I don't think that's true. Perhaps a clearer comparison can be obtained by looking at the acquisitions who came from the expansion draft. These are the players the Fire got from their picks ... 63: #7 Okaroh (SI) 64 65: 66: #4 Klopas 67: 68: 69: #2 J. Campos 70: 71: #3 M. Lagos, #10 Bates 72: #1 C. Armas, #5 Salcedo, #8 D. Gutierrez 73: #6 Thornton, #11 Marsch 74: #9 A. Lewis Apart from internationals, they made sure their acquisitions were born from 1971-74, old enough for high productivity but young enough to be under-rated. They kept an eye out for players with low minutes, either due to injury history (Lagos, Gutierrez) or playing behind top talent (Marsch, Thornton). The Fusion (below) took the opposite approach. Their top three picks were born in the 1960's and had no real prospects of ever earning a cap. Throughout the process, they seemed intent on players who had already been getting playing time. That's true even of the youngsters they chose ... with the exception of Cassar and the 12-pick Taylor, everyone had at least 1000 minutes under their belts. 63: #7 Kooiman 64: 65: 66: #1 Vaudreuil 67: #11 W.Webber 68: #3 Kelderman 69: #2 Maessner 70: 71: #10 Budnick 72: #9 Kmosko 73: 74: #5 Cassar, #6 N. Vargas 75: #4 J. Martinez, #12 B. Taylor 76: 77: #8 Corrales The Fire realized they would find more talent beneath unturned stones.
Once again trying to return this subject to ages... For another topic, I divided MLS players into positional categories - goalkeepers, forwards, offensive midfielders, defensive midfielders, flank midfielders, center backs, and fullbacks. I thought it might be interesting to compare their ages, in particular to look at differences among positions that MLS groups together (i.e., F, M, and D). Below are the minutes weighted numbers for 2004: Code: GK 29.81 F 25.88 AM 24.86 DM 27.17 FM 27.10 CB 27.21 FB 26.08 The immediate surprise here is the attacking midfield position - what used to be the domain of MLS's foreign veterans, is now its youngest position. Much of this is caused by two outliers, one Freddy Adu and one Eddie Gaven, but even excluding them you get 26.3, well below the other midfield numbers. Even more interesting, this number looks likely to fall; last year, there were only three attacking midfielders in the league over 30 - Ronnie Ekelund, Andy Herzog, and Preki. Herzog has retired, Ekelund's contract wasn't renewed, and Preki's at least considering hanging them up. I think these numbers support a claim that I'm not particularly fond of, that the league has lost the "creative #10" who can dictate an offense, etc. etc. But I also think it indicates that it's too simplistic to look at this as a decline in quality - I think it indicates a shift in who MLS looks to for creative play. The average of #10's in the league isn't likely to fall simply because the old players are retiring, but also because there are a host of young guys who are likely to get far more minutes next year - Adu, most obviously, but also Ned Grabavoy, Jordan Cila, Craig Capano, Andy Dorman, Ramon Nunez, and perhaps, Memo Gonzalez. Although the claim still stands that MLS hasn't produced good attacking midfielders - I think the emergence of Dempsey, Gaven, and Martino, as well as the players listed above, may indicate that this is about to change. The other surprise to me was the fullback/center back difference - fullbacks are more than a full year younger than center backs, on average. It's not really possible to come up with a list of talented young fullbacks like you can talented young attacking midfielders - the youngest was 21.8. Two factors seem to have caused this: 1. developmental rosters - Bryan Namoff, Chris Leitch, Marshall Leonard, Philip Salyer, Denny Clanton, and Tim Regan all play this position; it's probably the position where developmental players have made the biggest impact (and, I'd infer, therefore the weakest). 2. The league doesn't have any old fullbacks - the oldest is Vuk Rasovic, who only played 45 minutes this year, followed by Milton Reyes (30.2) and Frankie Hejduk (29.9), and Craig Waibel (28.9). Whether this is because the position requires players with greater stamina (likely), or because of some historical deficiency in the position, or some other reason it's too late for me to come up with, I don't know. But it was certainly quite a surprise to me.
http://usasoccer.blogspot.com/2009/03/mls-team-ages.html Bumping this old thread to say that I've figured out the average age of every MLS team in history.