Percentage of MLS players eligible to play for U.S. team?

The problem for the English is that the number of England-eligible starters has been dipping into the 50s. Compounding this is the paucity of players in other top leagues and the fact England don't recruit from the Championship.

So far this season, only 65 of the 225 to start in more than 14 matches are England eligible. The equivalent number for German is 99/231. Italy = 84/212[more than 13 starts]. France = 112/217.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...iticises-all-time-low-number-english-players/

 

Friendly reminder that there are three Canadian teams.

 

Food for thought. Top 5 were all over 50%, and made the playoffs. I imagine that FCD and RSL lapped the field in terms of minutes to homegrown domestic players. Most of the bottom feeders (with the exception of NYCFC) missed the playoffs.

US-eligible minutes by team.

1. DAL (57.28%)
2. RSL
3. NE
4. TOR
5. NYRB
6. COL
7. ATL
8. KC
9. CLB
10. CIN
11. LAG
12. SEA
13. DC
14. PHI
15. ORL
16. CHI
17. LAFC
18. MIN
19. SJ
20. POR
21. HOU
22. NYC
23. MTL
24. VAN (8.35%)

— Jamie Hill (@_jameshill) October 13, 2019

But overall the percentage of minutes went down. To some degree this has to do with rapid expansion over the last several years. Its easier to acquire foreign talent than domestic talent of MLS-level quality. That will continue next season with two more clubs being added: Nasheville and Miami.

By my accounting, 38.65% of MLS minutes went to US-eligible players in 2019.

2017: 44.65%
2018: 40.24%
2019: 38.65%

However with expansion, raw minute totals for US-eligibles were basically the same as 2018.

2017: 328,199
2018: 309,834
2019: 311,369

— Jamie Hill (@_jameshill) October 13, 2019

 

It would be interesting to see how all of that breaks down by age. A team like FCD has a large number of USMNT eligible players AND young (under 23 eligible USMNT players) while a team like Toronto is at #4 on the list but hasn't done that much at the U23 level. It could even be done by comparing percentages of eligible USMNT players and percentages of non eligible at different ages.

 

Serious mental exercise: how many MLS teams could this USMNT, as currently constituted, break down in the final third with any regularity?

 

so the only MLS teams that gave less minutes to US-eligible players than NYCFC are Canadian teams?

funny I get static every time I point out that NYCFC seems to biased against playing Americans......

if the top 5 didn´t have success in the league...the argument that the US players aren´t good enough would make sense.....

 

What we'll note is that at the bottom of that chart are Portland and Houston. Two of the worst academies in the country. If you're not developing your own domestic talent these days, it can be tough to acquire domestic players of MLS-quality. Particularly due to rapid expansion. The pool will be diluted even more with Nasheville and Miami joining next year.

NYCFC, on the other hand, has quite a good academy at the moment. If I'm not mistaken, they've won back to back DA titles. The first impactful academy product, James Sands, was getting lots of minutes until his injury. [And of course they grabbed Keaton Parks on loan, who's done well in the minutes he was receiving.]

Now that FCD has North Texas SC, NYCFC is the "MLS team most in need of a reserve team"

What NYCFC doesn't use is veteran American players (other than Sean Johnson).

 

I was curious to see if production was a contributing factor to playing US eligible players. So, I picked FotMob to read through the Top 25 players in multiple categories. I wanted to see the domestic representation in these areas. This is what I found based on their stat rankings as of 10/16/19:

Top 25 Goals: Wondo, Sapong, Zardes, Ebobisse, Altidore
Top 25 Minutes per Goal: Wondo, Toye, White, Altidore, Ramirez
Top 25 Assists: 0
Top 25 Average Rating: Altidore, Morris
Top 25 Shots on Target: Altidore, Wondo, Ramirez
Top 25 Accurate Dribbles: 0
Top 25 Key Passes: 0
Top 25 Chances Created: 0
Top 25 Chances Missed: Zardes, Bunbury, Wondo, Sapong, Dwyer, Altidore, Ebobisse
Top 25 Accurate Passes: Bradley, Yueill, McCarty, Trapp, Delgado, Hedges
Top 10 Cleansheets: Guzan, Hamid, Rimando, Robles, Miller, Bingham, Gonzalez
Top 25 Possession Won in Final Third: Bedoya, Pomykal, Roldan, Agudelo
Top 10 Saves per Match: Turner, Bingham, Hamid, Melia, Clark, Rowe
Top 25 Clearances: Birnbaum, Opara, Long, Glad, Farrell, Hedges, Steres, Trusty
Top 25 Accurate Tackles Per Match: Davis, Canouse, Corona, Amaya, Trusty, Castillo, Hollingshead
Top 25 Penalties Won: Altidore, Sapong, Bunbury, Zardes, Saucedo

Key thing to remember is that I didn't have a ton of time to look for dual nationals, but I think Opta/FotMob do an okay job updating. Obviously, you can look at this two ways. Teams are preventing more Americans from excelling in these categories by picking foreign players. Or, American players have some real deficiencies that might not be fully addressed until academies get moving. Maybe a little of both.

However, right now we are struggling to get US eligible players into the top 25 in some really important categories. Other players that are making the top 25, but somehow can't even make a USMNT roster?

If it is important have the best players available based on skills demonstrated then we simply aren't picking based on top 25 performance in a lot of areas on the field. Stats don't tell the whole story, but you can't simply ignore them either.

It really leads me to believe that we are pushing forward with the ageism approach, but also picking players who aren't ready to contribute consistently and are being plugged in even with little playing time or after poor performances. At some point, competition for spots is going to matter a heck of a lot more than a player's age as we approach qualifying.