I watched a video the other day using team salaries as a way to rate leagues (the guy said it's not of course 100% accurate but gets you in the ballpark) and it was very surprising how all but the top 4 leagues have so many teams with much smaller payrolls than the lowest in MLS. I can't find it again but from memory Scotland has a team or two with a payroll 1/8th of the lowest in MLS. And Toronto's was higher than any team in Scotland. MLS just keeps moving upwards while other leagues are have tons of monetary issues based on their countries, their populations (compared to bigger countries) and teams spending into real trouble.
Probably this one. There's two things that MLS needs to do improve quality of play. The first one is continue to increase salaries, which they've done. The second is really to better develop the American players that should fill out over half the roster (and right now are about 35-40% of minutes). Ideally, this amount would go up, but if some of these European leagues are better than MLS (and I don't know that they are), it's likely because the Dutch version of Edwin Cerrillo is simply better than Edwin Cerrillo. The cheap, local talent end of the pool will get better as these academies begin to pump out larger and larger numbers.
I feel like the best proxy for league rankings is the SPI rankings. The methodology is not perfect (a large part because we don't get many cross confederation games amongst clubs), and a big part of it involves spending, but it's based on a good faith effort from 538 to try and ranking teams around the world. https://www.globalfootballrankings.com/ MLS comes out slightly ahead of Scotland and right behind Turkey in terms of average rating by team, but Celtic has a much higher rating than the highest ranked MLS team. MLS also has some of the smallest standard deviations amongst its teams compared to other leagues. Unfortunately 538 only has Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and the US so there's no comparisons between other leagues in the Americas (though it has MLS ahead of Argentina).
🚨 MALIK TILLMAN GOOAAAALLLLL‼️🔥🔥 #USMNT 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/SkudWeOErc— 🇺🇸 USMNTvsHaters (@USMNTvsHaters) February 1, 2023 USMNT international Malik Tillman receives chants from Rangers fans today vs Hearts. 🔥“It’s Malik you know, give him the ball and he’ll score”Seems his loan spell at Rangers is going very well. 📈 pic.twitter.com/NFdBOpL1K6— Takes 🇺🇸 (@USMNTTAKES) February 1, 2023
It is also missing some European leagues that might otherwise be ranked similarly to MLS, with the exception of clubs from those leagues who are competing in European competitions. It has the top 10 European leagues, going by UEFA coefficients, but it's lacking Serbia (11th), Czech Republic (14th), Ukraine (16th), and Croatia (18th), which all have at least 1 team that's ranked higher than any team in MLS, according to 538.
That and it’s also missing all the South American leagues outside of Argentina and Brazil, which would be interesting comparisons as well. I will say those are four leagues that I think most don’t think about just because it’s rare for any US players to go there.
Hate to be the one to go there but I doubt Ukraine is that high anymore and Russia either wherever their league was. It's a weird comparison for those top of each of those league teams compared to MLS. I imagine each has several teams way, way below the lowest MLS team. If you play for that top team you're not playing very good league teams but get some CCL. If you are on one of the lesser teams you get to play against that top team but the rest of the games are against medium to lesser lights. MLS is slowly moving up the average payroll rankings. I think they will be challenging any but the big five in 5-10 years and maybe even France.
I don't think there's any question at all that MLS and LIga MX are both ahead of Argentina. Don't get me wrong, they're still cranking out talent in Argentina. The talent is just poached the second it appears, and MLS/Mexico are two of the leagues doing the poaching. Alan Velasco is an example. One sees the results for Argentina in the Copa Libertadores. Brazilian teams have won the last four. In 2021, there was only one Argentine team amongst the last 8, and no Argentine teams in the semifinal. I travel a lot in Argentina. Most of those fans have more of a respect for MLS than many on these boards. They believe its just a matter of time before MLS is the best league in the hemisphere.
I think its also very much worth reminding ourselves that MLS is bigger than any of those leagues. MLS is the biggest first division in the world with 29 teams. So think of that when comparing MLS to say the Scottish Premier League, which only has 12 teams. The 29th best team in Scotland is in the 3rd division, which is like................Cove Rangers or something. Here's their stadium.
Argentina has had alot of financial problems lately, which I think has contributed to the drop in quality of the league. And MLS has definitely started buying a lot of players from Argentina in recent years. I think there’s no question it’s a step below Brazil which is clearly the best league in Americas (as someone else noted to me on here when, the Western Hemisphere includes England, Spain, France, Denmark, Norway, Algeria, Mail, Ghana, Togo, and Burkina Faso). I have less of a sense of the rest of the South American leagues vis a vis MLS however.
I think the thing that’s tough is a lot of those leagues are very top heavy, but we don’t really have much else in terms of data to go off in terms of the rest of the league.
They lied to you, nobody thinks that good about MLS. The view of the argentinian about MLS is a killing career league in case you are promising, or a money grabbing league in case we know you're not that good to Europe or National Team. Btw, even with the economic problems Primera Argentina is better than MLS and Liga MX.
While malik cooled off the prior 2 matches he is still ranked #6 in the SPL by Whoscored. Odd fact: Tillman is slightly leading 'Gers in tackles per match at 2.1! He puts in work on the defensive side of the ball.
Lots of people seem to enjoy shaking their fist at the tide. That doesn't stop it from rising or keep them from drowning.
The truth can hurt, nobody has that thought about MLS, basically because a really small number of people see the league, and the ones who actually watch it don't think that way, they were nice. The second thing is a personal thought which I don't want to discuss because we're never going to agree, and I wrote it because I felt the league was being disrespect
Having a MLS vs Scotland debate in 2023. Amazing stuff. if you don’t think MLS is better than the ENTIRETY of the Scottish league, you may need to consider how much you know the game. MLS has been better for half a decade. Oh, and Malik keeps playing very well.
Rangers and Celtic are typically more talented than mls teams, but there’s a huge drop off after that, IMO.
This is definitely the perception on the Argentina board here for sure though some like me are a little softer on MLS. As far as the actual league quality the Primera is definitely suffering a bit, but the moments of brilliance from the youth that haven't been poached as well as the returning vets still make it more entertaining to watch. MLS still has way too many crazy bad defending brain farts for my taste, but it's gotten a lot better than the old days.
I saw a video where a guy compared about ten leagues using some site's payroll data. It was actually shocking how poor some of the bottom teams in almost every league is. From memory Toronto had a higher payroll than any other team in the Americas except two or three in Brazil. Higher than any in Mexico or Argentina. Big gap to #2 in MLS though but the lowest in MLS was far higher than the lowest in those leagues. Also compared very favorably with Scotland, Portugal, Holland etc except for the top two or three teams. Any ideas on the site with that info? Be nice to post and discuss.
They are and they aren't. I mean, we don't really know the answer. But a team like FCD has international and youth international players at most positions just like Rangers does. [I think Celtic is better by a significant margin than Rangers right now. The standings bear that out too. Rangers are on a path to win nothing this year, which is an utter failure of a season for them. Add the ignominious title of "Worst Team in the History of the Champions League Group Stage." Statistically anyway. People are swayed by trophies. Its easy for Celtic and Rangers to win trophies. There are 29 MLS teams in a league built on parity. Very, very difficult to win trophies. Flagship franchises in MLS go a very long time without winning anything. LAG hasn't won a trophy since 2014.]
I'm really curious where Tillman will end up next. He's doing well enough at Rangers that a young player like him will clearly have chances to move up the ladder if he's wanting to get into a better league and the contract situation is good. I don't know if Bayern still see something in him, if they'd look to move him elsewhere when the loan is over or if he's likely to sign permanently with Rangers. Does Rangers have the option to purchase, or can Bayern do what they want when the loan ends? I think he's making a strong case for himself for a place in the US squad as it is, but if he can show similar success in a better league over the next couple years, he could go from a guy looking like a decent option for depth to one that we could expect to challenge for a place on the field even with our big guns. We don't have a lot of guys who can score goals and he's showing an ability to do so. Even if Scotland and MLS are about a wash, he's still a 20-year-old standout. That would garner attention if he were doing it in MLS as well.