News: MLS commissioner, discusses state of league in SN Conversation SN

MLS needs to have teams in the PDL(u-23 league). That would solve that, but obviously it takes money.

 

hey don. if you want to compete in CCL and with Mexican teams and improve the quality of players and play in MLS might i suggest spending more than a total of (DPs and off budget include) $90M, which is at most 25% of revenues, on player compensation. i'd also suggest a few extra senior roster foreign spots per team. right now every team in MLS has at least 2 or more US/Canadian players on their roster that have no business in MLS talent wise. MLS is not an american soccer player employment charity for low quality players who should be playing in D2 and have no impact on the NT picture in any way.

 

I'm not sure that is the entire answer. I think it could be part of the answer. Keep in mind that the PDL season is pretty short to accomodate the college players.

 

I don't believe there's any evidence that more foreign spots are needed. On the other hand, according to this:
http://www.rtbot.net/MLS_International_Roster_Slots#Current_International_Roster_Slots_by_Team

MLS teams begin the year with 8 foreign slots, but on average only have 7 players occupying those available spots. So I would suggest that teams first fill up all available foreign slots before allowing more.

 

more salary cap + more foreign player spots = more skilled players in the 400-800K range.

there aren't enough top quality US/Canadian senior level (not under 24yr old develomental) type players to need 12 spots per team (or let's say 10 since some of the "domestic" spots go to green cards).

look at every roster. there are at least two or more Dan Paladinis who have no business playing in MLS and who's teams would be better served if they were replaced by a 500K foreign player.

you don't raise the cap just so you can pay the same players more (tho there are a few cases where this would happen to keep promising players from going to Norway) you raise the cap to get mo' better players. and right now in the current state of US and Canadian soccer those aren't Americans and Canadians.

 

Players can get their green cards so easily I don't think increasing international spots is really a concern at this point.

 

Since most teams only have 1 or 2 players who are making close to $500k, I think this is kind of a silly statement. You could just as easily argue that on evey roster there are two or more foreign players who are easily replaced by a $500k foreign player. I agree that there are a lot of domestic players that don't really improve the level of the league, but if the salary cap is raised then I'd like to see a good portion of that used to sign some of the young US players that are going overseas today.

 

Nah, let those good young US players (and good young players from other Latin American countries who are looking to use MLS as a stepping stone) go overseas, that helps fund the development of the next generation of good young US players. If the salary cap is increased, spend that extra money on more quality foreign players who will increase the overall quality of the league (which will also help raise the level of the next generation of good young US players).

 

"Spending more" sounds great. But what are you going to spend it on?

Pretty much all of the American players that are going to play in MLS are already doing so.

Unless you want to displace American players with foreign imports, paying the existing players more isn't going to suddenly make them better.

MLS is taking the long term view. Player development in the U.S. is lightyears ahead of where it was in 1995. And MLS is helping to put in place the structures and programs to continue that advance.

You can bring in all the DPs you want, but unless you want to recreate the NASL with only 3 Americans per roster, the balance of the players in the league are always going to be American. And the quality of the league is always going to be a reflection of the talent pool of American players.

If things were stagnating, I'd be on the bandwagon with you, but things are progressing, but it takes 10 years to turn a 10 year-old player into a 20 year-old professional.

 

Maybe I'm being a touch optimistic, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the results of the academies in the next 5 or so years. I have a feeling we'll be seeing much better American/Canadian players entering the league.

 

Andy, perhaps you could help:

WhileI empirically would agree that player development has improved, I have been on this site for 11 years (!) and really, the best players we had at that time are no worse than our best players now. I could make the argument that our 2002 team could beat our 2012 team.

Any reason for this? I could see us having some real skin of the teeth moments in this world cup qualifying cycle.

 

Not really the same question.

Sort of like using the CCL to measure the best league in CONCACAF. MLS and whatever the Liga Mexico is calling itself these days are both parity driven leagues.

The national team is far more mercurial than the player pool of MLS players. Obviously, in the long run, it would follow that a much larger pool of players would lead to a better national team, but the problem is that the national team is evaluated like a snapshot. And as the various minnows from CONCACAF have shown, having one or two world class players can make the difference between being at the World Cup Finals and not even making it to the Hexagonal.

 

You really need to look at the worst players in the league, not the best, to see if development is increasing. And as someone who has been following the league for the same time, I'd say today's worst players have more skills than in 2001-2002.

 

Can't believe he called out Sean Johnson.

 

i specifically said that just spending more wouldn't do it that you also needed to allow for more foreign player spots. nice how you just edited that part out.

right now there are not enough good american (and canadian) players to take the league to the level it could/needs to be.

the best of the best americans should and will always go abroad, that's fine.

and you should always have a ton of spaces for domestic young talent so that they can either develop into what we'd ideally like to be MLS quality in the future (or even better and go abroad) or not.

but right now, as it currently stands and for the next 5-10 years there is absolutely no need whatsoever for more than 8 domestic player spots for the 20 man senior roster. (for canadian teams the 8 would be 4/4 CAN/US). given a 2o team league that would give around 136 spots for senior domestic US talent plus whatever is on Canadian teams (4x3=12). so that is up to 150 spots minus whatever goes to "greencard" domestics. let's be totally generous and say that us a full 1/3 of the domestics. that still leaves 100 spots in mls for US players. add that to the top top level US players palying abroad and you have more than enough players to give you a very good and deep USMNT player pool.

any more than that for the next 10 years is just giving jobs as charity to guys like Dan Paladini when in fact the league would be better with a $5ooK player from Colombia in place of Dan Paladini and all of the other useless, talentless US hacks currently wasting space in MLS rosters (like Wells Thompson).

if you want to make the MLS significantly better, with significantly better talent and skill you need to obviously raise the cap so that you can have more 250K-750K players and you also need to cut all of the useless dead wood of American players who have no impact whatsoever on the USMNT picture. as long as this is done with an eye to making sure there are plenty of spaces for young talent to develop you aren't losing a damn thing. is anybody going to tell me the league would be worse off if Stephen King (DCU) or Josh Gardner (MTL) or any other of 50 or so mediocre US players currently littering MLS weren't in it? no it wouldn't. and if you had significantly more salary cap you could also make sure those 100 US player spots went to the very best of US talent possible, minus only those 20-30 players who were at very significant Euro teams (say at top 50 euro team).

MLS is NOT an employment charity for 25-30 year old US soccer journeyman. it is first and foremost a league that strives to be the best in NA and only secondarily it is supposed to be a part of the development of talent for the USMNT and CNT. does whether or not Mike Chabala has a job in MLS have any impact on that whatsoever? not at all.

 

Considering we have twice as many teams now, this is quite impressive. Sometimes I wonder what the quality of MLS would be like if we still only had 12 teams. Exorcising the bottom 30% of this league would really increase the quality of play. Not that I'd love to see that, but its something to remember when judging the quality of play. Now that expansion is slowed down, but player development is still improving at a faster rate than ever, I can't wait to see where we will be in five years.

 

Try adding punctuation and removing run-on and incomplete sentences to make this readable.

 

Free advice Donnie G: meet with the ESC and the rest and tell them this - Instead of "a**hole, yell the keeper's name. 'You suck Ricketts!'"Good middle ground and something Houston fans (SG and non) have been doing for years.
Didn't realize he had such dislike for that chant.

 

Don't get it. First he says the league has no debt on their clubs then he says total investment in the league is over $2 billion, and nobody’s gotten a return on their money. For some reason I don't believe too much of what the guy says.

 

It's because the second quote was asked after an inquiry about the next collective bargaining.

 

Those two things are not at all inconsistent. The league could be running at a loss but still not owe any money to outside creditors. They are losing their own money, as opposed to borrowed money.

 

Something I've always wondered about this chant is whether it means, "You literally suck on an anus" or "You suck at soccer, and you also are an unlikable fellow."

I guess another way of putting this, is it "You suck a**hole" (without a comma) or "You suck, a**hole" (with a comma)?

 

Not a popular opinion, I suspect, but I agree with you.

It's a global sport, and the U.S. is, I submit, well positioned to take advantage of that -- if it elects to compete in the world marketplace for players.

In England, there has been consternation about how international the Premier League has become. In 2010/11, just under 36% of all starts were by Englishman, and that percentage has held in the upper 30s for awhile now. I don't know what percentage of starts non-domestic players get in MLS, but my guess is that it's higher. Typically, about 60% of an MLS senior roster is comprised of domestic players.

http://spiritofmirko.com/2011/07/26/foreign-players-in-the-premier-league-20102011/

Like you, I see no reason to raise the cap just to pay the same American players more. But if MLS wants to put out better quality and it wants to at least do that at market prices, much of that talent has to be imported.

And really, is such a big deal if, like the EPL, 7 of the 11 starters are not domestic players? I think the American sports fan has shown that they'll root for whoever wears the shirt, whether in MLS, the NBA, the NHL or MLB.

There are, I submit, two reasons to encourage use of domestic players. The first is financial -- generally it's cheaper. Domestic players often provide a "home town" discount because they want to remain here. But for a league with a salary cap, I'm not sure that matters much. Unless MLS totally changes its philosophy, they'll still need affordable players to fit under the cap -- the league doesn't need to artificially limit the number of non-domestic players for to achieve that. Good domestic players will always provide good value for the money.

The larger concern for fans is usually to develop and feed players to the national team, but honestly I find the notion that domestic leagues exist to develop domestic players to expand the pool for the national team to be a dinosaur IMO. There's too much freedom of movement now and, besides, the talent level of MLS has many coaches looking beyond the MLS pool anyway.

I'd favor a meritocracy. Bump the cap a bit, yes, but why not let teams put the best 11 out there they can afford regardless of where they come from?