Let's be real here. No one posting regularly in this thread has probably ever seen a game from the Argentine top division.

Where would Argentina be without players playing in their domestic league?!?

It's def better than MLS but if you think that has anything to do with their success other than being an obvious platform for players to get noticed and move abroad then you're crazy

I have.

I've seen quite a few Boca-River Plate derbies and a few Libertadores matches but I obviously don't watch on a regular basis

I'm wondering if many people ITT watch anything other than MLS and BPL

And this is a perfect example of how dishonest LFC is. It's exceptionally clear, we're talking about youth players here. He freaking quotes LK and me in his posts.

Then he finds out that FIFA is cracking down on youth traveling abroad to play for other clubs. A normal person would say, "Oh ****, I didn't know/forgot/didn't realize that."

What we get from LFC though is this:

A complete and total goalpost shift talking about players in their early to mid 20s.

The same thing is going on with the MLS nonsense. First the MLS is a handicap to anyone, but then just a select few. LFC is either dishonest or incapable of properly communicating through written word. It's super annoying

ikes you never make any sense

First of all my argument has never been that kids have to move to Europe. Find somewhere where I said this. I'm using kids in this context of your definition as actual like 8-12 year olds.

It's always been that professional players who are capable of playing for USMNT should NOT be playing in MLS and should be playing abroad. That doesn't necessarily have an age qualifier with it.

Third the part about it not being so hard is two-fold. One the obvious get capped, turn pro and have a pretty good chance at obtaining a work Visa, but also quite a few people in this country have claims to European passports. If you're good enough and teams want you bad enough it will happen.

Dishonesty!

Only if Trump gets elected.

I for one hope every USMNT player signs in MLS simply because I care more about MLS than the USMNT. It would be awesome if Pulisic signed anywhere in the Western Conference.

ikes, that ny times article was good. but if i'm not mistaken doesn't it say taht the vast majority of requested exceptions are granted?

well, my interest in reading about the USMNT in this thread has been sufficiently killed.

mods should just pick one of the two and perma-ban them. I don't even care which one. The bickering is intolerable.

Do you seriously not see how you were talking about youth, even if you didn't mean to? Like can you not look at the post I quoted and at least understand how someone would think you were talking about kids? If not, that's really sad. What I think is going on is that you're not capable of expressing what you think properly, which leaves you saying things you do t mean. The best course here to realize that you are making the mistake here, not everyone else.

The mods already picked one, they are just waiting for the execution date.

Clint Dempsey
Jermaine Jones (Clint Dempsey)
Bobby Wood (Clint Dempsey)
Graham Zusi
Clint Dempsey (Gyasi Zardes)
Clint Dempsey (Jermaine Jones)
Gyasi Zardes (Clint Dempsey)

k

playing somewhere in Europe might make these guys 1% better, but then again, maybe not. i mean are Bedoya & Kitchen sick players? where are Green, Ream, Miazga, Lichaj, Spector & Danny Williams? what did Pulisic do in this tournament?

your biggest problem is that you developing elite players from the womb like most other countries. meanwhile fools like you expect MLS/college systems to pick up the slack at an age that is way too late, and players to make huge strides catching up simply by moving to Europe in their 20s.

lolusa

Those are not full time MLS players. Those are players who played the prime of their career in Europe against very good to elite competition on a weekly basis. That's been my point all along.

Who said anything about wanting anyone in the college system? That's a huge joke. Where have I ever endorsed anything about our college system? Of course our college system is a joke. Just get a bunch of ikes

You guys literally just make up arguments that are convenient to you without ever addressing the glaringly obvious FACT that all our good players play (or had long careers in Europe) and all our MLS players are bad.

Dempsey and Jones don't count as MLS players because they are good.

Bradley counts as a MLS player, even though he played in europe longer than Dempsey, because he's not.

And round and round we go.

.

LFC has repeating this bull**** since 2014. A quick stfu from a few people would go a long way, but the old regulars itt are mostly gone and we're left him posting his nonsense repeatedly.

You love rehashing arguments that have already been made and clarified.

Michael Bradley came back to MLS when he was 26 and he has progressively gotten worse since.

Jermaine Jones came to MLS for the first time when he was 32. Clint Dempsey came back to MLS when he was 30.

If you want to argue that there's no difference between a footballer at age 26 vs 30 and 32 that's stupid but your opinion. But stop making this same general brush to put words in my mouth like I haven't addressed this 100 times responding to your completely substance less spin.

Bradley was by far one of our best players and heading toward the Dempsey class. How do you explain his complete free fall into one of our worst players who consistently gives the simplest of balls away and can no longer link the simplest of passes?

Make This Thread Great Again

so we're all on the same page here? Let's agree to disagree and move on

You're right I did call this when Bradley made the move and it's played out even more obviously than I thought it would. The writing is on the wall. It's plain to see. As long as ikes doesn't put words in my mouth I'll move on for now. This tournament and the performances of the euro guys vs the full time MLS guys spoke for itself

Disappointed LFC didn't bite on my "Pulisic -> MLS" troll.

LFC ainec

Even accepting your assessment of Bradley as true, if it was the act of coming back to the league you'd expect to see a drastic slide in all players coming back to the league. There isn't some magical force where coming back at 26 makes you susceptible to a slide back while coming back at 30 after spending more time in the MLS and less in Europe makes you immune to the theoretical MLS fallback.

Bradley's fall is an individual's fall in quality. Jermaine came back and has been a solid contributor still. Dempsey has been our best offensive threat. Jozy has been the same old Jozy no matter where he's been playing. There's a grand total of 4 players who have gone to Europe and come back to the MLS while good enough to still play for the USMNT A team in the past 2 years. Only 1 has dropped significantly in quality, another hovered in consistent mediocrity, and the last two have remained quality contributors. There's simply no evidence to suggest that the MLS is the problem for Bradley's fall in form. His problem is an individual one, not a systemic problem.

The next topic you bring up is BUT ZARDES/BECKERMAN/WONDO/ZUSI blow and they play in MLS! However, they don't suck because they play in MLS. They play in MLS because they don't have the quality to play in Europe and the USMNT isn't deep enough to replace them with players who are better. Those players would be worse, but still starting if not for the MLS. Also, we'd have less pros in Europe because they're be very few options for Americans to catch the eyes of european scouts.

This all stems from Klinsmann's complaint in 2014 about player's not challenging themselves enough in Europe, and dude we all agree that we'd like to see players go on to Europe. You haven't stumbled upon something we haven't thought of. The problem is that in parroting this complaint, you get off the rails and say stuff like the "The fact that MLS has expanded youth development does not excuse it for being a terrible league that is handicapping our NT players who play for it" when it's the complete opposite.

The MLS has been a boon for soccer in the USA, continuing interest in the post 94 world cup period and slowly developing each year. Again, we all know the MLS isn't an elite league, but without it there's far less youth development investment and much harder for americans to develop and play at all. Of course, you know this, but instead of confronting what you've said you just deny ever saying stuff like the quoted above.

If you wanted to make an argument wrt Bradley coming back to the MLS, a sensible argument to make would be that this: Bradley coming back to the MLS suggests that he no longer has the desire to train to be an elite player, and it seems like his game has suffered because of it. You know what, I think that's partly true tbh. Please just start parroting that line, because I'm sick and tired of you ****ting on something that has not only been a great source of talent for soccer in America, but is also key to the USMNT's future.