I'm not sure what the story is there, but he's still one of Bolivia's all-time caps leaders. He did represent them in the 1994 World Cup Finals at age 20. The league fell into Ralph in part because it had created a roster position specifically for players like him.
IIRC, even back in his heyday, when he was faster with the ball at his feet than half the league without it and routinely annihlated MLS defenses, Moreno was not always called in to Bolivia's national team.
He's listed here at #10 in all-time caps, only a few behind Etcheverry. He doesn't have any since 2000, though, so he has been out of the picture for a while. http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/bol-recintlp.html I suspect that Bolivia wouldn't be inclined to use foreign-based players for its home games, since their bodies aren't acclimated to the altitude.
I'd suggest he's better overall now than then. That speed is more than compensated for by sharp vision and passing accuracy. Call it the Valderrama Principle.
What % of the increase in "US" is accounted for by the relaxation of the Green Card rules? Much of the early internationals who stuck around after 96 are now getting green cards (Andy Williams just got one) and play major minutes. Ziade, Pareja, Pegeuero, Reyes, A Moreno, Elliot, maybe Nelsen etc. For a while players couldn't have played for another national team and have their green card count. Probably a fraction of the increase, but a good share of "domestic" talent has some dual-citizenship or was foreign born.
None, I should have specified, but the numbers account for where a player 'developed' as a soccer player. So Williams, Pareja, Peguero, Reyes, Nelsen etc. are internationals, as are Preki and Earnie Stewart (not sure about Ziadie).
He was born in the US but raised in Jamaica ... probably should count as foreign. What about non-US residents like Jesús Ochoa, José Retiz, and Ramón Nuñez, who grew up here anyway? Also, out of curiosity, what about Jeff Cunningham, Shalrie Joseph and Diego Gutiérrez? (This isn't meant as a quiz ... I'm just interested in understanding.)
I just wanted to point out here that Freddy Adu is pretty much responsible for the entire decline in the average age of the American players - if that average is weighted by minutes played - with Preki's injury factoring in, too. Replace Freddy Adu's 1440 "15 year old" minutes with 1440 "average 27 year old minutes" and the league average age jumps over 0.07 years.
[/quote] I just didn't have the list in front of me, is why I didn't know: I've got: Ziadie - Jamaica Ochoa - Mexico Retiz - Mexico Nunez - USA Cunningham - Jamaica Joseph - Grenada Gutierrez - USA But I'm not sure I'd say there's anything to figure out. I did my best to assign the correct nationality to players, but frankly, I don't know much about Ochoa and Retiz, I bet I just labelled them Mexican because of their nationality. If people disagree, fine, but I never claimed it was exactly right, just good enough. If anybody wants to suggest changes, or make a new, less subject list, I've got the excel file here, though I'm not sure it's updated through the very end of 2004.
It is minutes-weighted. By my calculations, if you remove Freddy, the average goes from 25.97 to 26.05, so he accounts for about 57% of the American decline. Of course, Freddy is just part of a trend towards younger players in MLS, so it's not really fair to single him out; excluding Eddie Gaven instead of Freddy raises the American average to 26.08. etc., etc. They don't explain the declines in 01, 02, or 03, of course. I've got Preki as non-US, yes, and had he played for 2000 minutes this year, the foreign decline would have been cut in half.
This is a fantastic chart. For some reason my gut feeling was that the league was getting less American. Maybe that's because I watch a lot of Metrostarts games on MSG and see Galvan Rey, Taylor, Glenn, Vaca, Brenes, Zaidie, Bonseu, and Gilberto all on the field. This chart shows me that I'm a doofus, and can now slink back to my basement. 74% of minutes played by Americans seems high to me, but I'm too lazy to check that number. It's also interesting that the league is getting younger. Not necessarily good, just interesting.[/QUOTE] These numbers tell me that a static salary cap has made foreigners more expensive by default and most americans get on the field because they are better but at least some do simply because they are cheaper. The increase in the number of developmental players might play a big hand in the age slide.