vazquez really looks the part, and Wright does in some ways too. But if Vazquez has less deficiencies, and is better between the ears than a Haji Wright, he could prove so much better than Wright in the end it's comical we were even talking about this. Or MLS could be his level, and Wright could keep laddering up from here. Who knows for sure. But as far as success in MLS vs. Turkey, c'mon, nominally it's more impressive to do it stateside at this point. Turkey really declined after their prior economic boom. It's not even the Netherlands where Wright didn't do anything. It's really antiquated, Europhilic thinking to be more impressed by getting chased to 3rd rate leagues abroad & having success there vs. the US. Unless you're over the top impressed w/ someone from a scouting perspective, might as well give those call ups to MLS standouts, of which there were a few at the 9 this year.
being an "MLS player" has a wider variance in meaning than a lot of other leagues IMO. Other leagues do have a a wide variance in player quality amongst players on the same team or from team to team in many cases...BUT in MLS....it is the STANDARD to have a very wide gap from the top of the roster to the bottom....other leagues just dont do that....the minimum threshhold to be a first team player is higher in non-MLS leagues, generally. IMO it is a byproduct of a pyramid shaped roster budget..... a lot of the top 5 players in MLS teams are probably better than/exceptional i.e. Turkey....but squad depth is where leagues like Netherlands, Belgium, Turky etc make up the gap generally. saying a player is a Serie A regular means something. it means a lot more than saying a player is an MLS regular....there are MLS regulars that are not good enough for Turkey, for instance. even if MLS is at the level of some of those leagues.......it's just different. you basically have little idea how good or bad a player is by saying they start every game in MLS...but if you take a player who starts every game in italy, spain, EPL, ntherlands, belgium, etc....you can bet they are of a certain standard....
I think roughly speaking MLS would arguably be on level with the Turkish league. Wright or Pepi or Sargent or Ferreira. Could take all 4 just to be safe. I mean it doesn't seem likely we'd start Wright but off the bench why not.
The main issue with the Turkish league is that the big 3 clubs (Besiktas, Fenerbahce, Galatasary) are not as good as they used to be. This decline has slowly developed over the past 15 years or so. I would argue (somewhat less confidently) that the rest of the league has more or less maintained the same level over the same time. For me the turning point was the 08-09 season when Sivasspor almost won the Super Lig. This was followed by Bursaspor actually winning the 09-10 championship, the first time since 1938 that a team besides the Big 3 or Trabzonspor won a national league championship. At first, I thought that the rest of Turkish club soccer was improving. However, it was soon clear that really the bigger clubs had simply regressed. Sivasspor followed its runner-up campaign by falling out of both the Champions League and Europa League in the qualifying rounds. Meanwhile, Bursaspor followed its championship season by getting one point (off Rangers) and a -14 goal differential in the Champions League. This was a significant decline from what Turkish clubs had managed in the previous 6 Champions League group stages, where Besiktas, Fenerbahce and Galatasary combined to average 5.667 points per participation with a -4.167 goal differential. The best of those campaigns was as a quarterfinal appearance by Fener in 07-08 and the worst was 2 points (-7 GD) by Fener in 08-09 (still much better statistically than what Bursaspor achieved two years later). The big three resumed their spots at the top of the table following in the 08-09 and 09-10 seasons, winning the championship until 19-20 when Basaksehir triumphed. However, the eye test suggests the big three are not as good as they used to be. Statistics also support a marginal regression: In the 5 seasons from 03-04 to 07-08 the Big Three averaged 69.8 points and a 31.867 GD per season. They swept the top 3 league positions in 4 out of 5 seasons, never finishing worse than 4th. In the 5 seasons from 17-18 to 21-22, they have averaged 66.867 points and a 26.333 GD. They only swept the top 3 positions once, during a mind-bogglingly good 20-21 season, where all of the Big 3 topped 80 points. From 03-08 to 17-22 the Big 3 on average are receiving 3 fewer points per team per season and a 5.5 worse GD per team per season. These drops are largely explained by a handful of exceptionally poor seasons, including a bottom half -2 GD campaign by Gala last season. Those types of campaigns simply didn't happen in the past. I guess these worsening Big 3 stats could be explained by the rest of the league improving, but that really doesn't feel like the case. The average Super Lig club is signing the same types of players they did 20 years ago. Meanwhile, Turkey's domestic youth development has really stagnated since the early 2000s. Turkey is doing well in European competition this year, but there have been some really bad losses to supposedly peer leagues in recent years: Sivasspor 1-7 ag to Copenhagen, Galatasaray 2-7 ag to PSV. Off the top of my head, there have also been barely good enough performances against teams from Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan, a double loss to a Macedonian team and a group stage loss to a Kosovar team. ------------------------------------- As for how MLS compares to the Super Lig, there obviously aren't direct comparisons, but I'd say playing a non-Liga MX team in CONCACAF is similar to the early qualifying rounds in European competitions. MLS is 25-9-8 with a +46 GD against Central American teams in the past 5 CONCACAF Champions Leagues. In 21 two-legged ties, MLS teams have lost 4 in ET/pks or on away goals, and lost only one two-legged tie straight up (Toronto FC, gross). Personally, I think losing on away goals to one of the top 3-4 teams in all of Central America is more honorable than barely sliding by the 3rd best team in Moldova, but reasonable minds can differ on that. I guess my point is MLS and the Super Lig are on similar levels, but the trend lines clearly favor MLS vs the Super Lig. I don't think we should rate Wright's performance in Turkey any higher than Ferreira, Vazquez or Ebobisse's 2022 MLS seasons. I should probably go back and watch the highlight reels from those three guys, but my first impression is that they had much more skillful goals or at least had more goals that were the result of skilled build-up than Wright has. A lot of Wrights goals are kinda just 1-on-1 runs or bloopers where the ball squirts through a lazy defensive line.
I was with you until this point....1 on 1 goals are the hardest to score and some of Wright's have been absolutely amazing. A big problem with the 9 for usa is that they simply cannot score or do anything 1 on 1. why should forwards get credit for skilled buildup of their teammates anyway? it's irrelevant to ranking of forwards. IMO the defensive intensity is way higher in Turkey than MLS from the clps I have seen. MLS teams don;t spend much on defenders and it shows. in fact my biggest issue with the MLS forwards on the USMNT is that the goals they score in MLS are simply unavailable internationally and since they cant do much they are marked out of the game rather easily vs good teams - i.e. ferreria, zardes, etc....vazquez has been good but almost all of his goals are redirecting open crosses.....not sure he'd get much of those in the WC, for example....ebobisse is one player that I think has been overlooked i.e. the us pool....but if you took all the forwards wright is competing with- sargent, pefok, ferriera, zardes, etc....there's a very good argument that he is the best 1 on 1 of all of them....which should be a feather in his cap...not a negative.
I meant 1 on 1 more like 1 on 1 with the goalie, but most of the video clips of his goals this season are no longer viewable where I live, so maybe I can't 100% say if I'm remembering correctly. I agree though about your "skilled buildup of their teammates" comment though. There is no evidence that the USMNT is going to produce the crosses Vazquez thrives on. As someone who has never been cap'ed he is likely behind the out-of-favor Pefok (similar skillset) anyways. Obviously, Ferreira hasn't produced against quality opposition with the USMNT, and he thrives in the type of intricate buildup that simply isn't working for the US right now. Based on the USMNT's current form, the US's best scoring chances might come from an occasional lucky ball falling to a pure striker with good instincts and positioning...someone more like Wright/Ebobisse than Sargent/Ferreira.
i agree that Turkish league defenders are slightly better; You have guys like Szalai, Saiass that are national team starters for their country; Bartra/Patrick Van Aanholt that was top 5 league starters; Even at CDM, turkish league have lucas torreira/ Gbahmin; top 5 league players and still in their prime. So from that perspective Wright is facing better competition than MLS attackers.
I don't watch a lot of Turkish soccer.... but I watch a lot of the MLS. I would have to guess that the MLS has a higher % of players on NTs in the WC. Unfortunately I have not been able to find the stats of yet. There is some numbers on the EPL and Championship but I am sure we will get a full breakdown by the time the tourney is over.
we are not talking about stats or # players in WC here; i think @adam tash and myself talking about facing better defenders in compare to mls. THere must be reason Sargent is scoring that many goal this year; Pepi scoring now...Not a knock to them but quality is quality.. Thats what made Pefok even more impressive that he was scoring beginning of year; He's facing higher caliber players.
You brought up criteria like int'ls, so you can't run from it now. For the sake of this argument, you could exclude attackers. But when it comes to your 8's, back 4's, & keepers, I wonder which league will have more players in the WC. I suspect the answer is still MLS. Some of those players will be playing for the US, of course. The US has a better domestic base of talent than Turkey at this point. The nat'l team's starting CB pairing were legitimately 2 MLS guys when healthy. It still may be, although one isn't legit. In net should be a guy who was just in MLS a minute ago. The types of clubs players like him are transferring to from random teams in MLS, and the types of transfer fees they're netting, far exceeds all but the top several teams in Turkey. So even Euro scouts are telling you which league they think has better talent on the whole. MLS has more talent, front and back, than a league like Turkey. The only advantage for Turkey is urgency created by fan intensity and pro/rel. Whatever that's worth, but it's far less tangible & more subjective.
maybe for the lower pots....but I doubt for the pot 1 or 2 teams.... and if Turkey was actually in the WC, things might change, no? Basically giving MLS credit for the US being in the WC is the height of irony, IMO
Those crosses are coming from Antonee Robinson on the nat'l team. At Vazquez' club, he has to deal with a midfield that's worse than a good majority of his opponent's still. Vazquez aerial ability/hold-up is the thing that allows them to overcome that so often. And he's much more mobile than Pefok, + has a higher work-rate than Haji. He's superior technically to Pefok at the very least. He's better than them both at picking out passes & smart movement to interplay w/ teammates. On paper, he has the best all around attribute package of any of our 9's in the pool. He just never got the chance he should have from June on, unlike Pefok & to some extent Haji received but flattered to deceive. So bringing him would be a gamble. But one I might be willing to make because almost everyone else has failed, while as mentioned, he has the best all around game on paper, & the fact he's an attacker not defender. I'm on the fence. He's got a better case than Wright.