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Originally Posted by JudgeHoldem
I don't see why we can't be an Eredivisie quality league or approaching that. But to your point about international teams, even the Dutch wouldn't want the majority of their roster to come from players currently playing in that league.
I don't disagree but I don't think MLS will ever get out of it's own way to let this happen. A lot of format things would need to change to get there imo, some in MLS control some not.
First of all the awful meaningless regular season needs to be done away with, as does the awful playoff format. Nobody watches the playoffs, nobody cares, it drags on forever, it is so disjointed. The regular season is also meaningless cuz any half decent team makes the playoffs and there's little incentive to "win" the regular season or push for a strong finish.
They need to play competitive games in a meaningful international competition and take it seriously. Right now the CONCACAF Champions League is what they have where at least they get to play a few games against good Liga MX teams. To be competitive they'll likely need to change their calendar, which I admit, the only reason I ever go to MLS games is because it's in the summer when nothing is going on. But I also find the league tedious and boring formatwise, so maybe if there was more to root for I'd go more. I get MLS is in a bind here.
To your Eredivise example the league itself is decent, far better than MLS obv, but they also get their best teams to play in the Champions League and Europa League and play against Europe's best teams/teams from all over the continent. The best Dutch players in this league, as you rightly point out, get exposure to the big clubs and you end up most of the national team playing for the top 10-15 clubs in the world. They're not spurning moves to Chelsea, Liverpool, United, Bayern, Barca, to stay home and play in their ****ing domestic league.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liverpool
100% spot on right here. We should be able to pay these players much more then they make in South/Central America which should entice them to come to MLS before making that big move to Europe.
Definitely and this is absolutely the way forward. I admit I found Atlanta United fun to watch last season, especially at home. Almiron and Martinez were so much better than everyone and I hope this trend continues. However, a good portion of the players they had to play with were such a lower quality, that it prevents it from progressing to being a really good product. NYCFC were a striking example of this too for me everytime I watched them and it's really rampant across the league. MLS needs to pay the squad guys not just the stars to improve their product. Then they need to realize it's good for the league if someone like this Barco kid bosses MLS for a couple years and gets a move to a mid-table Europe club. I think I read his contract basically has it set up that way, but that has to be the norm for any good MLS player, MOST of all the USMNT guys.
All that MLS has done is got the players from lesser CONCACAF nations (i.e. not Mexico) to play against each other every week. It's watered down the pool and caused our once dominant side to regress while raising the level of the Honduras' and Panama's to our level. It should be our guys playing at a higher level in Europe and raising our game instead of regressing and playing to the level of T&T and Jamaica dudes each week