Comments on: MLS and International Competitions: You Be the Judge

By: JustinR

JustinR — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:56:20 +0000

Agreed, this all comes down to money. You get what you pay for, and at 2 and a half million, the product on the field is not very good. Sure you will find a few gems like De Rosario, Emilio and Toja, but the depth on these rosters is bad. The standard of play in the MLS is now where near the Mexican league. I think it will be, but not until we can afford to pay a complete roster.

By: Phillip

Phillip — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:52:38 +0000

Money.

By: Berlin

Berlin — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:27:31 +0000

Truth is hard to hear, but you make a great point. I hope the Dynamo can prove you wrong…DC, not so much.

By: Beau Dure

Beau Dure — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:45:45 +0000

Thanks all. I understand the concern about MLS in international play — I know it’s something the league office thinks about as well, but they’re balancing that against the need to let all 14, 15, 16 MLS teams believe they have a chance to win the league.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:12:54 +0000

This is a good debate. I happen to agree with the above sentiment that the best teams in the league in the early days were better than today but the worst teams are much better today than they were then.

By: Kartik

Kartik — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:42:04 +0000

Beau Dure,

The last post was so good I am going to read it on the air this next week. Seriously, it hit the point perfectly.

By: Beau Dure

Beau Dure — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:24:51 +0000

In a charity match? An MLS team in peak form against a mid-table EPL team not taking it too seriously? Sure, that could happen.

I’m not sure how seriously other teams took the Merconorte. That was an oddball tournament, to say the least. At some point, teams get Copa-ed out.

The SuperLiga was odd, too. Last summer, those were the only games the Galaxy could win.

But the D.C. case is the most relevant. The early D.C. United and L.A. Galaxy teams were indeed the best the league has seen. But there’s no way to build a team like that today because (A) other team’s front offices are generally smarter (I know, I know, insert jokes about your least favorite GM here) and (B) the salary cap would force such a team to be dismantled. You don’t see many cap-related trades these days because teams plan for it.

Which means you can’t really tell much about the quality of the league from these competitions. Will Saprissa beat Houston? Probably. Would Toronto FC clean up against the bottom team in Costa Rica? Probably.

And to get back to the point you’re really making here — would today’s Toronto FC beat a last-place team from 1997? Absolutely. It’d be a thrashing.

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:30:19 +0000

Yeah but to the above poster some real issues. MLS teams today I believe would not win a competition held entirely on US soil as those teams did: actually Superliga last year was proof of that.

In addition, in those days MLS was able to win some games abroad: the Metrostars beat a few teams including I believe a Mexican team in Columbia during the Copa Mercanorte, and DC famously beat Spurs in London. sure, it was a Charity match but do you honestly think any current MLS side would even play any EPL side save Derby within two goals on British soil?

I unfortunately have to agree with the whole premise of this post. This is because of the erosion of AMERICAN talent from the league. Far fewer Americans of stature play these days in MLS.
In the 1998 and 2002 World Cups the vast majority of the US team had played in MLS within the previous two seasons. But as we approach 2010, chances are very few of the members of the squad will fit that criteria. No amount of propaganda from the league office, or purchasing of overage marketing tools or cheap foreigners (who are cheap for a good reason) will erase that reality.

We must accept this fact and deal with the consequences. As much as you talk about this Kartik, you’ve offered no solutions other than to say MLS isn’t as good as it used to be. To many of us who have followed the league from the beginning that is painfully obvious, but what’s your solution? Simply pouring Gasoline on a raging fire?

By: Beau Dure

Beau Dure — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:07:54 +0000

Let’s look at the venues …

1998 CONCACAF Champions Cup: Washington, D.C.

1998 Interamerican Cup: Washington and Fort Lauderdale

2000 (held in 2001) CONCACAF Champions Cup: Fullerton and Los Angeles

Since then, the CONCACAF tournament has had two-leg home-and-away series, and MLS teams simply haven’t been able to win in Mexico or at Saprissa.

Some of that is surely because of the salary cap and parity, which Costa Rica doesn’t have. Maybe some is a smaller talent pool as compared to Mexico.

By: Brits Should Not Run American Football

Brits Should Not Run American Football — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:09:36 +0000

While theoretically correct posts like this are nothing but fodder for the ex-pats in our soccer press that bash MLS, and the British media itself looking to take any shot at our league while ignoring their leagues long term troubles in UEFA competitions.