Watching all of these goal compilations makes me wonder how anyone is going to score any nice goals next year without Abel Xavier around. Also, Nick Rimando should get a job in one of the big Euro leagues as a spectacular goal stager. He had a great year, but his amazing Superman dives make even the weakest goals look like cannonballs.
Couldn't be more wrong. Shockingly wrong. You have a very bad memory. Very bad. Players 7-18 were for the most part naive, talentless hacks, with little clue. There were a few, very few exceptions. Maybe it's because your team was one of them and it is why you were able to dominate so thoroughly. You had competence, compared to half of your roster being inept, and you are mistaking all other teams having your talent. Wrong. Dead wrong. Incredibly wrong.
There are plenty of "past their prime" former World Cup stars in MLS today. Sorry, but I don't see the difference.
I've always thought now and then how Carlos would hate todays MLS. Players wouldn't fall for the same exact move 10 times in the same match, and wouldn't fall for it each time he played them. Players would actually mark him tough/play him physical and foul him. He wouldn't like that. He would actaully have to run a bit also. Carlos was a great showman, great for MLS at the time and could still thread a pass but man he wouldn't be able to play the way he did then today. That's for certain. Would love to have seen it happen..him play in todays MLS.
You really, really need to look at the actual players who were #15-18 in starts and minutes for each team a decade ago. I'm not going to waste my time doing any number-crunching to disprove a claim as flat-out ridiculous as yours, but the preponderance of the players are Americans who were in MLS three years or less. Billy Thompson, Kris Kelderman, Jeff Baicher, Mickey Trotman, Vicente Figueroa: these are pretty representative of the quality of the bench back then.
I still remember, when Carlos was in Colorado, watching Matt McKeon getting whistled for a foul for apparently just getting too close.
Carlos knew it also, and used it to his ad 100%. The flailing arms before a guy even got to him was classic stuff. He got the call 99% of the time. A guy would get to near and he would just stop and look around with hands on his hips in disgust and the officilas would give him the call to the befuddlement of the opposing team. Matt was not alone. Great avatar. Guess I missed the show where he bought it. That is a spoiler to say the least. Very upset with you.
How is MLS talent diluted? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Los Angeles Galaxy would have been a top 3 team in 1998. The other teams just wouldn't have been able to stop their offense. Donovan with 25 goals, Buddle with 18, but the real difference is that their defense would have let in 10 goals less. The Galaxy wouldn't have been able to beat DC or Chicago, but they would have run some super impressive numbers. New England and Houston are stocked with talent, but don't discount the talent on teams like Colorado and Real Salt Lake. Not much of a difference between the two over the year, but honestly compare them to say Dallas, Colorado, or San Jose circa 1998. My impression is that players 6-10 are simply better now and that most teams have a few players off the bench that contribute. AJ Wood wasn't just making over 100 appearances in MLS, he was making those appearances for 1998 and 1999 DC United. If AJ Wood was on the Houston Dynamo today he'd likely be their 6th choice striker (Ching, Jaqua, Kamara, De Rosario, Mullan, then Wood/Brown/Wondo). The Dynamo bench of Mulrooney, Ianni, Waibel, Kamara, Ashe, Holden, and Cameron is far deeper than any bench back in 1998. Its not even comparable.