**MLS 2015** #soccer

Azza

Azza

Azza

Caporegime
Joined
6 Dec 2005
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Location
Birmingham
Apart from watching glimpse of Red Bulls or Galaxy matches I've never really watched MLS.

From watching the first 38 minutes of Orlando v New York it's pretty easy to see why Lampard wanted to stay at City. :D :D
 
Standard isn't the best, also have to laugh at the Yanks attempting to chant like we do.... :p

Can tell Kaka a mile away, his touch is about 50 times better than anyone else's on the pitch.
 
From what I saw Man City's franchise were dire, Orlando (who may well be poor themselves by MLS standards) should have been 5-0 up by the time NYC nicked a goal.
 
I'd say MLS is League 1 level. It always amazes me to see names that have failed in English football go to America and stand out, what an easy life! Seb Hines and Sean St Ledger were just two from last night I noticed.
 
The good thing is that really is getting bigger and bigger over here! So that's a plus.
The standard is still not that great, but I'm just excited it's becoming more and more popular over here!! The Orlando game sold out 60,000+ seats, which is phenomenal.
However, the league is setup the same as NFL, NBA, & MLB = draft style system, salary caps, no promotions or relegation. Such a lame/boring setup.
Plus, they have to get out of the mindset of only reaching out to retired old names who are past it. Go with youth development!

Quite interesting as there is a new franchise that is arriving in the city where I live this season (the division under the MLS) and so it's basically a brand new football team :)
Not set in stone but I'm hoping to be on the board of directors, which will be awesome fun!
 
I suspect the model they're going for it to attract 'high profile' names who will help to increase the overall profile of the league. They're not going to attract high profile players in their prime, so ones who are 'past it' is really the only way to go.

For youth, they probably prefer to develop their own youth, rather than develop players from other countries, who'll likely leave when clubs from bigger leagues start to take an interest.

The fact that people have been talking about MLS for a good few years now, despite the quality being reasonably low - just goes to show they seem to be doing something right.
 
The only way is up, they are building a tremendous fanbase around a lot of the clubs.

Watched the 2nd half of the Kansas, redbulls game last night, the crowd seemed well up for it. As mls isn't really a premium event per say, I got the feeling the people at the game wanted to be there.

If and when the level of professionalism that surrounds the premium American sports comes to mls, then you have something to fear. Wish them all the best.. another top tier league in the world isn't a bad thing.
 
Well surely it shows that you we don't need a strong domestic league to get far in International tournaments. The standard is poor but the Americans get further and play with more passion than we have for years. I also maintain they will win the world cup before we do again. Perhaps we have got so hung up on bringing in 'world class' foreigners to play and train with our players when what we really need is better coaches.
 
div0 said:
I suspect the model they're going for it to attract 'high profile' names who will help to increase the overall profile of the league. They're not going to attract high profile players in their prime, so ones who are 'past it' is really the only way to go.

For youth, they probably prefer to develop their own youth, rather than develop players from other countries, who'll likely leave when clubs from bigger leagues start to take an interest.

The fact that people have been talking about MLS for a good few years now, despite the quality being reasonably low - just goes to show they seem to be doing something right.
Click to expand...

Trouble is if they only want to shoot for retiring players, that's all they will ever get. I believe there is enough attraction for mid-tiered players to want to develop the league further and make the league a lot stronger.
In terms of youth development, I meant more in terms of how it works over here and the college rules etc.
However, I could see sending youth players over to the MLS for a season or something as a farm style system to gain some experience. Would be pretty cool!

Glad it's moving in the right direction!
 
div0 said:
I suspect the model they're going for it to attract 'high profile' names who will help to increase the overall profile of the league. They're not going to attract high profile players in their prime, so ones who are 'past it' is really the only way to go.

For youth, they probably prefer to develop their own youth, rather than develop players from other countries, who'll likely leave when clubs from bigger leagues start to take an interest.

The fact that people have been talking about MLS for a good few years now, despite the quality being reasonably low - just goes to show they seem to be doing something right.
Click to expand...

Nail on the head.

What some people forget is that before the Premiership Hype Machine started in earnest, the highest profile foreigners was from North of the Border with the odd Norwegian here and there or some past it Dutch man. So we shouldn't look too far down our noses at the Americans.

I was out in America for 3 weeks over Xmas and there was a football tournament on at one of the local community parks and literally they could have filled it many many times over. The standard of the kids football was on par with what is in the UK. Where it will take time to grow is they need infrastructure to get the raw talent kids at high school into a decent coaching set up at an early age.

So what if the standard is on par with the Championship or League 1. It is light years ahead of where it was a few years ago. It can only be a good thing for football to have stronger nations developing talent
 
Their biggest hurdle in becoming a competitive league and attracting top talent is the salary cap. Unless you're one of three designated players the most you can earn a year is $385,000 without taking into account sponsorship etc. You can't expect to attract or keep hold of top talent if you can only offer them in a year what they could earn in less than a month in Europe. It basically means that it's impossible to have a team like Barcelona or Bayern as the salary cap won't allow it.
 
Moothead2 said:
Their biggest hurdle in becoming a competitive league and attracting top talent is the salary cap. Unless you're one of three designated players the most you can earn a year is $385,000 without taking into account sponsorship etc. You can't expect to attract or keep hold of top talent if you can only offer them in a year what they could earn in less than a month in Europe. It basically means that it's impossible to have a team like Barcelona or Bayern as the salary cap won't allow it.
Click to expand...

good the cap grows with the game, the americans have already boom and busted once
 
Whether it's good or bad, it prevents them from attracting enough top talent to be anything more than league one equivalent league. The cap increases about $200-300k a year and currently sits at $3.1m for everyone but the designated three. To put that into perspective, most of the united team earn over $4m a year alone.
 
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