MLS is Not a Proper Football League Part Infinity

Gue­vara and eight other TFC play­ers will be miss­ing Saturday/ AP Photo 

Okay, here I go again with another rant. Sat­ur­day every nation in the world still in Copa Mundial 2010 qual­i­fy­ing will be play­ing. Every domes­tic first divi­sion in the world will off this Sat­ur­day, save one: the incom­pa­ra­ble Major League Soc­cer. Toronto FC is being forced to play a match at a ground they cur­rently do not share with another ten­ant on the same day nine play­ers from the Reds (a side with only 18 senior squad play­ers per MLS rules) will be play­ing for their national teams.

The fol­low­ing nine play­ers will be miss­ing for TFC Sat­ur­day. (Thanks to Soc­cer by Ives for this list)

• Amado Gue­vara (Honduras)
• Greg Sut­ton (Canada)
• Jim Bren­nan (Canada)
• Mar­vell Wynne (USA)
• Carl Robin­son (Wales)
• Julius James (Trinidad & Tobago)
• Car­los Ruiz (Guatemala)
• Tyrone Mar­shall (Jamaica)
• Jar­rod Smith (New Zealand)

Unless MLS wants to return to its recent past of being a retire­ment home for washed up inter­na­tion­als and land­ing spot for5 play­ers not good enough to even play in their nation’s sec­ond divi­sions, this trend of play­ing right through inter­na­tional fix­ture dates has to seize begin­ning next sea­son. MLS is not taken seri­ously by many foot­ball fans here at home and quite frankly, it doesn’t deserve to be taken seri­ously when you see issues like this.