Not seeing how this claim is supposed to work. Matty Longstaff went from League Two to MLS starter. Jonathan Bond went from League One to MLS starter. Sam Surridge went from Championship back-up to MLS' leading scorer. Nothing like that happens in the opposite direction.
Olivier Giroud Also, you’re flat out wrong about Surridge…he had 20 EPL appearances the season before he went to Nashville.
"Badge FC" is more often or not used as a response to people who advocate for European over US based players whatever the circumstances. While there's a legitimate argument for including Cardoso or Scally based on the level they play at, there is a subset of USMNT fans who will forever believe that MLS sucks and that anyone and everything anywhere in Europe must be better: Linden Gooch > Quinn Sullivan; Julian Green > Diego Luna.
This is called confirmation bias. Longstaff was part of Newcastle's first team squad but suffered a series of hamstring injuries, meaning he wasn't able to play consistently. He was loaned out League Two sides during his recovery but suffered an MCL tear which was the last straw for United. Toronto took a chance on his recovery and it paid off. Sam Surridge was a Championship striker who scored some important goals during Forest's promotion run in. He wasn't given many starts in the Premier League and Forest fans thought he was hard done by. He's finally found a club where he has settled and found the form that made him Bournemouth's young player of the season and got him England U21 call-ups. There are all sorts of reasons why a player may struggle at one club and do well at another, not just the level they are playing at.
Daryl Dike went from a year in MLS to scoring 7 goals in 1,200 minutes. Auston Trusty was his team's player of the year after being fine in MLS. Aidan Morris wasn't even the best CM on Columbus and he's killing it in the Championship. George Campbell was on the second worst defense and MLS and walked into a starting role. That's not even counting anyone but Americans I can remember off the top of my head, and it's not even counting guys like Jack Harrison or Taty Castellanos, who went to leagues better than the Championship and did well. As for your examples, Bond is a GK who was last in League 1 3+ years before he went to MLS; that's a bizarre comparison, basically pretending players don't improvement as they grow up. He's a subpar MLS keeper anyway. Longstaff is on one of the worst teams in MLS that doesn't even bother to try. And Sam Surridge had 7 goals in 623 minutes in the Championship as a 23 year old. It's three years later, and he spent a year in the EPL, then had a disappointing year last year in MLS. So ... hmmm... Guy who was scoring at what would be a Golden Boot rare in the Championship, then spends multiple years developing, then finally breaks out scoring at a rate lower than he did in the Championship three years ago? Okay.
Plenty of guys have gone straight to the Championship from MLS and fairly strong players there. There’s not really a huge distinction outside of the Championship teams getting parachute payments.
That is a fact-free statement that you can make about any league. Try this; Plenty of guys have gone from the Caribbean and Central American Leagues to MLS and fairly strong players there. There’s not really a huge distinction outside of the MLS teams having more money.
I'd probably argue, with only a few looney exceptions that the "ignore" function is for, that most MLS haters, aren't really MLS haters, so much as distrustful of MLS lifers. How many people really don't rate Diego Luna amongst the Euro obsessives like me? I've loved Luna since I first saw him play in '22 in the U20 Regional Championship, same with Freeman since I first watched him this summer. I really, really enjoy seeing young players grow in MLS, before they move on. The guys I tend to distrust, are the guys that don't eventually leave to the big leagues, because come on guys, what would you think of Jan Vesely's and the like, who either dabble briefly and immediately leave back for Europe, or players that just stick in Europe period, and never take on competing in the NBA. You and I both know what we'd think of young exciting prospects in France, or Serbia or Germany or Spain who stayed local, and didn't challenge themselves at the NBA level. You'd absolutely think less of them. This is the same, but in reverse. Maybe people disagree, but for me anyway, in general I rate the young players, and am keenly keeping track of what they're doing, the veterans, far less so unless its a Dempsey/Bradley/Altidore situation from 10+ years ago or we have no talent at the position in Europe. This isn't a hard and fast rule, I know Robinson was reaching some dizzy heights, then had a catastrophic injury, then chose job security and money over Europe. i get that. I'm not suddenly throwing him in a bin marked, "crap MLS players," there's nuance, but at the same time, do I err towards favoring them? Yes, and do I sometimes ignore that, and prefer an MLS product? Yes. I like Zim more than most of our CB's in Europe circa 2021-2025 after all, not all of them, but more than a bunch of them.
Mods just close this thread. So far askew I am not sure how many different topics are being discussed of which none are the subject of the thread......lol
Watch your mouth young man. This thread (created literally seconds after he was announced) is precisely why bigsoccer was created. Mods, please ban ifsteve forever. No remorse.
Disagree about DA being a disaster for development. My son played in the early days of DA. Cost was half of what we paid for Premier level. Training session were better, more intense due to better talent throughout the roster and he by-passed a lot of players who stayed at the traditional club level during his last 2 years of high school. The problem was the funnel of talent at the top level stopped at about 3200 players instead of offering a way to keeping funneling to create a higher level of competition. College was the primary option and while the level of physicality increased the speed/quality of play did not. At the time, there just was not a great route to develop the 18-20 year old players
All Poch's successor has to do is win ONE meaningless friendly against a top 30 team that's resting their A players and had only scored 2 goals from the run of play over their previous five games, and people here will be calling for mods to lock that thread!
If those two do that then the chances of them seeing red goes WAY up. They are NOT known for "self control."
Should we go ahead and start the thread? We can add a name later but I'm sure pretty much sure we already know what to bitch about so no need to wait. He makes bad callups. He's too close to/ to far from the players. His schemes don't fit the pool. Fire him now!
Jesus makes $1.83m. Robinson earned $1.65m prior to his contract extension, he now makes $3.5m. The avg salaries in top 5 leagues are: Ligue 1 is $1.59m Serie A is $2.37m Bund is $2.47m La Liga is $3.4m EPL is $4.77m