That's rich from someone who uses Nolan Ryan as a reason why you think Beasely is going to be great. But anyway, yes, that was my point. They were on recent buying binges a couple of years ago. The word recent means the "near past", not "now". As for the rest of your post, sure, of course Dutch teams have had their glory. But the fact remains, where do young, talented footballers dream of playing... it's by and large not PSV or even Ajax, it's Milan and Man U and Real Madrid.. the teams that apparently appear in my "local papers". That you haven't answered, because if you did, you'd have to admit that your post before was a little, well, wrong.
I thought Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax were two perfect examples of players with a great potential that was only realized in their mid-careers. Should I have used Randy Johnson who was a sub-.500 pitcher at 29? Or maybe Grigoriy Yartzev who made it to Spartak at 27? Well, Roma and Lazio are on strict budgets now and Serie A is rapidly becoming a 2 horse race. BTW, why would I want to play in Italy if I were Tevez? The answer is no. Only few of the biggest superstars will get to play for the handful of teams that you have mentioned. And, as I had posted in other places, Andriy Shevchenko may win the Player of the Year award but Ukraine has had trouble breaking into the Top 30 World Ranking. At the same time, look at the Euro final. Portugal had Figo at Real, C. Ronaldo as a part-time player at ManU and Rui Costa as a part-timer at Milan. Greece had a few players with big Euro clubs but no standouts. The Czechs had Nedved, who was a Euro Player of the Year, and no "big club" members after him, aside of Baros who was a part-timer with Liverpool last year. (someone must have forgotten Dortmund, apparently) Yet Italy and Spain with recognizable names galore didn't make it past the group stage. In other words, that "elite club" list is ... well, not that elite.
Sidefootsitter, I have no idea what you are talking about in your last post, and what if anything it has to do with this thread. I'll only recommend that you get out more often, your knowledge of the history of so many sports is just bumming me out now. Good friday night!
To be fair this is the first time they made it to the knockout stages of the reformed championsleague. Not the old european cup.
Point A was that you were working with an erronerous premise defining what is or isn't a top club. Point B was that Beasley can and will improve, if history of sports is any indication.
Your point is well taken and I understand that you arent' really saying what I'm about to talk about, but this is evidence the wierd sort of logic that sometimes abounds in the footy world...I mean freaking Nottingham Forest won two European Cups in 79-80, they're FAR from a bigger club than PSV at the moment, they're almost a Legue One side in England right now. Point being I dont think you can necessarily ONLY go on results, past OR present (though I realize I sort of did that myself), you have to look at the size of the club, it's reputation, it's bankroll, it's support, it's prospects for European success right now, and not simply on how it did in the last few CL's, though that is a factor. THAT defines a huge club right now, a club that players want to go to, and therefore a club that can be choosy about the players it takes on, therefore a club that to be a part of as a player is a genuine accomplishment. I'm not sure you can say those things about PSV Endhoven, or, frankly, any club in the Netherlands, or any of the larger clubs from smaller countries in this Bosman age...can you imagine Malmo making a Champions League final? Unthinkable, right? Well they did, in 1979 (when it was the European Cup). That pretty much can't happen now. Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, etc...there's a reason why everyone always lists these clubs, it isnt simply reputation alone. I'm not sure we'll ever see even a majority of US Nats on clubs like this, let alone every one.
No country can claim a star player on every überclub. Brazil has only 4 überteam players : Fat Ronny and Roberto Carlos on Real, Slim Ronny on Barca, Kaka in Milan. It may or may not field Arsenal's Edu or Bayern's Ze Roberto but they are, in Michael Jordan's words, a support cast much the same way they are with their club teams. (You can count Adriano if you'd like but Inter is in 7th place in Serie A, a former Superclub). England probably has the most : Rooney, Owen, Campbell, Rio, Ashley Cole, Gerard (if you count L'pool), Beckham, Gary Neville. It went out in the quarters to Portugal, who had only Figo at a Superclub, though they'd added Deco after the Euros. C. Ronaldo and Rui Costa were part-timers with ManU and Milan respectively. Germany has Kahn or Lehmann, Frings and Ballack. Greece, as been noted, did not have a single Superclub starter. So, while it might be nice to have a couple of players on them, there are plenty of alternatives to a winning national side.
The point of this thread was not to debate which teams are the top clubs. I told you there would be disagreement. What the thread is about is the relative rates of improvement of the National Team versus MLS. Both are improving at rapid rates, IMHO. Which one will achieve greatness first? And yes, I recognize that they are related, but there is not a direct linear correlation. And I believe that a strong domestic league is not necessary for National Team success, but it sure helps, "don't it?" Can we have all 11 starters playing at top clubs? Sure, why not? We have the population, and the popularity is growing. We need more of a soccer culture. One problem is that there may be a domestic player that the coach believes is better than the player playing in a top league. This can and does happen, whether it's because of tactics or perhaps the domestic player is simply better. Whatever the case, I'd still argue that it's more likely for the US team to have 11 uber players than to have an uber league (of course this equation is quite different for other countries where soccer is more popular). We have one player currently playing regularly for a top club. In reality, this could move to 3 or 4 in the next year or so. In 5 years we might have as many as 5. MLS will be a pretty respectable league in 5 years, but to bridge the gap from good league to star quality league will take tremendous capital, excellent TV ratings, and packed stadiums. I wonder if Garber has a long range plan for taking MLS to the next level. I'd give my right (testicle-->arm-->pinkie) to see it.
I think that it'd be sufficient for the USMNT to have its 18-25 players with regular starting jobs in any of the top 5 leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France) and/or the top teams in the 2nd tier leagues (Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Norway, Denmark, Russia). If so: Bocanegra and Friedel come from the EPL. (McBride may join them soon). Conor Casey and Steve Cherundolo come from Germany. Greg "Beldar" Vanney is from France. Robbie Russell from Norway (Brian West half fits this definition). Oguchi Onyewu from Belgium. That's 8. DaMarcus Beasley is a part-time stater at PSV and Landon Donovan will probably be likewise at Bayer Leverkusen. Peter Philipakos has a chance to be a regular with Olympiakos. Jon Spector will probably be loaned out to a lower tier EPL side. That's a probably 4 more. And this national team should beat a Panama/Trinidad&Tobago/Guatemala by a substantial margin. PS. MLS can improve almost instantly however if its management decided to bring in several $300K-500K players per each team to augment the existing rosters. I doubt it will ever become anything close to the Top 5 league.
I'll agree with this. I don't really think there's any question that having 11 "uber" players, as you call them, is going to be easier than building MLS into a world-class league. To do that would require, as you point out, a lot of money, etc. But that can only happen if soccer overtakes--or at least approaches--the big 3 sports in this country, and I don't see that happening ever. Besides, popularity within one's own country does not make the domestic league into a world-class league automatically. Just look at Mexico (no offense to the Mexican league). What I find interesting is the correlation between the two options. As Americans have greater success overseas plying their trade, does interest in the game increase here at home? And does that translate into building a better, more respectable domestic league? It may actually be more closely tied to the national team having greater success on the world stage. That will certainly bring more fans to the game. But the bottom line is, we probably won't ever be able to attract the biggest international stars to our league b/c we won't have the money to offer them b/c TV, stadium, licensing revenues won't be big enough here. That's how I see it, anyway.