MLS has much longer and more involved travel. Many more training days are lost to travel than in the less geographically large European leagues. When an MLS team plays 3 games in a week, they can have 6 days where they are travelling and not training. Which gives you no training sessions in a 9 day period.
Just so we're clear. Donovan was in the US, and Los Angeles specifically, because he was married to a Hollywood actress. His loans to Europe coincided with his marriage hitting the skids.........................which ultimately led to divorce in 2010. He didn't have a reason to stay in LA in the off-season, for instance. When we talk about this domestic versus abroad stuff, we often forget that these are real human beings with wives and families. Donovan has talked quite a bit about suffering form depression during his career. That informs us quite a bit about his behaviour in the 2014 cycle, for instance. That's the period he talks a lot about.
All I did was respond to a post from you complaining that MLS doesn't play enough games, without the bunch of "but this, too" arguments you've since posted. Then you attacked me by saying that I'm "blindly defending the league and manipulating the argument", which I didn't do. I'm glad that there are at least 2 Americans in history that have played more games than Atlanta played last year (both goalkeepers). Thanks for posting that info.
This is a very good point. The travel in MLS is hell on both training and recovery, neither of which are good for development. Sadly, even if they eventually go to all charter flights, there will still be way more travel time in MLS than pretty much anywhere else on Earth. It's definitely something that can be mitigated somewhat by charter flights but will always be the reality in a country so large. Hell, even if the league splits into East-West, the travel will be greater than nearly every other league on the planet.
No doubt. The MLS could look to improve in how they schedule games. To help mitigate that but even with improvements there and all chartered flights it’s always going to be rough travel.
Go back and read the thread. I never claimed they played "less games". The time I discussed games was responding to post that they rotate players and to your post asking when americans had played many games. You manipulated the argument to not just games, but league games. It is a fact that MLS play less with their clubs. The argument that is better for them is one of the many very dumb things that people argue on here. Note that the word games is not in either of those two sentences. It spent appear that you have said much about the second sentence, but no idea why you are debating something that is factual. If our young players can stay healthy, many more of them will exceed those numbers of games per season. It isnt just the number of the games, but the length of time they are played over and the quality of the extra matches.
I think the timeline was more like... Early 2015 - bombed out at Leverkusen and forced move to Galaxy End 2016 - got married Early 2018 - unsuccessful loan to Bayern Early 2010 - successful loan to Everton Late 2010 - got divorced Professional athletes have to make sacrifices. Heck, being at the top of any profession requires sacrifices.
Who argues that fewer games is better? I remember one poster recently saying that there's no evidence that more games is better. Which isn't the same as saying fewer games IS better. If Americans in Europe, barring two of our best goalkeepers ever, don't play more than MLS guys then where's the evidence that more games is better for development? "More games" played by X club means nothing if X player isn't playing in them all. According to transfermarkt (which has no data on MLS, as I found) the top player in the world for 18/19 in terms of games played (for club and national team, all competitions) bears the household name of Callum McGregor. Number 10, at 49 games in all competitions, was Alfredo Morales...wait, wait, that's Alfredo Morelos, sorry. Look at the whole list here if you want. Since MLS isn't calculated by transfermarkt then, short of some of the amazing stats people on this site putting in the real work, then we can't really know anything about any correlation of these numbers. I will say that the first page of this on transfermarkt is almost entirely either Rangers, Celtic or Wolverhampton players (and 4 of the top 5 are Celtic players). Once you scroll down to ~40 games played (in all competitions, national and international) you start to see mostly players that have familiar names and would probably be viewed as top-class players by most observers.
Not sure where you are coming up with the euro based players not playing more games (again, not the full argument)? It seems you are still questioning if more games are better? Of course it isnt just number of games, but training sessions and quality if competition in both. It also looks like you are looking at 19/20 stats. For 18/19, the top players by club games is Gallardo, Blind, van de Beek, Azpiliceuta, Nego, Pommes, Willian, etc. There 71 players with 50 or more club games. There 276 with 45 or more club games. Many of them are well known players on well known teams. 45 happens to be the number that Guzan played in 2019 which is much higher than the 30ish that Zardes, long, and morris played. Our top YAs are fairly young and have suffered a number of injuries. Even with those injuries, Pulisic, mckennie, yedlin, and brooks played between 29 and 33 games.
Which proves what? Is the idea that Donovan could've "caught up to them" in quality by playing more matches? The comparison was between the German league and other top leagues. Playing fewer games a season against fewer teams than other top leagues / soccer nations hasn't really prevented Germany from being a world power in soccer. I'm not really for or against more matches; I don't think it's that consequential.
Thanks for pointing out that I was looking at 19/20 stats. I had thought I'd selected 18/19 since that is the last full year for players, but I guess it didn't load or I didn't click the right button or something. Big difference, you're right. I agree that less training time via long off-season in MLS is a big one, and I think pretty much everyone agrees about that. MLS has done better with starting preseason training earlier, but shot themselves in the foot by ending the season earlier last year (though the reasons were understandable--they didn't want the international break to stretch out the playoffs so much). This left lots of teams with another ~month without training or matches, a serious step backwards.
Perhaps. But there's hundreds of millions out there who would gladly change their situation for someone banking millions to play a game and who can retire into the sunset by their mid 30's with financial security. It's actually disrespectful to those who truly have it hard. Who do you feel worse for, the single mother working 2-3 jobs on 40K per year trying to make ends meet, or the NBA athlete sitting on 15M who feels depressed?
While I get where you are coming from, I think your quote misrepresents and unfairly minimizes depression. It isn't about feeling depressed. We all feel depressed about various things at different times in our lives. Most of us are not affected by depression to the point that it ruins our whole quality of life and can lead to things like suicide. $15M won't do anyone much good if they commit suicide. The fact that pro athletes (and actors etc) make huge sums of money while the vast majority of the people in the USA (not to mention the rest of the world) exist and sometimes struggle on far less is a completely separate (though not unimportant) issue.
My point is mainly that many have it so tough, they don't even get the chance to sit back and contemplate whether they're depressed or not. That next bill, rent, food, utility payment, has to get paid and life does not stop. They have no choice but to grind pay check to pay check. Or even just find that next meal. The ability to even sit back and contemplate one's depression is a luxury countless aren't afforded. One could argue depression is a 1st world problem. Not because it doesn't exist all over, across this planet. But because many places it's so far down the totem pole of problems that no one has time to even think about it.
While technically right, I think that's a terrible way to look at life and other people. Taking this view to its logical conclusion, only one person, the most destitute, sick, nearest-to-death person, can feel aggrieved for having such a terrible life... And they just died as I'm typing this. Now onto the next person, and so on. It's useful to consider how fortunate we are to live in comparative luxury with much of the world. But it's stupid to think that comparative luxury and the fact that other people have it worse, means that you can dismiss someone's humanity because of money. P.S. To clarify, I think this applies to shared experiences that aren't monetarily related. E.g. you likely wouldn't pity a billionaire getting into a fender-bender, whereas you would feel for a poor student rear-ending someone. But nobody (I hope), for example, reads the story of the Reyna family and goes "Well, at least they have money!". Because losing a child is a devastating event that touches at the shared humanity of everyone, and it does not matter if it happens in sub-Saharan Africa or NYC.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2020...-pandemic-will-likely-impact-potential-summer Being transparent, I want to be present in my situation and give Dallas my 100 percent for however long I’m here. But the goal was to be transferred in the summer, and obviously teams are in a scramble right now because it’s a tough time for transfers at the moment. Now the most important thing is safety and health. . . . At the end of the day, I know my future is over there [Europe], whenever that may be. I just have to be patient and kill it at FC Dallas.
Depression is a mental illness, a disorder, not a mood or feeling. The idea that poor or working class people don't suffer from it because, I guess, "they're too busy working" is simply wrong. In fact, the poor experience depression and anxiety disproportionately, due to the constant stressers of poverty (food/shelter,healthcare insecurity, living in a dangerous area, etc.). Most never have the opportunity to get diagnosed, let alone treatment. Best case is they find some way to cope enough to make it to the next paycheck, maybe with drugs or alcohol...but many simply don't: they end up homeless, in prison or dead.