The notion that Americans hate soccer is an old stereotype that is decades out of date. We have our own league that routinely fills 20,000-seat stadiums. That’s not NFL or MLB or even EPL caliber attendance, but it’s clearly more than enough to elevate American soccer from a “nothing” sport that no one cares about.
I also note that MLS teams have signed some top European and South American talent, perhaps most famously Káká in Orlando.
My question is this: is the quality of play different in the American game vs. the rest of the world’s top leagues? I read one reviewer who said that the American version is designed to produce more scoring because Americans find the lack of scoring dull; I find that indescribably stupid because soccer is soccer whether the pitch you’re playing on is in Munich, Manchester, or Minneapolis.
If you’ve been in a position to observe both, do you notice anything appreciably different with regard to the American game? Also, is there more scoring per 90 minutes in MLS vs. top-tier Euro leagues?
In general, yes. As a league, MLS would be in the second tier of professional soccer leagues worldwide. They simply aren’t at the same level of play as the top leagues out there.
To answer the second question first, this is easily answered: No.
MLS teams last year scored about 1.5 goals per game. The best team in the league, Toronto, scored about 2.2 goals per game.
The English Premier League saw about 1.4 goals per game per team, with the best team, Manchester United, scored 2.9 goals per game. All top flight soccer leagues have pretty much the same numbers.
As to your first question, to the casual observer, MLS looks pretty similar to other top flight leagues, but it definitely isn’t as good; Toronto FC would be routinely defeated in the EPL or Bundesliga. They wouldn’t be humiliated by any means but they’d have no chance of winning a championship. That is of course similar to most sports; in baseball, a AAA team looks - to even a regular fan - pretty much the same as a Major League team, but they would finish dead last if asked to play in the majors.
14 teams in the current EPL (ie 7th position down) are shite, so without having watched much MLS, I don’t think you’d sense a massive difference in quality of play in terms of the technique on display in front of your eyes as far as this bunch are concerned [although the best teams, e.g. City atm, are playing a different game]. You have to appreciate, though, that these 14 shite teams are going to be playing at a significantly higher level of intensity, and this generally creates a more entertaining spectacle and is the usual reason cited for the EPL’s global appeal. [a hypothetical MLS team playing in the EPL is probably getting smashed, because they wouldn’t be allowed to play the type of football they want to - not because there is any gulf in technique or coaching strategy].
The lack of relegation in MLS must also create a huge disparity in the play relative to other world leagues. Fighting to avoid relegation is a massive driver of competition and emotion in the latter half of the season that it’s hard to relate to a league that doesn’t have it - do you think Newcastle would have beaten Utd yesterday if there was no relegation?
I appreciate the parity structures, salary caps etc of the American leagues that we don’t have in Europe bring their own advantages, just a pity there’s not a way to have the best of both worlds.
I go to a lot of the OCSC* games here and I’ve watched my fair share of Premier League soccer as well and this is my main takeaway from the two leagues:
When Europen clubs touch the ball it almost always goes to a member of their team, when US players do it tends to go wherever they kicked it.
I watch WAY more US soccer, so I get used to clears and headers just going wherever the opposing team isn’t. However, when I watch Euro teams, every time the ball is touched it seems to go directly at a teammate.
*OCSC stands for Orlando City Soccer Club which makes me happy because they actually have the word “soccer” in it. It drives me nuts when an MLS team has “football” in the title. I get what they’re doing, but we call it soccer here so just call it soccer. Obvious exceptions are Toronto and when the team is owned by a Euro club.
From the play I have seen, they’d won’t be Accrington Stanley. They would struggle in most of the games, but they would score and eek out wins occasionally.
This I have never understood. What makes a game exciting or dull is not the amount of scoring, its the nature of gameplay.
In American Football a 0-0 game is going to be without exception a case where something went very wrong. Or 70-63 game. As is the case in Rugbyl. In top flight soccer, a 10-9 game will probably see both managers shot.
The last two WC finals have been 1-0, decided by a single goal in extra time. As was the last Euro Championship. The games were exciting, edge of your seat stuff.
In soccer, scoring is difficult. In Basketball its very easy. Its midway in American football and rugby. How a game is exciting does not matter on the score. Few more exciting things than a soccer game in the last few minutes with one team down a goal.
Some baseball purists consider the high scores of the modern era an abomination, believing that a well-crafted pitchers’ duel that ends 1-0 is a thing of beauty to which all baseball games should aspire.*
*I was at such a game, and it was less of a thing of beauty and more of a chore. It was a night game at the Busch Stadium of ~1966-2001 or whenever, in July, and the temperature was about 100 degrees at the first pitch, which was like 7:05. Neither team could get a player past First Base, and the game dragged into extra innings and seemed to last forever. FINALLY the game ended 1-0 in the bottom of the 12th on a suicide squeeze by the Cards. I was never so glad to see the Cubs lose a game in my entire life.
Hey, Orlando is my team too! #VamosOrlando! An Orlandonian and only-casual soccer fan friend of mine introduced me to the team, and I decided to “adopt” them as mine. The friend was of the belief that the team management brought in team managers from European and South American squads to help develop the team’s… image(?). From fan chants to the purple smoke bombs to pretty much everything else that exemplifies the relationship between the fans and the team, it was literally built from the ground up with the help of foreign professionals who know their way around this sort of thing. At least, that’s how my friend understood it.
Can you please explain to me how their mascot came to be a Rastafarian-looking lion? ETA: A Rasta-lion whose name is Kingston (a city in Jamaica)?
Not ‘talents’ but ‘havebeens’. Big difference, even if they are big names. Even Beckham, who one could argue was still an exceptional player went he went to LA Galaxy, was nowhere near the top of his game anymore.
They definitely have a HUGE presence here. We’re in a weird state of sport in this city because we don’t have a professional team*, and I doubt one would really work here, but we have sports all around us because of ESPN/Disney and Camping World Stadium. So pair that with a large Hispanic population and soccer makes a perfect fit. The games are fun to go to and the new stadium is beautiful. Although, I have to admit, I haven’t been to a Lions game in the new stadium because the tix are way more expensive and the atmosphere isn’t nearly as fun. That being said, I’ve gone to our women’s games a ton there.
As for Kingston, I have absolutely no idea why he is the way he is. I like my costumed mascots to be fun and cute and this dude IRL is scary and doesn’t look like he’s a good person to hang around with. The good news is he’s barely used.
Here is a crowdsourced list of the top soccer/football players in the world right now. How many of them are a) foreigners playing for American teams AND b) at the pinnacle of their careers? I’m asking genuinely, because I recognize most of the names but couldn’t tell you where they play to save my life.
That stereotype is long out of date. I believe in the last 20 or so Designated Player signings (that is one of the 3 players allowed above the maximum salary limit), only 2 have been over 30 years old. And this offseason, there have been 20 Latin American signings with the average age of 20.5 years old.
In fact, MLS’s average age is lower than Liga MX’s or England’s.
For example, Atlanta United, my club, has some really good young talents, including 24 year old Miguel Almiron (who will likely be sold to Europe this year), fellow 24 year old Josef Martinez, and they just signed 18 year Ezequiel Barco, one of the better young South American players.
It can go both ways for playoff baseball. The 1-0 Game 7 of the 1991 World Series was insanely gripping and entertaining. Plus it probably single-handedly helped the winning pitcher Jack Morris into the Hall of Fame. OTOH, the 13-12 Game 5 of last year’s World Series was exciting too, and probably will be talked about for decades.
As far as MLS teams’ skill goes, how do they do in multi-league competitive tournaments, like Champions League and such? Do teams from, e.g., the Premier League ever play teams from MLS in anything other than exhibitions?
A lot (most) of the European DPs are have-beens in the sense that weren’t at their peak in MLS,. However, recently a lot of them still have been really good and could have played in any of the top leagues for another couple years with continually declining productivity. Henry and David Villa in particular still had gas left in the tank. Schweinsteiger isn’t completely done either. Pirlo was in MLS the year after being in the Champions League final. 31-33 is probably the sweet spot for MLS designated players. That or 19 year old South Americans. A couple good years and then retire or move to Europe respectively.
And agreed with most of the others that MLS is comparable to the Championship or Bundesliga 2 and not the EPL or La Liga.
This reminds me rather of the situation in St. Louis, at least w/r/t soccer (I mention this because STL is about 100 miles from me).
Someone (I don’t know who) once said that St. Louis is the best soccer city without a soccer team. I can see it. For one thing, The Lou has a reputation for being a city with the most knowledgeable and most enthusiastic sports fans. For another, the city still retains much of its Italian-immigrant and German-immigrant heritage, and we all know how much Germans and Italians love soccer. Third, on the subject of Italians (plus a Haitian), the 1950 FIFA World Cup USMNT was comprised of part-time players from, you guessed it, St. Louis. All they did was BEAT ENGLAND in what is widely regarded as one of the most shocking upsets in the history of the game.
Nevertheless, plans to expand MLS into St. Louis have failed to materialize.
St. Louis University is the most successful college soccer program in US history. It hasn’t won anything in a while though. Scott Gallagher is a pretty successful youth club in the area too. But again, success there has moved to clubs run by MLS teams. I’m not super well versed in regional soccer culture, but t wouldn’t surprise me.
I think that list dates to 2014. On it, you have to get down to Schweinsteiger (at like 28th on the list) to get someone who is now playing in the MLS.
This list(warning–will ask you to whitelist) is from last summer, the 24 best players in the world according to FIFA. None play in the Americas at all, let alone in the MLS. None are native to North America (I mean, there’s one Costa Rican, so maybe technically NA, but yanno).
Now, are those really the best in the world? FIFA definitely has something of a European bias. But even if we wanted to squeeze in David Villa, or maybe Giovinco–and I honestly think it’s hard to make the case–it’s pretty clear that MLS as a whole does not attract the creamiest of the active player crop.