This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS - Tackling the subject of Soccer in the US, and worldwide.

Well said. I am in 100% agreement on this.

I love this league and what it has done for American Soccer, but almost everytime a young American player wants to leave it ends with the player angry at the league. That really isn’t a good way to run MLS. There is nothing wrong with MLS being a developmental league at this point in its growth.

Great article, Adam.

In addition to your sentiments which are right on, the MLS desperately needs to rethink their guiding principles as well as their marketing. Its obvious that the people running this league are disconnected from the current generation of American soccer players.

Think NCAA soccer from the 80s. It was brutal to watch, with a max of four passes strung together and zero flair from anybody. These players grew up and became the MLS “suits”. No bueno.

Things have changed in this country. The new generation of players have an abundance of skill, an understanding of how the game needs to be played, with an implicit desire to entertain w/ their game. Let’s make some changes in the front office and start having people there that reflect the current landscape of soccer here in America.

willy wonka and goonies allusions? dead on.

the league does need stars like dempsey, but not if it doesn’t have their hearts. let him spread his wings like a proud parent, and move on to the next.

sorry steve, but no player, regardless of where they are from, is getting into a european league without being good. Dempsey has a chance to go to the epl because he is good, not because he only shows some potential to get good.

if america wins a world cup, i don’t care if all the players are in a league on the moon. they’re americans, and they learned to play here so that’s good enough for me.

I don’t travel in a big soccer circle, but I consider myself a huge fan. I watch and read as much as possible. And i’d rather the MLS not even exist. or better yet, have european teams buy out MLS and use it as a minor league for their clubs like in Baseball. all this bickering is something everybody should have seen a ways down the road. Everyone just looks out for themselves in the business world.

Okay, when some 2nd rate team in a 100 yr old league offers a cool million to buy an american, shouldn’t a “developmental” league jump at the offer? No. MLS is working on becoming legit domestically and internationally, but if it were to take chump change for one of our BEST players, all the hard work towards becoming legit would be in vain. It would sell the league short and the player, (especially when he’s in his prime). We who have witnessed Clint’s deft touch and ferocity on the field know he’s worth way more than chump change from a big time league. Sure, you’re not gonna see him jump from MLS to EPL on a $15 million fee (I wish), but MLS should stand its ground as a league trying to compete with the big dogs and not sell short. Make potential buyers up the ante. The league would benefit from a few million and the exported talent would personally and professionally benefit as well. Remember, MLS doesn’t have the resources to import players but it clearly has the resources to export them. Why not haggle a few rich clubs when it comes to them wanting one of ours? They’re worth it.

Dear MLS,

Your league is a joke!

I am a lifetime New Yorker and fairly recent soccer fan – I have been following the game for about 15 years now. I watch on average about 15-20 Premiership games, 7 or 8 Champions league games, just about every international involving the US National team as well as recently attending the World Cup. For years, I’ve tried to watch and get involved in MLS but you never seem to get out of your own way. I do manage to sit through about 8 games a year – not necessarily Red Bulls/Metros usually what I would deem to be “marquee match-ups”. I also watch to see the Eddie Gavins, Freddie Adus and Danny Szetellas of American soccer.

Your treatment of players is beyond stupid - it is arrogant and obnoxious. More than any league or franchise in the world, you treat your players like a piece of property rather than people.(I thought Curt Flood settled this issue in the US years ago). There seems to be this feeling from the MLS that you are an elite league – here is a newsflash; you are not! You are at best, a second-tier league and more likely third tier. That is ok, but you need to come to grips with your status and work on improving it. Shackling players to the league is not the way to do this.

I have heard that Charlton had offered a transfer fee of between $1 million and $2 million dollars for Clint Dempsey (I believe a player currently with one year remaining on his contract making about $80,000) yet you refused to let him go play against the best competition he can find and be compensated appropriately. I fail to understand how a player you turn down over $1million for - you compensate at $80k?

I now read that you have prevented Sharlie Joseph from moving to Celtic – a big European club playing in Champions League, for a $1million transfer fee. Are you guys nuts? I would think this is the kind of thing you would want to allow – showing all US players and especially MLS players that you have a viable league that big clubs will come to for that diamond in the rough player. Yet you chose to stifle this.

Allowing players to move to bigger clubs is a great way to build up good will and motivate your players to always play hard - yet you chose to do the opposite. This baffles my mind. You will only succeed in building the profile of your league by allowing players to move abroad and enhance the reputation of American (MLS) players globally. You will motivate young (American) players who aspire to one day play at the highest levels that MLS is a viable route to achieve these dreams. MLS is playing with fire by preventing player movement because the next Freddy Adu may realize that MLS will only serve to prevent or delay him from achieving his ultimate dreams – and I am sure that a money-hungry agent will be sure to point this out to him. Then you (as a league) will have no-one but yourself to blame for this situation!

My reference to MLS as a third-tier league is not intended to be a slight but rather a statement of fact and I suspect an honest self-assessment would confirm this. I don’t see much larger clubs such as PSV, Lyon, Porto, Ajax, PSG and the likes behaving in this manner. This is the model you should be emulating, these clubs while big, realize they should not stand in the way of a players development and wishes. Let’s remember that they are compensated monetarily for doing so. The type of behavior you engage in only harbors resentment and de-motivates your player(s), hardly the image a league or team should aspire to – see Amado Guevara’s 2005 season for an example of what I am talking about.

Good luck next year when Clint Dempsey’s contract expires, he walks and you have nothing to show for it - by my account you will probably be net (–)$1.3 (million minus some lesser amount of revenue he will generate for you). Until then, I will go back to following Fulham, West Ham, Charlton, Man City, Everton, Reading, Watford and Blackburn.

To the Rev’s player appearance request email – please consider this a request to allow your players to appear in a league more commensurate to their skills.

One more thing (MLS) – get rid of those ridiculous horns at the games!

Sincerely,

Patrick McHugh – New York, NY

http://home.skysports.com/list.aspx?hlid=413474&CPID=8&clid=43&lid=2&title=City+clinch+Beasley+loan

Run DMB will be teaming up with Claudio Reyna at Man City.

Amen to this article. I’d like to see Dempsey, Donovan (especially), and others find their way into Europe for the bettering of those players and ultimately our U.S. National Team.

Great Article, on point. Clint Dempsey has been held down by the thumb that is american soccer since the world cup. Bruce Arena did not give clint his deserved playing time, as well as Eddie Johnson’s. Its almost as if he didnt want to win and refused to ignite the spark that is Clint Dempsey, it was a sad moment everytime I saw that Clint was not starting. He is an amazingly creative player as well as a free floating attacker from any area on the pitch and a solid defender. MLS and American Soccer need to let its players who feel theyve outgrown the diaper that is this league go acrocc the pond and find out just how good their stuff can be. We as Americans should be proud to see our own scrumming with some of the worlds elite in some of the best leagues in the world. Seeing players like McBride, Howard, and Beasly make me proud of our boys and a sense of feeling that, “hey American ball is gonna be alright.” Those players we let go and develope into the stars of tomorrow always come abck to us and are gaining us more and more respect on the world stage, let them go, its best for them individualy and best for United States Soccer. Joga Bonita, always play beautiful.

Until the MLS can bring the best players to America to play so players stay here to improve their game, I cant blame Dempsey or any American for wanting to play overseas. At the moment, more players in europe means a better team USA.

I come at soccer as a younger generation player first, and a fan, well, not even really second, but nearly only by social necessity on the field. The fact is, watching much of professional soccer, but most especially the MLS, is unfortunately dull. Occasionally something amazing will happen, yes. Those are the moments I play and watch for. Nobody gets into watching a boring game of very structured passing, and the same, uncreative offensive attack every time. It’s no fun!

The reason to play “the beautiful game” is for the beautiful moments, the ones you are much more likely to see in a pickup game in the park than in the MLS. Too many people come at soccer with this highly structured attitude, which makes it dull. The nature of full sided soccer is naturally more structured and slow, with less room for creativity than small sided games, but that doesn’t mean leagues can’t cultivate that creativity and joy of the game. Ronaldinho gave rise to the idea, at least among my own generation, that being a good player doesn’t mean working on your bullet shot and dry, identical cuts all the time. You can have fun, you can invent, you can make a beautiful moment. Without all that structure, perhaps the purpose of the game is no longer just to score. Maybe it’s to nutmeg a certain player. Maybe it’s to totally juke somebody. Or maybe the goal is no longer a goal, but a basketball hoop.

Basketball recognizes the value of the street movement, and the creative new moves that come out of it. The NBA is not Rucker Park, but it still benefits from it. I think European leagues have done a much better job of incorporating the parallel street soccer. Soccer is serious there, but still a creative sport. It’s not supposed to be American football, with every play perfectly choreographed.

No, it’s supposed to be what you see in videos of Ronaldinho with his ridiculous new moves, of Zlatan juggling gum, of Henry making an impossible negative angle heel shot on a street pitch in Paris. Those players can incorporate that joy and creativity into their play on the larger field. There is no reason lesser players should be limited from doing the same.

In my opinion, the MLS is doing a horrible job of making the game beautiful, which is definitely part of why great players like Dempsey want to go to Europe, anyway. Rather than trying overly hard to be just like a little Europe (from going back to regular pk’s quite a while ago to the name FC Dallas today), the MLS needs to embrace the fact that it truly can be a less-structured developmental league, where players can learn technical skills, but not totally lose their creativity.

A younger generation of American players is coming, that is not satisfied with boring soccer. Many of them are not good enough for Europe, but could certainly play at the level of the MLS, if the MLS does not try and quash their innovation and instead seek out the boring technical players. Somehow the MLS has gotten the idea that soccer is some sort of honor based preppy European sport, and that is what they try to emulate. That is not the reality, in Europe or in the future of American soccer. At some point, the MLS needs to recognize this. I apologize if this seems a bit unrelated to Dempsey’s lack of transfer, but to me it is all integral. The lack of freedom, the lack of development beyond a point, because of the supressing of imagination–they must go.

I feel a renaissance of American soccer will take place within the next ten years (although the naissance itself was not so long ago itself), that will reach up through the MLS level of professionals, if not necessarily to European or National Team sort of levels. Kids playing self-organized soccer is the future of the game. That is the spark which professional teams need to keep alive as they develop players from youth levels to professional and international levels.

So, please, don’t restrict MLS players from doing what they like. That’s what they do best. Beautiful soccer does not necessarily have to be the highest level soccer. As a fan, I’d much rather watch a beautiful MLS-level game than a drab EPL-level game. And as a player, I’d rather play in one, too. So loosen your restrictions, and let players go where they please. Let them play how they like. If we can cultivate a beautiful league in the US, maybe good players will return and eventually it will become more than a developmental league. In the mean time, why don’t we make it the best, most entertaining developmental league possible? That doesn’t happen by restricting your players in any manner.

And I apologize again for the semi-related nature and length of this comment. I’m just passionate about the cultivation of beautiful soccer.

I kinda agree with the “a contract is a contract” mentality. Clint’s contract will end and he will go to the EPL. In the meantime, he has done the right thing: just get back to work and score goals.

Charlie Johns has gone missing with a cut hand suffered off the pitch .. I suspect he put his fist through a window.

The MLS needs to be careful to avoid the problem in the NHL: too much emphasis on susperstars. Players come and go, I’m pulling for the Revolution all the way.