11-25-2022, 10:04 PM
(11-25-2022, 10:08 AM)CKwi88 Wrote: MLS will never be a very serious league because of the lack of homegrown talent. The best athletes in the US gravitate towards football, baseball and basketball. You can't support a league with imported talent. Until there is some change to that, MLS will be seen as a bottom-teir league where big names come to get one last big paycheck a la Beckham, Zlatan and now, apparently, Messi.
Sorry, but that's a lot of ridiculously tired takes.
1) The NHL does fine with a lack of homegrown talent
Players born in America makeup 24.8% of the players in the NHL during the 2019-2020 season.
2) Three of the greatest soccer players of all time
Pele 5 foot 8
Maradona 5 foot 5
Messi 5 foot 7
What US sport would they have excelled at? Soccer styled NFL kicker and light hitting 2nd basemen? Our "superior athletes" would have crushed them in just about any physical contest that doesn't involve the skills and abilities needed to play soccer at a high level. The athletic Africans love soccer way more than we do and they're not dominating the sport.
As far as MLS goes . . . I'll address most of their issues another day. Knowing where they came from, what they were up against just to get started and where they plan on being will change most people perceptions about MLS, their structure and why they do/don't do certain things. You have to respect their business model. The fact that they contracted two teams twenty years ago to drop from 12 teams down to 10 and, now, next season will see their 29th team debut in St Louis is quite a mind boggling turnaround. I remember reading blogs by soccer writers during the contraction period stating that they expect a fax declaring the death of MLS any day now. It's pretty impressive how they've managed the constant expansion and still maintained a decent level of quality, due mainly due to international signings.
3) In 2011, US players played 53.86% of the entire playing time in MLS. This figure has consistently decreased since then, especially in the last five seasons. In the 2020 season, US players played only 37.96% of all playing time.
For the start of the 2021-22 EPL season, 36.4 per cent of squad players were English.
4) And name one league that wouldn't take a 32 year old Beckham or Zlatan or Messi? After leaving MLS, Zlatan went to AC Milan for the last three years and won the Scudetto last season. He recently signed on for a fourth year.
Only users lose drugs.
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