Minor League Soccer???

Dick_B said:

Americans are bigger than Europeans, so only shrimpy girly boy Americans will ever play soccer.
It's simple genetics. Matt plays soccer........ At 6'5 250 I am not going to play soccer. One has to wonder.... is Matt American? I bet he's some fascist puke.

PurpleJ said:

GrundleStiltzkin said:

Such fag J

Cultured and worldly!

Global said:

The MLS is not as good as the better European leagues such as those in England, Italy, Spain, Germany or France. But some MLS clubs could do reasonably well in some of the other European leagues, and certainly in most leagues in Latin America except Argentina and Brazil. The MLS teams could top most Japanese or Korean teams, and there are no other leagues after that that compete really.

So I would guess that the MLS would rank around 10-15th of the top 25 leagues in the world. It ranked #8 in world attendance this year. That will help with sponsorship and TV, and in turn allow salaries to go up, and continue to improve the quality.

I played soccer at the UW in the 1970s, and also have watched professional soccer in Seattle since its infancy -- the very first game was an exhibition between the old NASL Sounders and the New York Cosmos in the Kingdom -- the very first sports event in the Kingdom. One of my first jobs was an admin role with the old Sounders in the early 1980s. So I have seen a lot of the changes.

The pace of improvement in the last 10 years is remarkable. It remains a work in progress. But I watch teams from Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin America regularly, and we are catching up.

Until we can match European salaries, however, we will have a talent deficit with the English, Spanish and Italian leagues, for sure.

But I am not sure why you find the quality of play so difficult to watch. For sure we are not seeing players like Messi, Ronaldo, or Van Persie in their prime, but the designated player rule in the past few years is helping bring better foreign talent.

I would project that the MLS will break into the top 10 of world leagues in the next five years. Getting into the top five leagues globally will take longer, and has some variables that would require some further big changes. In the US, the MLS for many is about where the NHL is -- and not yet to where the NFL, NBA and MLB are. That gap will have to close in the US for the US to join the global top 5 in soccer leagues.

We are now finally in a period where most moms and dads who are raising kids also themselves have played soccer, which is a big plus for national player development. Soccer is the fastest growing sport still among American youth. I am heartened that the US national men's coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, has said that reform and development of US youth soccer is paramount.

I have always enjoyed watching soccer at multiple levels, as a player, referee, coach and spectator. Yes, I am a soccer nut and have been since I started playing in high school when it was first introduced as a sport. But there are more and more and more of us, and a critical mass is developing. Average attendance at Sounders' games this year was 43,144.