As a St. Louisian this is some exciting news. I know alot the local players will be pumped about this. I guess this is why the stadium plans have a unified St. Louis youth program in them.
I think they should. You are already seeing some effects of not letting in more foreign players by the lack of depth in the MLS (obviously salary cap plays a large part in this, but not all). I'm not saying turn the MLS into the Premiership, where foreign players basically rule the league, but allowing two more SI spots per team. This will not only increase depth in the league, but also increase the quality of play, the profile of the league (more foreign stars), but also improve CONCACAF, as alot of these players will probably be from this confederation, and I believe a improved CONCACAF reflects well on the MLS. I think the MLS is coming to a point where not only can we find and develop American talent, but foreign talent as well.
One other thing MLS should REALLY try to push for is to get into the Copa Liberatadores and also create the Pacific Cup between MLS, MFL, K-League, J-League, and A-League. And with that you would have teams trying to qualify for the Copa Liberatadores, Pacific Cup, SuperLiga, & CONCACAF Champions Cup. That would give MLS four quality international tournaments that could eventually persuade players to start coming here instead of europe. ***And the teams that didn't qualify for any of those tournaments would play in the US Open Cup. ***As far as the Pacific Cup. I'm not suggesting a season long tournament (i know that isn't realistic with time travel). I'm suggesting a 1-2 week max long tournament (perhaps to be held in the preseason) to be held in Hawaii (or a host city) with a max of 8 teams (each team gets one automatic...for the wildcard, 1. MLS v MFL; 2. J-League v A-League v K-League; 3. Asia runner-up v. North America runner-up)...for a cash prize.
No, no, no. I was saying that MLS was doing its job developing players and sending them to Europe. MLS plays an important role in developing players in the US, but you would always hope that the US could pump out 11 players that were good enough for the top flight of Europe and that they would make up your USMNT. Allowing an extra SI won't stop what MLS has done for the USMNT, it will in fact only make it better by bringing up the quality of the league here, before players go over to Europe. My dream would be a day where USL1 (or MLS2) is at the quality of MLS now and that MLS is somewhere in between say an EPL & current-MLS.
While I disagree with your premise that the league needs to expand to more markets to gain legitimacy, the league will need to add more spots for foreign players to accommodate the rebirth of SJ and expansion to Philly/StL/Seattle. As someone else noted, current rosters are already very thin on quality players and increased roster spots for foreign players will certainly help solve the problem. Looking at adding foreign players as a long term solution is premature. Using 2030 as a target date, I would hope that by then our youth development system will be mature enough to provide quality young talent, eliminating the need for large numbers foreign players on rosters.
fixed your post but seriously, MLS really needs to put a team in the "South" and in Florida so that they can tap into that market. Now that doesn't mean it HAS TO be in Atlanta...It's definately the favorite, but it could also be in Nashville, Memphis, Greensboro, Raleigh, Birmingham, or Charlotte (maybe Virginia Beach or Richmond too). while the Florida team could be in either Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa Bay, or Jacksonville. The point being that MLS is really missing out by ignoring the southeast (as well as the northwest)...And i'd rather the league add however many SI slots needed to get teams to these major markets. Point being, as long as you IGNORE major regions of the country, it's kind of hard to convince the 30+ million people who live in the south and the 16 million that live in Florida that MLS should be something people care about.
Yes, absolutely. There should be no limits at all in the number of foreign players on teams. No US sports leagues have nationality limits, MLS should be no different. The quality of play would go up substantially. And I'm not making this statement as a diss to the US player, it strictly has to do with setting limits on the available player pool. I don't think abolishing foreign player limits will hurt American players, especially with heavy expansion looming. MLS has fulfilled its role for the first 10-12 years of enhancing the quality of the US player pool and giving Americans the chance to develop, the league doesn't need to keep doing that anymore. The new purpose should be on boosting the quality of play to same levels of good foreign club teams (Mexican and South American teams), and no MLS team can get there without tapping into a wider variety of player pools. American players can swim on their own merits now, no need for protection. If anything, it should motivate them to pick it up a notch since their jobs will be less secure and the domestic quality will be better.
It's a interesting philosophy, I don't necessarily disagree with, but I don't think you'll see it happen. If you did, it would probably get out of hand, with the rich clubs buying all the good, available foreign talent and the expense of domestic talent, with the smaller clubs getting all the scraps, eventually the national team would suffer (look at England and Scotland despite their recent results). However, I still think we should have a couple of more SI spots per team, and if you have one or two foreign-CONCACAF players, it shouldn't count against the SI slots.
I wouldn't have a problem with having no limit, but i want to work our way there first. For instance, once all teams have their SSS and YA running it would probably be a good time to go with that. And seriously, having a player that has grown up with the club is going to be more of a home town favorite than someone from California playing for a team in New York. But on the same token, i don't want to see 11 foreigners on the starting XI and 7 on the bench either. Maybe just have it where you can only have 8 on the gameday roster or something similiar or teams have to pay a tax for going past a certain amount of SI slots...once teams have reached 24+.