Yep. Three teams have won 25 of the 31 available titles. Throw Arsenal in there and FOUR teams have won 28 of 31. I honestly don't understand why any serious sports fan would find that exciting or fun, short of being a fan of one of those three (or four) teams. And even then, it's kind of like being an Ohio State fan. There's two, maybe three games all year that are worth watching, and the rest are garbage.
Yes, you forgot the Scottish Professional Football League(SPFL)-Cinch Premiership. I would rate that league slightly below the quality of MLS.
Umm, Dodgers are like a hundred million dollars lower in salary than two teams that missed the playoffs last year. They've also won the whole shebang once in the last several decades. Good money covers bad sins -- and figuratively let's you start the season on second base. As long as we don't have a shit program with shit spending we will not be hurting. One other thing missing from the discussion is the concept of playoffs. A massively spending team can go a mile wide, but is still limited to 11 deep. Playoffs reward teams when those 11 start clicking at the right time.
I'd say the Championship is still above MLS. The top 4-5 teams in the Championship would win MLS without much issue, and the next 4-5 teams would be about equal with the top 1-2 teams in MLS. The bottom 3-4 teams are probably worse than almost anyone in MLS, but there are probably 1-2 MLS teams every year that would end up being relegated to League One. With the exception of Celtic and Rangers, the rest of the SPL is way below average MLS quality. Celtic and Rangers would both probably win MLS, but I don't think any other SPL club would even make the playoffs in MLS. The bottom teams in the SPL probably wouldn't even be able to win the USLC.
I think we'd give anyone in the 2 Bundesliga a good game (I've seen both BL1 and BL2 in the past 10 years in person). And the Crew is certainly better than, say, Vitesse (Dutch 1st division) was last season.
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/to-win-a-world-series-teams-almost-always-have-to-spend/ Only 3 winners in the last 30 years with a payroll in the bottom 50% that season. MLB keeps expanding teams in playoffs ... and playoff series ... hoping that the talent from the bigger payrolls will get in and outlast the little guys. The best of 3 in last year's round one of the MLS playoffs felt like a move in the same direction.
The Crew are way better than Vitesse. We would probably finish around 5th in the Eredivisie. Ajax got off to a historically bad start this season, but in general once you get past the big four clubs (Ajax, PSV, Feyenord, AZ) there's really nobody that's clearly above our level. The bottom half of Eredivisie clubs are mostly not even good enough to fight for a playoff spots, and quite a few would be huge favorites for the wooden spoon. I'm not sure there's a single MLS club that wouldn't at least avoid relegation if they played an entire Eredivisie season.
I’m a little surprised that nobody has mentioned the UEFA association coefficients, from which UEFA determines the rankings to determine the number of clubs from each federation that qualify for the Champions League. Currently, for the 2023-24 Champions League: 1. England 2. Spain 3. Italy 4. Germany ^^^^4 clubs in CL^^^^ ————————————————————- 5. France 3 clubs in CL 6. Portugal ————————————————————- 7. Netherlands vvvv 2 clubs in CL vvvv 8. Austria 9. Scotland, KYLE! 10. (Russia—banned) 11. Serbia 12. Ukraine 13. Belgium 14. Switzerland 15. Greece ^^^^ 2 clubs in CL ^^^^ ————————————————————- 16. Czech Republic vvvv 1 club in CL vvvv 17. Norway 18. Denmark 19. Croatia 20. Turkey Etc. The reality of it, however, is that this is essentially based on the performances of the top clubs in each federation rather than each federation as a whole.
Precourt was added to the Competition Committee along with a rep from RSL's Blitzer Group. Clark Hunt, who received bad NFLPA ratings this week, is still the co-chair. So don't expect the shackles to be loosened too much.
Looks like the extra Club World Cup spot will go to a US based MLS Cup or Leagues Cup winner FIFA confirmed that the host country (U.S.) will receive a slot at at the 2025 Club World Cup. That will raise CONCACAF's participation to 5 teams.Host country slot remains TBD. '24 MLS Cup winner likeliest option...or past Leagues Cup winner? 🤔https://t.co/lknI3uXy1v— Felipe Cárdenas (@FelipeCar) February 28, 2024
https://theathletic.com/5306845/2024/02/28/portland-timbers-terminate-sponsorship-dabella/ I see Fat Tony and his "activations" got to Portland.
Sources: San Jose Earthquakes in advanced talks to sign star free agent Carlos Vela.Deal not decided/done yet but could get there soon. Almost definitely would be DP deal.Vela, 35, had 9g/7a in 34 regular season apps (2k mins) last year. LAFC legend. https://t.co/dPyF84zFg5— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) March 1, 2024
Looks like we’ll have some staggered start times this year. Good for people that wanna watch other teams.
Replacement ref for Miami game has been replaced after photos surfaced of him wearing a Miami jersey.