Yikes... I know you dig in when you find a "statistic" you like. It appears you didnt understand any of my comment. I used the term "top division" to mean 1st division in each country (you know the silly first team minutes argument). There are obviously players in MLS that can play in top 5 leagues, but there are other players that would struggle in first division leagues in obscure countries. No other league in the world have all the ridiculous roster rules. MLS teams dont have a set amount of money they want to spend and figure out how to put together the best team. They spend that on just 3 to 6 players. This is extremely inefficient and teams are nowhere near as good as they could be for that money.
Something like 538's SPI is a blunt tool, but it's an interesting thing to look at. It has MLS above most second division (except the Championship), but behind these: 1 Barclays Premier League 2 Spanish Primera Division 3 German Bundesliga 4 Italy Serie A 5 French Ligue 1 6 Russian Premier Liga 7 Brasileiro Série A 8 Portuguese Liga 9 English League Championship 10 Liga MX 11 Swiss Raiffeisen Super League 12 Dutch Eredivisie 13 Austrian T-Mobile Bundesliga 14 Belgian Jupiler League 15 Turkish Turkcell Super Lig 16 Argentina Primera Division 17 Chinese Super League 18 Danish SAS-Ligaen 19 Greek Super League 20 Major League Soccer In terms of SPI, MLS is 13 pts behind the Russian Premier League, but the Russian Premier League is 10 pts behind Ligue 1.
Not the place but here's the quick version: 1.La Liga, 2. EPL, 3. BuLi, 4. Serie A, 5. Ligue1, 6. Brasilerão, 7. Liga NOS, 8. Russian Premier, 9. Eredivisie, 10. Argentina Primera, 11. Jupiler, 12. Ukrainian Premier, 13. Süper Lig (Turkey), 14. Liga MX, 15. BetPlay (Colombia), 16. Danish Superliga, 17. LigaPro (Ecuador), 18. Austrian BuLi, 19. Primera Profesional (Uruguay), 20. Botola (Morocco), 21. J-League, 22. PlanVital (Chile), 23. Super League (Greece), 24. MLS, 25. Chinese Super League, 26. CLP-1 (Tunisia), 27. Scottish Premier, 28. K-League, 29. Saudi League, 30. Egyptian Premier. PS: The Swiss league is terrible below the top three. As in unwatchable.
We are going to succeed internationally before MLS succeeds. It much easier to create 30 top players than 500 of them. We could blow up the league today and be much better off if USL instituted pro/rel. I think people who take these have the right idea where we want to get to, but go about it in the wrong way. We should always supplement our pool with dual nationals. If a bunch of them end up playing you have your sign that we need to do better developing players. Seems like a much better route to go than missing WCs like we did in 2017. I dont know why we need to gauge yourself along the way. We currently are there and not even close. Since we know that, I see no reason to hamstring ourselves to maybe k ke a little precisely measure it.
I rank MLS 20-25 in general quality of play. But I’m not that concerned about it. What I am concerned about is if you were to remove all the foreign DP and TAM players, the level of play, mostly American, would be significantly lower. Thr American player in MLS largely represents cheap filler labor. Outside a small select few. And MLS knows this. Its wage structure is built around it.
It's not a problem unique to MLS though. In many leagues there is a huge gap between the best paid players (usually imports) and the rest. If you add to that the issue of maintaining parity, then you have a league that is weak when comparing top teams, but at least fairly watchable --sort of the point. Parity means if a top MLS club were to face a top club of, say, the Moroccan league, my money would be on the North Africans.
UEFA Coefficients are 12. Austria 13. Denmark 14. Scotland 15. Czech Republic 16. Cyprus. Taking into account salaries, transfers between MLS and these leagues, and MLS's wage suppression of domestics, then throwing in the top Latin American leagues and the C'ship, MLS is reasonably 15ish.
As it should as the CCL champions regularly lose to African, Asian and Oceanic clubs in the CWC. The truest barometer given our region will be when MLS teams participate in Copa Libertadores and have success. Do that and then the league can be considered in the top 10-15 convo. As of now I think most MLS teams would get absolutely smacked by clubs from a number of South American leagues. All that aside my main wish is for MLS to be a good developer of American attackers. It is not. The last American attacker sold by MLS to a top 4 league who went on the excel in a top 4 league is Dempsey. 13 yrs ago. That is awful. Who is the top American attacker to transfer to a top league over the 2010-2020 decade? It might be Kljestan to Anderlecht in 2010. Am I missing someone. Shea bombed. Agudelo went on vacation. That would actually be an interesting exercise, to see where the transfer of successful American attackers to top 4 leagues ranks vs other leagues. As that's what I'm far more interested in. I care much less about how "good" MLS is than how much attacking talent in provides the NT. Any my guess is over the last decade its record of transferring successful domestic attackers to a top 4 league doesn't rank top 40-50 globally.
The CCL champions have made semis of the Club World Cup in 3 of the 4 past editions. The US isn't in Conmebol, and not in that region. The most competitive measures of league strength would be CCL, the Campeones Cup, and CWC. Alphonso Davies is the last domestic attacker sold to a top-5 league. He is doing alright for himself.
I'd be pretty shocked if 40-50 leagues transferred a domestic attacker to a Top 4 League in the last decade at all. For example, Greece has 4 players in the EPL right now. It's one of 5 countries tied at 22 with four players. It's league is generally accepted to be a bit better than MLS or maybe similar. None of the players are attackers. Only two players play. One of those started his professional career in Germany, then went back to Greece. And the other went from Greece to a big four league more than a decade ago. There is a forward who was on the roster for Gladbach last year from Greece, but he didn't play. He also started his professional career in Germany. The other four Greeks are not attackers. There are five Greeks in Serie A. Two are goalkeepers; none are attackers. There are two Greeks in La Liga. Both are defenders. I think sometimes people overestimate these things.
McKennie is a Bundesliga midfielder because of his epic ability to cover ground and his aerial explosiveness in a powerful, presence-making frame. That is VERY valuable in the modern game. For some reason BS doesn’t value these qualities highly enough so we paint McKennie’s technical abilities in bright colors. I think his defensive positioning improved this season, but I don’t see much improvement in his passing ability. He’s sloppy and while he does have much better vision than Morales his inaccuracy often leads to spoiled chances. I’ve also never called for Delgado or Roldan over him. That is madness. Weston is so much more athletic than either player. McKennie’s a starter for us. But I do hope a player of higher technical quality and passable athleticism challenges him for a spot in upcoming cycles.
Yeah, maybe if Zardes doesn't have any pressure and doesn't have to move, you can bounce a pass to yourself off him. With different guys being best at different things, it depends on which thing Gregg feels is most important. https://chasingacup.com/the-differences-are-striking/
UCL and CCL are the best of a league, except MLS. MLS rarely has teams, because of its forced parity, maintain dominance for long enough. Even if MLS team 20 could hang with Liga MX team 20, or even beat them comfortably, that is not how leagues are really judged. https://chasingacup.com/my-league-is-better-than-your-league/ I don't think Sands has shown well at all as a CB. His most impressive games were as a #6. He plays it like Canouse, who was never really considered by Berhalter. Unless, Gregg radically changes what he wants from a #6, Sands is not going to get much but January looks. I don't know if he can even get on the Olympic team, is Kreis also looking for a Trapp type?
Mckennie, after the break, was played further back and asked to do different things. Just like Bradley in 2014, a player can be a good passer then not look great when making the passes further up the field. Conversely, a guy like Nagbe can have great completion and ball retention stats if he just dribbles backwards and passes sideways. McKennie was asked to make low percentage passes in the final third because Schalke had nobody else even close to being able to do it. McKennie was very good in ball retention, passing efficiency, passing accuracy, defensive positioning as the #6 at the end of the season. His managers look at him and want him to be Pogba, but he might just end up as the between the CBs, DLP, by 2022.
McKennie does not want to play the #6. That is part of the reason why he is considering leaving Schalke!
Robinson's move to the EPL now makes the standard best 11 him on the left and Dest on the right, no? I think having to wait for someone to be in a top 5 league when it was pretty obvious he was the only actual candidate at his position is lame, but this makes it official... or do we have to wait for Berhalter to finally call him in and then actually play him first?
I said on his YA thread - Sheffield ain't buying him for their U23s or whatever youth team, so it seems assured that he's on their senior team, and will likely be getting minutes, at the very least as a sub when they might need to chase a result. Thus - I agree with you. Not sure how he can't officially be on our Best XI. Also agree that it's ridiculous we need to wait until now to "make it official", but that's where we are...
Everyone wants to be a striker, except a few weirdos. Then they find they are better in other places and/or more effective at other positions. Nobody talks about McKennie for the Yuiell role. They do say Adams dropping between the CBs is a waste and not his game. Well, what if Wes could do it? Can he hit the driven diagonal that gives Gregg the willies? He does disguise passes pretty well and can break lines. We will see where he goes. But if he is getting paid very well because he is good there for Southampton, stories can change. If Wes can play that spot, we can drop Yueill and play Pomykal, Morris, Boyd, Weah, Aaronson, or Holmes instead. I like all those names more than Yueill (but I like Jackson).
Robinson is not a better left back today than he was yesterday. If he was in your Best XI yesterday, he should still be there. If he was not, he shouldn't be. I'm still a question mark on LB. Robinson's definitely a clear possibility, and in some choices on style of play, the definite pick ... and I wouldn't ever scoff at a Best XI with him in it. If I had to put a Best XI, he might even be my pick. But I still have some defensive questions, and they aren't based on getting roasted by Douglas Costa. Despite reports of stronger defense this year, from the times, I've watched him, he still takes terrible angles and is often putting himself in awful position to handle quick wingers. If our Best XI means two bombing fullbacks, Robinson is -- and was -- clearly the best pick. But I'm not sure I'm there on the defensive structure and who I'd want to get forward. So he's our most talented natural LB, that's for sure. But I could see set ups where he's not in the Best XI still. And I don't see that with say, Pulisic, or Adams, or McKennie or Dest.
Berhalter's scheme is at best naive. If we are honest, it is incredibly stupid so trying to slot players into it is not interesting. With Adams and McKennie we have one of the most dynamic young engine rooms on the planet. With Pulisic, a world class young attacker. A smart manager would start there and add complementary pieces and scheme that maximizes that core.
W/re to the suggestion of Robinson taking bad angles on defense, one has to consider. 1. coach's instructions 2. the ability of the defense and Robinson to cover.
Now we're going to see just how good Robinson actually is. He's in a club that plays a system almost tailor-made for him, and is likely to have minutes soon. It's entirely up to him to grab that spot.