The pro division teams participate as long as they are eligible: no Canadian teams, no "2" teams owned/controlled by a higher division team. That includes MLS, USL-C, USL-1, and NISA. The teams in leagues below D3 qualify for the Open Cup via league standings from the previous year or through a qualifying tournament in the winter before the Open Cup proper. That includes USL-2, NPSL, and other leagues.
Well, it al depends on what you define as being "a mix." To me, it's that there's a decent balance between X and Y. But if this mix were a bag of M&M's, almost the entire bag would be green, with maybe a couple of red ones tossed in. Look here: https://www.mlssoccer.com/clubs/la-galaxy/roster/ Now we can't take these pages as gospel, because MLS doesn't always update them regularly, and there's often a certain fuzziness in some of the content. Still, it's as close to an official record as we have, and you really can learn a lot about how rosters work in MLS by comparing this page to what's shared on the roster rules page: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/2021-mls-roster-rules-and-regulations So, those "LA Galaxy" four players: - Vom Steeg - "Loaned out" - Ferkranus - "Unavailable" - Williams - a Homegrown player who'd seem to be available for the senior side - Perez - Same as Williams So two of the four in this mix cannot play for the MLS side. You know your team better than I do, so I'm going to assume that's TWO players out of an entire LA Galaxy II roster who are available to play for the MLS team this season. That, in a nutshell, is why MLS is creating it's own league. What good is a reserve team when you can't access the players on it to act as reserves? Re: Williams and Perez, I assume their status is explained somewhere in here: I'm no Tim Bezbatchenko, but I don't think the roster rules MLS shares with fans are in any way complete. Still, my guess from the above is that Williams and Perez fall into some MLS/USL loan agreement that allows them to be recalled to the senior team. But here's an important detail: "An MLS club can receive roster relief and budget relief for a maximum of one player loaned to its USL affiliate or a lower-division club in the U.S. or Canada; provided, however, that:" Followed by 5 criteria. I'm guessing that one of Ferkanus and Vom Steeg is a season-long loan that maybe provides the Gals with roster/budget relief. Or maybe not. It's really not possible to know for sure unless the details are mentioned somewhere in an announcement. But certainly Williams and Perez and anyone else the MLS club may be interested in getting time in USL, still counts against MLS roster rules. They're homegrown, so their salaries don't count toward the salary budget, but they do take up supplemental roster slots, which are limited. So to have guys play on your USL team requires those players to still take up space on your MLS roster to do so. And to still carry their salary on your budget if you want to maybe see them play in MLS again that season. I assume there's even more to it that that, Like maybe limits on how many players can be loaned out, or salary limits for anyone who appear in a USL game. I have no idea, really, and MLS doesn't shed a lot of light on the issue. In any event, I do know that for MLS clubs who run USL teams we do not see players flowing back and forth across the two rosters. The MLS/USL agreement doesn't and won't ever allow for that. Hence the need to MLS to make its own league.
I guess it's a matter of how much back and forth you expect. If you're thinking of the reserve league as where players 12-22 on the main roster get playing time, then the USL certainly isn't it. I haven't found a detailed description of the proposed reserve league, but much of the talk is of it as a "youth league" and so would be more about players further down on the roster (along with academy players) getting playing time against their peers. In that case, you wouldn't expect players to move around much unless there was a need to go that deep in the roster. On the other hand, if it is designed for more senior players, which may be consistent with getting D3 certification, then I would expect they would have similar rules to how it is now. My understanding of the complicated rules on player movement is that they are designed to stop teams from gaming the system and indirectly having a larger roster.
Gaming the system, yes. But also USL players work under USL contracts. But to play in MLS you have to be under contract to MLS. The leagues operate under two different business models when it comes to player contracts. The new league will (for clubs who take part) be two rosters of players all under the MLS model. Maybe not "two rosters," but you cannot play a reserve league with the current 30 person roster. So this won't be just about players "12-22 on the main roster." The overall roster size has to be larger than 30 for this work. Pure speculation my part, by I'm guessing rosters will grow to 35-40 players, in total, with those extra slots being similar to the the supplemental slots we now have.
Some USL coaches are in it to win the USL title over groom up and coming prospects passed down to them from the mother club. They play the 25 and older players who have the experience but are most likely outside looking in on an MLS career at this point. But these are the guys a USL head coach goes to for winning silverware. So with that in mind, for some MLS clubs their new reserve league team will be located in the same zip code as the first team over having a USL affiliate team located in some other town, away from the first team coaching staff. This is where the head coaching staff can really look closely at their players needing minutes and as well man manage them as they see fit in a reserve league set up.
I'll place a sizable wager that every MLS club that buys into the new league will operate it out of their home market. In fact, the last time I checked, every last MLS club that directly operates a USL team (regardless of league) does so out of their home market. Unless something's changed, there are zero MLS clubs who own a USL franchise in another city. There are MLS clubs who have USL affiliates (i.e., they don't own them) in other cities, sure. That's that's a far looser arrangement.
Does that include things like the Defiance being in Tacoma and not Seattle? Because I could see a number of clubs doing something like that, where the reserve team can train with the full team during the week but games are held a distance away to increase the area the team "covers".
Presumably. I don't live in Seattle, but the Seattle market - in terms of population - is most commonly defined being the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue MSA. I see it as being the same market. Does that USL club train in Tacoma, or the Starfire complex? Is Tacoma chosen because the Sounders don't control an appropriately sized stadium for a USL club, and Cheney Stadium in Tacoma fits the bill? I think the key for MLS clubs is that the senior team and the USL or reserve side all train together. Its' just 26 miles from Starfire to Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.
There is one amigo mio, our FO in Houston thought it was wise to sign a partnership of sorts with Rio Grande Valley FC Toros in a city in our own State, Edinburg, just 5 hr 25 min - 337.1 miles away from Houston. A decision I would hope was done to grow our club's footprint in our own State but the end game over the years is that our loaned out players were at the helm of a Coach in the partner team that played to win at the USL level over groom our young players our club sent them to get playing time. Which they did off and on. And on top of that, being so far away, our Houston Dynamo sent down to the USL side players were never under close review by our Houston head coach and his staff as young players should be if playing in the same market as the first team.
Houston is affiliated with Rio Grande Vaklley FC. The Dynamo do not own the club: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande_Valley_FC_Toros Houston, LAFC, NYCFC and Colorado all have affiliated relationships with USL C teams outside of their home MLS markets. DC, Red Bulls, Atlanta, KC, RSL, LA Galaxy and Seattle all own USL C teams, and operate them from their home MLS market.
Correct. You have done well with the research. What is left out from Wiki is the ground work when our club went long on even thinking of having a Houston 2 in the USL. Which basically is our FO actually spending money and investing in a new venture. Which was a shock to us! What us on our boards did not envision is our club cutting a deal with an owner operator in a market 300+ miles away from our our city. Our FO thought that they can save money on just agreeing to be affiliated with the new USL team in RGV over completely running the new team down by the U.S. border. The hybrid relationship that Wiki does mention. Hindsight has proven that our FO should have committed fully to owning outright a USL team of our own.
Well in fairness to your FO, it's actually good that they realized that they shouldn't attempt to run a second team when they haven't figured out how to run their first team in any sense of a competent manner.
While the foolhardiness of listening to soccer fans on Twitter has been addressed, it is worth pointing out that getting the MLS2 teams out of USL is something that the USL teams want. MLS2 teams, for the most part, prioritize development over quality of play and the end result of this is that MLS2 teams often end up in the bottom table. There are obvious exception (NYRB2 comes to mind as an example), but, from a competition perspective, having teams in your league whose #1 priority isn't necessarily winning hurts the overall perception of the league. Along with that, the lack of attendance at MLS2 games is also an issue for USL teams. USL is trying to sell their league to broadcast companies and having teams that draw only a few hundred fans mixed in with the teams that are drawing thousands is an issue for that.
Yeah, watching an MLS2 hosted USL C match on ESPN+ played on a training pitch with virtually no fans isn't exactly destination television. Not that USL C is ever destination TV, but still. Compare that kind of atmosphere to, say, a Lou City match in their new stadium, and it's night and day. As a Crew fan, having some sort of reserve side has been on the wish list for a very long time. Columbus has been one of the relatively few teams that have never bought into USL or had an affiliate agreement (at least not under the recent partnership set-up). I very much hope season ticket holders for the Crew will be allowed to attend reserve league matches for free.
Having their own USL side that played in a place like Conroe or Beaumont would have made much more sense. RGV is like being in another state.
One of the big benefits to USL having MLS2 teams was the increased numbers that helped with scheduling. But as the USL-Championship has grown and MLS2 teams have drifted away that is less of an attraction. This year USL-C has 31 teams. 7 of those are outright MLS2 teams. The league would still have 24 teams even if they all left next year. And there are 5 teams supposed to join the league in the next two years. That is a pretty good number for a national league. It would be a bigger hit to USL-1. That league has 12 teams with 4 of them MLS2 teams. But they also have 3 planned teams joining soon. If those come through, and more join, that league would also be OK. And, of course, we don't know how many of the MLS2 teams will actually move from either league.
Those USL-C numbers are that good even with a strong team like Reno 1868 folding, St. Louis FC ceasing operations, and North Carolina FC dropping to USL-1.
Absolutely! The sport is extremely strong in East Texas. And Louisiana for that matter as well. My buddies and I wanted our club to look to build USL and or reserve sides in Nac-town, Beaumont, Baton Rouge and New Orleans over the Valley. Considering that the greatest player from our State, Clint Dempsey, is from a town like Nacogdoches than that was what I would have staked a claim in. Conroe and several other towns near the Greater Houston Area already have lower tier soccer clubs, several appear to be doing well on cutting their own path. Our old USL division from the late 90's and early 2000's had teams from Tulsa to Austin to New Orleans. So it was good to see the game grow in down at RGV but it was a huge logistical leap in our FO's first attempt to have a go at a USL club on top of the MLS demands. The results are known.