On Sirius Radio's soccer channel they have an English channel and they called the MLS 'very poor standard of football'.........pisses me off. Show me where one PL team has come over and thrashed the MLS teams. Scores are close and victories are mixed in against supposedly the top teams in the world. Do you think the Miami Heat after a 2 month layoff would lose to a team in the Turkish League? Get the f uck out of Dodge! I think England still thinks they are a world power in the football world but they haven't competed with the big boys in a while........if Chelsea or Stoke or Swansea was one of our NBA teams we would be fckin embarrassed...........PL players make more.in a week than some of ours in a year.......they should be fckin embarrassed even after a lay off.........UNION!!!!!!!!
They have a soccer channel? All I ever heard was 70 minute repeat playlists all day and home and away feed college / NFL throwball on the weekends.
EPL clubs have always been pretty good, although most of the time, you'll only really see ManU, Chelsea, ManCity, Arsenal, and possibly Liverpool in top international competitions. I'd pick either of the top two La Liga sides over any of them at this point though, and possibly some Bundesliga or Serie A sides as well. But I would consider the EPL giants to be top sides. As far as England's international team goes, I would rank it below most major European and South American powers. It is probably not much, if at all, better than the USMNT at this point. Most of the really good players in the EPL are imported from outside of England. So there's certainly a gap in quality between MLS sides and EPL sides, but it's not nearly as large as we're led to believe. We saw yesterday that 11 guys from MLS who had only practiced once together were able to beat a top EPL side that was in preseason. I thought the win was much more convincing than the on in 2006, and the All Stars controlled the play well for long stretches of the game. They didn't look outclassed at all.
The English pundits love to think everything about English soccer is great. Just ignore it because there is no sort of common sense there. When NYRB played Arsenal last year they called their standard as League 2 or worse and that they didn't attack and they played for the counter. Thing is, if it was another English team (like WBA or someone) they would have been praising how they played a great game and stuck with their game plan to pull out a result. It is just the way they are and there is nothing you can do about. Yeah. However, it was 1 or 2 nothing and Seattle put in their entire back-up squad. Then Man U put on Wayne Rooney and the rout was on. I don't think you'd expect some kids straight out of college to really keep Rooney from scoring, do you?
Xm 207 Sirius 92 Internet 900 they have a few US based shows, and also broadcast some shows from Talk Sport in the UK. I wouldn't read much into the UK Pundits looking down on MLS, as the look down on every league that isn't the Premier League.
I don't. I understand what the circumstances were. Dude asked for an example of a Premier League team thrashing an MLS side, and I gave it.
Wasn't arguing that you were wrong that Seattle got thrashed. But if Seattle scored 5 goals on Man U's reserves and youth team then people in England would shrug. Fact is that no MLS teams really have been thrashed in a number of years. The problem is that some people (mainly those that have made up their mind that MLS is inferior) will pick and choose what results mean things. If an MLS team dominates a foreign team it is just a meaningless friendly (like when DC absolutely dominated Celtic a few years back and the 4-0 scoreline was kind to Celtic). If an MLS team loses to a foreign team then the MLS is crap and can't beat a team during the pre-season. Fact is that these are all pointless arguments because we all have a pretty good idea of where we think the league stands. I don't think it is that bad so I will point out the flaws with the detractors' statements (like when people say EPL I sure know they aren't talking about Wolves being far superior to an MLS side). They will find their own "facts" to support their POV.
To be fair, the score was no where near a thrashing at halftime when the majority of the Seattle starters were subbed out. Due to all sorts of reasons, MLS still struggles some with a drop-off of talent typically between the top seven, eight or so starters on a team and the rest of a roster. MLS subs will not look very good against the subs of a Man Utd or a Real Madrid.
I would love to see MLS adopt scheduling closer (not the same, because that's just unworkable for Northern cities) to Europe, just so we can see how our teams would do against mid-table La Liga/EPL teams when they're both in midseason form. Too much to ask for the sake of a few friendlies though. As an aside, did last night's game strike anyone as... I don't know what the word I want is. Chippier? Chippier than your average friendly? I know Valdes spent a lot of time on the ground outside the box. I imagine he didn't endear himself to the Chelsea players much, he was still wearing his own shirt at the end of the game.
I did notice that Valdes did still have his jersey but I didn't put to much into it. The big named players are always going to have someone ask for theirs and Valdes is still a new commodity. He was aggressive but not overly so, and I don't think he was any more aggressive then others. As to comparing MLS to EPL it isn't quite fair. EPL has been around for a long time, doesn't really have to compete with other pro leagues like MLS does for fans money. Sure the overall quality of play is not as good as it is in the top leagues but we probably have better parity then they do. Look at La Liga, after Real and Barca what is the drop off to the next teams? SPL really only had two teams with Celtic and the now 4th division Rangers. EPL has some better quality at the top as they have more than two teams that can be in contention with ManU, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal and such. MLS quality has been improving over time which is what you want. We are not able to attract the top level talent yet but we are becoming a target league for some of the lesser known players, particularly South American talent. As long as MLS does not allow the NASL disaster to happen again and keeps their teams financially stable it will continue to grow. Whether or not MLS can pull in more fans in the respective cities is an unknown simply because of the fact that we have 4 other professional sports that have been established in the cities a lot longer then the MLS clubs. But teams like the Sounders, Timbers, Vancouver and even us has shown that there is support for soccer in America. The new stadiums like KC and Houston have had built after using other facilities is also a sign of growth. Sure, we cannot attract the same amount of fans to a game that the big clubs do but I think I saw MLS ranked in the top ten world wide for avg league attendance (Seattle I think was even in the top 20 clubs?).
That isn't a common score though and Man City beat Man U 6-1............my point is the games over all are closer than the English pundits say and the gap between the PL and MLS is not as wide as they let on and the results confirm it. Chelsea should have hammered the All Stars, it shouldnt have been close, no matter what the conditions are.......its like the Yankees playing college all-star team..........but its not, if you know what I mean.
If you think MLS is close to the EPL, you are delusional. But feel free to drink the kool-aid while watching meaningless friendlies. By the way, MLB teams lose to minor league teams in spring training.
I think a top MLS team could beat a bottom half of the table EPL side if they were both in midseason form.
Probably. But I think a bottom half MLS team could lose to a bottom half Championship team if they were both in midseason form. Either way, someone getting their panties in a bunch about English critics of MLS and citing friendly results as backup is ridiculous. Real Madrid only beat us 2-1. Are people really supposed to take something away from that? Really? Of course not. And the MLS All-Star game is just as meaningless.
If mls wins its a meaningless friendly if they lose its a statement on how bad the league is. They cant win in that case
No, the friendlies are important. There is a huge soccer audience in the US that still needs to be exposed to MLS, people who follow foreign teams. The friendlies are good for getting those people out just to show them that MLS isn't a glorified Sunday league. That's the value of something like Farfan's goal vs. Real Madrid. The friendlies are good PR and I don't mind them. You just can't use them to compare MLS to other leagues. I think the all-star format is stupid though.
I know it's a ridiculous hypothetical but I've long wondered how the MLS All-Stars would place if they played a full season in the Premier League. Is it homer-ism that makes me think top half?
No, after the top 8 teams of the EPL the talent really drops off. A tale of the haves vs. the have nots.
Really don't understand why people bothered getting worked up what the English say about our league anymore. I believe even if the league managed to become a top 10 league in the world in about 20+ years they would still look down on our league and ridicule it. It's a no win situation with them. Just let them continue thinking that they still rule the world and that their former colonies/territories still care what they have to say .
Ha. Look we are under no illusion about how crap our national team is, but to argue about the EPL and MLS even being comparable is ridiculous. On any given occasion any team can beat any other team - That is the beauty that the FA cup is marketed under. And that goes for the friendlies too. You don't think the MLS players raise their game in front of 55,000 at the link vs Real, as opposed to a wet wednesday night against Rochester in front of 4,000 fans? Harrisburg beat the Red Bulls this year. In one-off games ANYTHING can happen. To sustain form over a season is what matters, and if you put a decent MLS team in the EPL over a 38 game season, they'd be in the bottom third. This conversation has been had about Rangers and Celtic joining the EPL for years, and the general consensus is the same. But in the 6 years I have lived here, the standard of this league has VASTLY improved, and one day they might be on the same level (as a league) as their european counterparts. Strangely enough though, before that happens, I actually believe that the USMNT will win the WC and will do it within the next 20 years (before england win a second).