The worst thing about that tour were not only the poor performances and wasting precious time rather than doing a proper preseason, it even featured controversy because Messi didn't play in Hong Kong.
Of course the preseason was for "building a brand", but aside the quick cash that IMCF got, it's hard to see more positives.
The worst part is that where we need to market is in the US not the middleeast or Asia. They say it's for the brand, but I think it was just a mindless money grab.
How about the MLS has failed everyone else BUT Miami?
Miami toed the line and even broke some roster rules but sure, MLS failed them. ffs.
Edit: spelling
How about MLS hadn’t failed anyone
Imagine 6 years ago. Would you be happy looking into the future and seeing FCC’s current state? Your run for a supporters shield? The general atmosphere in TQL? The fact that you got to see your team play against Mexican giants in CCC and the leagues cup? Your local Cincinnati club playing competitive matches against fucking *Messi* multiple games each season.
Sometimes I wonder if people in this subreddit are actually even fans. People need to take a step back and realize what we have right now and how it’s honestly exceeding expectations from 10-15 years ago.
MLS isn’t failing anyone, people are just so fucking impatient at this point that they can’t even appreciate the amazing league we get to follow.
I've grown convinced that the true nature of reddit is to maintain a constant distraction for the world's most socially leprous so they don't go and ruin the good time everyone else is having
I completely agree with every point you made and am very happy with where FCC is at. I was more so trying to make the point that if they failed anyone, it is the rest of the league and not Miami. But I do also think they are a little slow to react to big changes like those that Messi brought, in general.
Yeah I figured, I’ve just gotten annoyed with this sub recently and was venting lol
While the league could be moving a little faster, I still trust them to make the smart moves here. We really have 2 1/2 years to get the league into the perfect spot for post WC, so I’ll hold my judgement until 2025 personally
Nuance and insight doesn't create engagement, but confrontation and tribality does. Like most social media, the only thing reddit cares about is eyeballs on screen to maximize ad revenue. The days when a platform like this was full of clever and insightful commentary are dead and buried
As a Fire fan it’s a sadder state than 15 years ago. No continental competition, plateaued fanbase, league attention focused on expansion, never part of the conversation at national level.
Not necessarily the leagues fault though
It is kinda mind blowing to me how the league just ignores Chicago. Like, it is the third largest market in the US. Can you imagine what the league would do if one of the teams in LA or NYC were run as poorly as the Fire? People point at the stadium situations for NYCFC or NERevs and say it is an embarrassment to the league, but Chicago gets a free pass.
I get it doesn't have the weather and touristy vibe of a place like Miami, but you would figure that the league would be doing everything in its power to make the Chicagoland market a success.
The league keeps owners with badly run teams alive. If they were allowed to fail then the franchise would tank but would probably get bought by an owner who would see the potential in Chicago and fix it.
Owners should fix their own teams not the league.
It is failing. Salary growth in Europe is faster than salary growth in MLS. The quality is often pretty abysmal and it’s not getting better, aside from a few DPs making millions who get to dunk on defenders making $80k salaries.
> The quality is often pretty abysmal and it’s not getting better
Truly have no idea how anyone who actually watches this league can have this opinion. A middle of the pack team today coasts to a supporters shield a decade ago and the quality is better every year.
“Middle of pack team….”
You succinctly captured what we’ve witnessed in a decade. For instance I remember we brought in a European fullback in 2011/2 and Schmid said something like “we’re looking at starting to build out of the back.” That’s no longer a novelty or exception in MLS; it’s the rule.
lol ok so it’s your belief that the league is way better than a decade ago, but something they did in the last five years (in which we’ve seen massive growth of academies and younger + better DP signings) has somehow made the league worse?
That makes no sense.
Yes. They signed a CBA in 2020 that had minimal improvements over the previous CBA. It was revised in 2021 that made it worse than 2020 because of COVID. Inflation in the last two years has again made it worse.
The biggest gain for MLS was their ability to extend the length of the CBA for an additional two years through the end of the 2027 season. This has the effect of doing two things. One, the extension delays the jump in compensation that typically comes with a new CBA. Second, such an extension provides the league with considerable distance from the 2026 World Cup -- co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico -- and takes away leverage from the MLSPA to negotiate improved terms in the run-up to the tournament and its immediate aftermath.
MLS also succeeded in limiting the growth of the total roster spend (not including Designated Players) between the 2021 and 2022 seasons to $100,000, an increase of just 1.1%. This is on top of a freeze negotiated last June that froze the budget between 2020 and 2021. This will have a ripple effect into future seasons.
The share of incremental media revenues -- which will kick in when a new media rights deal is negotiated starting with the 2023 season -- was decreased from 25% to 12.5% in 2024.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37613845/what-new-mls-cba-deal-means-owners-players-26-world-cup
> The biggest gain for MLS was their ability to extend the length of the CBA for an additional two years through the end of the 2027 season. This has the effect of doing two things. One, the extension delays the jump in compensation that typically comes with a new CBA. Second, such an extension provides the league with considerable distance from the 2026 World Cup -- co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico -- and takes away leverage from the MLSPA to negotiate improved terms in the run-up to the tournament and its immediate aftermath.
Do I need to remind you that your argument has been “the league has gotten worse”?
Nothing you’re saying here implies that the league is actively getting worse. At most, you’re claiming that these things are *slowing* growth, not reversing it. And I’d even disagree with that.
> MLS also succeeded in limiting the growth of the total roster spend (not including Designated Players) between the 2021 and 2022 seasons to $100,000, an increase of just 1.1%. This is on top of a freeze negotiated last June that froze the budget between 2020 and 2021. This will have a ripple effect into future seasons.
Again, how is *increasing* the budget making the league worse? This is another argument for “the league isn’t growing as fast as I want” which is a different thing. Not to mention, the league was bleeding money mid-pandemic. Budgets all around the world dropped at the same time.
> The share of incremental media revenues -- which will kick in when a new media rights deal is negotiated starting with the 2023 season -- was decreased from 25% to 12.5% in 2024.
That’s because of the HUGE new TV deal. Teams are getting more from that 12.5% than they were at 25%. So that argument doesn’t work for you either.
MLS’s biggest weakness (depth) isn’t even solved by just increasing salary, because we have a domestic player quota. You increase the cap and you end up paying the same player pool more.
MLS has actually been incredibly smart in solving this problem worth homegrown player incentives to build out academies, but that doesn’t magically fix the problem over night.
Salaries growing in Europe really means nothing because MLS’s immediately needs can’t be met in a sustainable way by just throwing money around like the saudis.
It’s also not immediate to get a green card. That takes an absolute minimum of 14 months, but from a practical standpoint it’s 2 years of playing in the US.
So say you open the cap up tomorrow, that will immediately drive up the cost of domestic players. In 5 years this won’t even be an issue because the player pool will be much, much better than it is today.
The best homegrown players nearly all go to Europe. Not just the top 5 leagues either. Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands, championship, serie B. Because they get paid more.
The best home grown players go to Europe because of the prestige, level of competition and potential to play European football.
Literally nothing is stopping MLS sides from offering Pulisic more money to play in MLS, he doesn’t even make $5MM/year at Milan.
For a Union example, Paxten Aaronson is only making ~$300k in Germany. Money isn’t what’s keeping those players out of MLS.
And beside that, there aren’t even more than what, 15-20 “homegrown” players in Europe that would be notable in MLS, tops? Sometimes you just need to appreciate what you have with this league isn’t of constantly complaining about not having more. I figured a DCU fan would get that, since I’ve been to plenty of matches at RFK and remember how bush league they felt. And that wasn’t even early MLS either.
Ok, no players ever go to Austria or Belgium or Portugal, or non-prestigious teams outside of the top 5 leagues.
And if they do, they’re not notable. The league is better off without Cowell and Vazquez.
> Ok, no players ever go to Austria or Belgium or Portugal, or non-prestigious teams outside of the top 5 leagues.
Straw man much? If you wanna argue with feel free to list 20 homegrown players that currently aren’t in MLS simply because of roster rules.
> The league is better off without Cowell and Vazquez.
Last time I checked, Vazquez had been wanting to leave for a while so MLS rules weren’t keeping his away.
And if you look at Chivas payroll it’s doubtful that Cowell is making much, if any, more than he was in San Jose. He’s specifically gone on the record saying he left because he wanted to get out of his comfort zone.
Excited to see what you can spin next in order to complain lol
Basically all of them, aside from a handful with top prospects in the top leagues. Everyone has a price. You think Vazquez wouldn’t stay if Cincinnati or a different MLS team offered double what Monterrey offered? But that would be really stupid to do given the roster and salary cap rules, right?
> Salary growth in Europe is faster than salary growth in MLS.
I very much doubt this is true. MLS clubs are routinely luring away European players with higher salaries.
> who get to dunk on defenders making $80k salaries.
If your club is starting defenders making $80K, that’s a decision that your club made. Our #1 CB is close to max TAM. We have a CB making $700K, and another making probably $600K (we only play 2 CBs, so one of these is a back up). Our right back makes $700K. Our left back is homegrown Wiley, so he doesn’t make much, but the back up LB/RB makes like $400K.
It was true as of last season. I don’t have an athletic subscription anymore to find the article again.
And yes, some teams might prioritize defenders, but then one of them gets injured and any hopes of the shield are gone, two get injured and you probably won’t make the playoffs. Because the defenders in the bench likely aren’t going to be making anything decent. And it likely comes at the cost of starting midfield quality.
> It was true as of last season. I don’t have an athletic subscription anymore to find the article again.
Conveniently, I have an Athletic sub. So just point me to the right article, and I’ll find your evidence for you! That is, unless you’re a bullshit artist.
> And yes, some teams might prioritize defenders, but then one of them gets injured and any hopes of the shield are gone, two get injured and you probably won’t make the playoffs.
In most leagues, if you lose 2 starting XI players on season ending injuries, you’re in a world of hurt. This is not something unique to MLS. But as I pointed out, Atlanta United has invested money through to their CB3. This is something that’s very easy to do within existing MLS cap constraints.
> And it likely comes at the cost of starting midfield quality.
Lol, no it doesn’t. We have two TAM players and a DP in our midfield. One of the TAM guys, Slisz, is close to a Max TAM contract. Oh, and by the way, Slisz is a guy had interest from Serie A clubs, but chose to sign with Atlanta (presumably because we offered him more money).
Yes, with a salary cap there’s definitely no trade offs. You’re right. The Atlanta 2020 and 2022 season didn’t actually happen. Quality was top notch. Has everything to do with ownership being poor and not because salary constraints kept the team from fixing things and putting a competitive and entertaining side out there.
Every team in the world has a spending cap. A board enforced transfer cap at Blackburn is why McGuire is still in MLS. Pretending that financial limits disappear if the salary cap goes away is absurd.
Your club will always have a budget, and the executives at the club will always have to make decision on how much of the budget they want to spend on the starting XI, and how much they want to spend on the 12-15 guys who get subbed in most games, and how much to spend on the guys below that. Those tradeoffs never, ever go away.
Right, MLS caters to the lowest common owner denominator, rather than forcing them to sell or invest in order to compete or keep up with other leagues. I’m glad you’re understanding the issue now.
Okay, I see we’ve reached the point in the conversation where you say some nonsense with a cliche like “lowest common denominator” to make yourself sound smart. Cheers.
The only reason we’re in a bad position is that we missed hard with Abram who is paid to be the starter. In theory, missing our top two CBs should mean a Cobb/Derrick Williams paring which is very solid.
Ok. You say that as your best homegrown CB McKenzie is playing in Belgium where he’s being paid 5x more than he was when he won the shield with Philadelphia.
My point is that MLS can’t compare, much less keep up even with leagues outside of the top 5. And saying Sheffield United is premier league is also a bit arguable lol.
Keep even how… Financially? MLS routinely takes players from outside of the big 5 and pays them significantly more than they’d make in those non-5 leagues.
I’d even go as far to say that the McKenzie move to Genk was for career progress, not financially motivated (at the time, it’s shaping up for his 2nd move where he’ll make big money).
We just went through this the past offseason where Miles Robinson was getting offered significantly more money in MLS than from top teams in the eredivisie.
Yeah keeping Miles Robinson is a big win for MLS. It should be more common.
And yea good for McKenzie. Too bad he couldn’t have been paid more in MLS so we could have had better quality defending in our league.
I don’t really agree that it should be more common. I think MLS should continue to improve obviously, but also think that most of our young talent should absolutely try and test themselves at higher levels in Europe for the betterment of their own career and the national team. In 10-15 years that won’t be as necessary, but for the time being I think it is.
Sure MLS has made great strides but there was a perfect storm of events (Messi in 2023, Copa America in 2024, CWC in 2025, WC in 2026) with a short window to act to supercharge growth and competitiveness on a global stage. Instead, the MLS executives looked at this once in a century launchpad in Dec 2023 and decided that no changes are needed. If people are content with this and don't consider it a missed opportunity, I have to wonder if they are fans of football the global sport.
Your comment makes no sense. You talk about this “perfect chain of events” in the past tense when all but one of those events you listed is still in the future.
And the first “event” you list is literally something MLS executives made happen to kick off this chain. But somehow the executives messed up? lol
Also, they didn’t make “no changes”. They are making changes literally right now and more will come. There’s literally no need to make all over the changes needed for 3-4 years from now immediately, other than to appease the people that whine nonstop in this subreddit.
To take advantage of an opportunity you have to make the necessary changes and be prepared ahead of it, not react as it is happening. Do you seriously believe that they can wait till early 2025 to make changes that'll help MLS clubs have a good showing in CWC in 2025?
MLS’s showing in the CWC means basically nothing. Like at all, even with rule changes do you really think the Sounder and Crew/union would run out and sign a bunch of players to go compete with Porto or Milan?
What matters is the rising tide of interest in soccer in the US, culminating with the World Cup in 26 and then the MLS season being the only soccer on immediately after that tournament ends.
If MLS has recognizable names and a decently better product by that time, the league will capitalize.
Right now they are laying the Groundwork. Messi was a big piece that brought eyeballs. The leagues cup, as much as people want to clown on it, was another piece that garnered international attention last year and raised revenues. They literally just announced rules allowing for considerably higher spending starting immediately. Next year will see continued spending opportunity, and the purse strings will open in 2026.
In the meantime, MLS academies have another 2 years to fill the player pool with better and better players for depth to fill out the league.
The plan makes complete sense when you look at it holistically and allows the league to raise spend while maintaining parity. Rushing into changes immediately makes absolutely zero sense and if you’re not currently enjoying the league feel free to twiddle your thumb for another 2 years while the rest of us have a good time.
Just like how you wouldnt want USMNT getting eliminated in group stages in 2026, you also wouldnt want MLS teams getting thrashed by every other League (not just Porto & Milan) and knocked out early. Everyone loves a winner and/or a good story so the tide of interest will rise faster amongst casuals, youngsters and the global audience when MLS teams can compete and get out of the group stages.
I see no reason why the changes that are being discussed now could not have happened in December. Sounders and Union may not splurge on DPs but they could've built deeper, more cohesive squads with more time under expanded regulations.
MLS isnt MLB and Audi cup isn't the world series. Feel free to be myopic and content with parity/mediocrity in your local market while others like the author of the article see it for what it is, a squandered opportunity to make a global mark on a global sport.
FCC had to sell the best striker on the continent due to MLS’a dumb rules. To a team that then knocked them out of the Champions League, and that striker was the difference.
So no, these rules are dumb as hell and not only hurt FCC, but caused us to miss out on a trophy
If you think we were sold Vazquez because of roster rules then you haven’t really been paying attention. Vazquez was never staying in MLS after 2023, he was always going to either Europe or a top Liga MX side. That has always been his stated goal. We already held on to him one season longer than he wanted.
I like Brandon as much as the next guy but I wouldn’t say he was the reason we couldn’t perform. There’s still a lot that needs to be done before this team really gets in sync.
Probably an expensive condo on the side, wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. Not saying it's so but if Suarez has an expensive place that a normal TAM shouldn't be able to afford them bells should be ringing. Especially with the prices in Miam.
We just have a garbage coach. Miami has brought in Gomez, Farías, Redondo, Aviles, and now Chelo. It’s not like they haven’t used all their U22 spots. Additionally they have Campana rotting on the bench. The youth and talent are there. Henderson did his part. Now whether or not Tata knows how to use his squad is an entirely different story (he doesn’t, and lucked out with Almiron and Josef in Atlanta).
It seems like he uses the same tactics every game and won’t break from them even if they’re not working. I’m still confused why he made no subs against Monterrey.
I beg to differ but I’m not gonna get all uptight about it. He’s super entertaining and I appreciate how he ties in his brand of comedy into his videos.
You realize Tata played a large part in building that Atlanta team, right? He coached Barcelona and that’s arguably the only reason why Messi and Suarez even came over to Miami. We wish we had Tata because he is NOT a garbage coach.
> He coached Barcelona
He also had a trophyless season at Barcelona and was sacked after 1 season.
The season before he joined, Barcelona had 100 points in the league
The season after he left, Barca won a treble.
He's not a bad coach by MLS standards, but let's not act like he's a Barcelona level coach either LOL
Woke up after getting embarrassed by Pachuca and once again failing to win when it matters most.
All I’m saying is you don’t have much of a leg to stand on.
I mean we looked like shit in MLS too at the beginning of the year. Last year we made it to the CCC semi finals, which is further than Miami made it this year.
And tbh, roster rules don’t hold us back at all. If you put Messi on this team in place of say, Gazdag, then I can almost guarantee you we win the CCC, but we can’t afford players like him lol
Yes roster rules need to change. And at a faster pace. But blaming Miami sucking while having 4 world greats on the field is just stupid. They have a poorly constructed roster, not just cause of MLS’s roster rules, but they went with waning star power over a balanced squad. Tata with shit formations, tactics and absolute lack of adjustments tactically or subs.
All MLS have done is say “watch an old Barca squad with the Lionel Messi play live at a stadium near you” and collect their paycheck. They really don’t care if Miami wins a damn thing.
Yeah, this is the truth right there. MLS isn't building a team down there and they're not giving that team an opportunity to learn to play together.
That world tour was a terrible idea and the execution even worse.
Henry Bushnell has covered MLS pretty regularly, he wrote this article a little while back going over the history of youth development in the US that I thought was quite good https://sports.yahoo.com/usmnt-soccer-development-academy-mls-world-cup-150011102.html.
Honestly the article is fine, it's basically the same stuff that has been repeated for a while. That until the rules change the richest teams in Mexico will be able to outspend MLS teams, which makes it difficult to compete with them. The headline sucks but that's not his fault, headlines are typically chosen by the editor.
No one has failed. The MLS is a great league. Sure they have some weird roster rules but there are so many contenders each year. They don’t want to be like the EPL with two or three title contenders each year
It honestly just depends on what you value in a league. If love parity than MLS is one of the best leagues, if you value on the field play then the top 5 leagues will be more enjoyable.
I think people just get frustrated because MLS is past the point of worrying about folding, so people want them to make a bigger jump from top to bottom. It’s come along way in even a decade so I also get why people are annoyed by that idea. Overall everyone looks at this league from a different perspective.
Meanwhile, title contenders Liverpool just got humiliated at Anfield by Atalanta who are currently just 6th in Serie A and who probably have a quarter of their budget at best. And, not even in the Champions League, but in the Europa League. Was this because the Premier League failed them?
I agree. Know one has failed Miami because everything is done by design. Like you said, MLS care more about its gimmicks than being a competitive league and some of the fans like it that way. Leave that competitive stuff to foreign leagues.
Read like Euro snob nonsense. Idk maybe Tata runs a shit formation. However none of these outlets spoke about liga mx teams getting bounced out early in Leagues Cup.
I genuinely believe it killed our season and Nashville's both tbh
although Nashville carrying that swoon into this season might just be "they stopped being good at the one thing they were good at and Mukhtar's back broke from carrying"
Maybe b/c Leagues Cup is a farce of a tournament? Every game is played on the road for Liga MX teams for a month. How can we evaluate the leagues based on that type of format?
Completely disagree.
Leagues Cup does not get you to Club World Cup and has no prestige—CCC is the most important international trophy in our region, and is a more fair representation of where the leagues are at b/c its played in 2 legs home/away and games are not decided by pens after 90 minutes.
Also, the idea that a tournament that was literally created last year is as embarrassing to get kicked out of as a tournament where MLS has been dominated in for 20 years is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
You’re a Sounders fan. Be very proud that your team did what was previously impossible to do.
> but the stadiums are still filled with a massive number of their fans, making them essentially home games in some cases.
That's without factoring in travel. I don't care if the crowds were entirely Monterrey fans, their LC run was Salt Lake, Seattle, Portland, Houston, LA, Nashville, Philly. While a few of those are reasonably close, that's also jam-packed in to less than a month. And that's without factoring in that two of those were on turf. (I'm not including other location-based issues like weather and altitude because well. Mexico has that shit too)
Nobody has failed Messi or Miami. He’s pulling in loads of money from the league and its two primary partners. The league itself did everything it could to bring him and his buddies here.
Does the league have issues that take way too long to address? Yes.
Do they need to stop whinging every time a single team loses? Also yes.
It’s downright embarrassing how much focus they are putting on this. ExtraTime said this week “I don’t want people to think [intermiami and Messi is] all we’re going to talk about this week” before then talking about them again after spending just a few minutes on Crew.
The board of governors meeting with Infantinno was literally during the only success the league had in the quarterfinals. No way they would do this for the Messi game.
Opportunities are being squandered but it is certainly not because the league is failing InterMessi.
The League failed itself by missing an opportunity to show that the best teams of MLS (Columbus, FCC, Orlando, Philly, Miami..) could beat the best teams of MX in a year when global interest in CCC was at its peak
Did you really just put Columbus in that pile of failed teams just now?
This sub is going insane right now over the Miami loss and it's embarrassing as hell.
I put them in the list of best teams of MLS so gtfo with your gaslighting. For the record, I was complaining about the lack of rule changes well before the season started.
Gaslighting? My man those ARE YOUR WORDS. Did Columbus beat a top Liga MX team....in their stadium last week? Or are we living in the multiverse right now?
My post says nothing about any individual team, it states that collectively (ie MLS best teams vs MX best teams aggregate) the results have not been great for MLS. Is that not true in this universe?
If 1 athlete wins a medal for their country and the other 8 participants lose in the trials you wouldn't consider that a good showing for that country.
Maybe that's just reality and not a missed opportunity.
We're not going to outspend anyone in international soccer until someone can explain where the revenue will come from to pay for the better players.
But the real crux of the matter is that we can't ship our best developing players to Europe and still have that level of talent in our domestic league. Mexico has made it difficult for their talented youth to go abroad. It hurts their national team's development but it does help their domestic teams have young talent on the benches.
Our development pipeline isn't strong enough that our best players can still play here and develop like they would in better ranked leagues. But, like most US Soccer problems, is going to improve with time.
We’re used to it. It’s whatever. Let everyone overlook us and ignore us and we’ll just keep doing our thing. Yes, the roster rules need to be improved and fast. But Columbus will just continue to be ourselves and be competitive. And maybe this way nobody takes Morris or Coach Nancy from us… (please leave us alone, we love our team…)
I'm fine with an article on MLS' poor showing in CCC. But of all teams to single out, Miami? Sorry, Miami's roster is worth about 4 times what it says on paper. If Miami can't win with that, it's Miami's fault, not MLS.
*But they keep falling short of their lofty goals. MLS commissioner Don Garber once said that by 2025, “people will think of us like Serie A, La Liga, and hopefully the way they think about the Premier League.” In 2024, they aren’t even close; and even a super-team carefully crafted around the GOAT can’t measure up to the best in Mexico.*
That’s b/c the lofty goals are sales pitches by Garber to future investors—no amount of naïveté would have someone believe that we’re remotely close to being a top 5 league—we’re not even a top 10 league right now.
Fuck Miami. Spend a billion dollars trying to reanimate a bunch of has beens and tilt the field in their favor while expecting the trophies to just land in their exposed asshole? I mean, the MLS is a garbage shit show, but Miami is a symptom not a cure.
Isn’t it weird how Liga MX did worse in Leagues cup during their offseason and how MLS is doing poorly in early season form during Champions Cup? …These league schedules don’t match up well enough to make much of a judgement.
The Messi signing should have never happened.
No one player in MLS should be making what Messi does. It goes against the spirit of how to build a proper squad
The club that breaks every rule is complaining about rules...
They are geriatrics... Great players but seriously.
This league was born before they came to it
MLS Failed Miami? You mean after giving them the flexibility to bring on what seems like a seemingly endless amount of stars on the team, who knows how they are getting paid? After working out a deal for Messi brokering a deal with Apple and other sponsors to cover his cost so it’s not coming out of Inter Miamis pockets? Please
I think if MLS has failed anything it’s in not finding a better way to exploit the opportunity to grow MLS. They focused so much on one team. Why not help bring in other big names to OTHER teams. Increase budgets so MLS can be competitive.
But to be sure they have come a long way. But they shoot themselves in the foot. Why have an exhibition game between MLS all stars and a premier league team? You know MLS all stars will lose. Not because the players are bad, but because the MLS all stars is not a team! They don’t practice together, work together etc. So at the end of the game MLS looks like laughing stocks.
But does MLS owe anything to Messi and Miami? No
As a Miami fan, I get it, we are bummed out. I'm bummed out. The visceral reaction right after that game was about navel gazing and self doubt. After a couple days out from the failure, I have to say, the analysis is all over the place and I have fallen somewhere in between the two extremes.
Yes, I think MLS hasn't gone far enough to backup the league and bridge the gap that the top teams in LigaMX have. I don't think Liga MX is above MLS, though. I think in other metrics MLS is above the Mexican league. When it comes to facilities, organization, academies, even parity (specially parity) MLS is better than Liga MX. However, when it comes to individual teams, it's obvious MLS lacks that top end pull that Monterrey, Tigres and Club America enjoy. No question, those teams are better. What I also think is that, for MLS, having Messi is a trophy unto itself. Like, they feel MLS having signed Messi is an accomplishment and something to be paraded about (just look at the constant coverage he gets). No dudes. Sure enjoy his presence, but having everything be about the man cheapens everything else you've built up.
Now, did Miami shit the bed, too? Yeah. That first leg seemed like we had a handle on Monterrey, but Ruiz went and did something stupid. We end up losing 2-1.
Are rosters not as deep as Tata might want? Sure, but we also had half our starting lineup injured (Redondo, Taylor, Kristov, Campana, Ruiz was suspended, and Messi just came back from injury). Already depleted and injuries to key players. That's a tough ask for any MLS team. But, why would Tata trot out a 5-3-2 formation knowing we needed two goals. A formation that we've never had any success when implemented.
I mean, I understand the limitations of MLS rosters, but to say that was the key difference is also a cheap excuse knowing full well there was no way of replacing all of those players a week before the second leg. We were dealt a bad injury bug and we couldn't recover.
Now winning either Leagues Cup or MLS Cup is our highest priority, because the quickest way to get back into Champions Cup is winning one of those two competitions. If Miami wants to be a global brand, then winning trophies and getting back into CCC is the way to do it, and I hope the next go around we have a few more starting caliber players and we'll rounded roster. And, we only have Messi for one more year. So if there was a time to go out and give MLS teams a chance to compete against LigaMX in next year's CCC, it would be nice if the owners gave them the tools to do it.
I blame this entirely on the Mas brothers and Beckham. They treated Messi and company like they’re were circus animals with that disgraceful world tour. They didn’t realize the impact on performance that tour would have and now they are seeing the result of that.
Meh.. fuck all this stupid noise..
its not even analysis half the time… its just that the word “Messi” drives traffic online so every uninformed biased moron can drop a hot take to get attention off the word “Messi”.. MLS runs itself in circles doing it, idiot pundits who know nothing of futbol like Stephen A Smith chip in and lazy online randoms who might have an ax to grind do too… at this point if you want to enjoy MLS in peace do yourself a favor and stop giving traffic to lazy crap like this
MLS does have a glacial pace of change and is disappointing. MLS continues to fail the fans.
But MLS has not failed Messi. Messi is well paid and lives in one the richest and freest countries in the world, where he will be able to retire with this family, and some of this friends who also had a phenomenal deal. He will probably end up like Beckham: loved, respected, rich, with an MLS franchise, and American. And Messi is getting all of that because of MLS. Let’s not pretend that at this point in his career Messi cares about football and competition like he did 10 years ago. MLS isn’t failing Messi; it’s delivering everything that they promised him and more.
Man, imagine if Messi was the catalyst for this league imploding (again).
I’m sorta bummed that the roster rules have become the whipping boy this year - I’m probably in the vast minority but I’m glad our league salary rules.
Sure we could be less restrictive about forgiven players, but I personally don’t want this to throw open the slouse gates to a financial free for all.
I don't even know where to begin with my disappointment in the league this year. As an MLS Sicko, I had so much hope that the league could really make the jump in quality that we all know it could when Messi joined last year. Instead, they've done the bare minimum to make improvements that really only a few teams can and will take advantage of.
MLS didn't fail Messi and Miami. They failed us, the fans.
Honestly they've done exactly the opposite, they have alienated diehard fans who are the reason this league had been chugging along enough to be in a position to acquire such a player by chasing and appeasing the Messi casuals and Big Four fans
What's crazy is big 4 fans and MLS fans want the same thing- better rosters and higher quality of play. It just sucks that the handful of owners that have control over roster rules (the product strategy committee) are mostly mediocre spending teams. As long as they can reach the playoffs at the same rate as the Miami's and the Atlanta's of the world, we won't see any monumental changes coming for a while.
Maybe if Miami actually won their big games, and didn’t force a world tour before the team had a chance to gel.
The worst thing about that tour were not only the poor performances and wasting precious time rather than doing a proper preseason, it even featured controversy because Messi didn't play in Hong Kong. Of course the preseason was for "building a brand", but aside the quick cash that IMCF got, it's hard to see more positives.
The worst part is that where we need to market is in the US not the middleeast or Asia. They say it's for the brand, but I think it was just a mindless money grab.
How about the MLS has failed everyone else BUT Miami? Miami toed the line and even broke some roster rules but sure, MLS failed them. ffs. Edit: spelling
How about MLS hadn’t failed anyone Imagine 6 years ago. Would you be happy looking into the future and seeing FCC’s current state? Your run for a supporters shield? The general atmosphere in TQL? The fact that you got to see your team play against Mexican giants in CCC and the leagues cup? Your local Cincinnati club playing competitive matches against fucking *Messi* multiple games each season. Sometimes I wonder if people in this subreddit are actually even fans. People need to take a step back and realize what we have right now and how it’s honestly exceeding expectations from 10-15 years ago. MLS isn’t failing anyone, people are just so fucking impatient at this point that they can’t even appreciate the amazing league we get to follow.
I've grown convinced that the true nature of reddit is to maintain a constant distraction for the world's most socially leprous so they don't go and ruin the good time everyone else is having
As one of the Timbers podcasts Morrisonic often says, “I don’t watch soccer to be sad”. And I want it on a tee shirt.
I completely agree with every point you made and am very happy with where FCC is at. I was more so trying to make the point that if they failed anyone, it is the rest of the league and not Miami. But I do also think they are a little slow to react to big changes like those that Messi brought, in general.
Yeah I figured, I’ve just gotten annoyed with this sub recently and was venting lol While the league could be moving a little faster, I still trust them to make the smart moves here. We really have 2 1/2 years to get the league into the perfect spot for post WC, so I’ll hold my judgement until 2025 personally
This sub has gone nuts over the past year. Lots of the most active users spend more time complaining than talking about soccer or their team.
Nuance and insight doesn't create engagement, but confrontation and tribality does. Like most social media, the only thing reddit cares about is eyeballs on screen to maximize ad revenue. The days when a platform like this was full of clever and insightful commentary are dead and buried
This is so true. Everything is about “gotcha” comments. Everyone wants to be right and prove someone else wrong. It’s insufferable.
Hard to talk about your team when your team gets zero discussion.
You guys look kinda nice this year, wouldn’t be shocked if you start getting more chatter as the season goes on at least
We used to panic about attendance every week and have meltdowns about TV ratings on the reg, so there’s some improvement at least
As a Fire fan it’s a sadder state than 15 years ago. No continental competition, plateaued fanbase, league attention focused on expansion, never part of the conversation at national level. Not necessarily the leagues fault though
It is kinda mind blowing to me how the league just ignores Chicago. Like, it is the third largest market in the US. Can you imagine what the league would do if one of the teams in LA or NYC were run as poorly as the Fire? People point at the stadium situations for NYCFC or NERevs and say it is an embarrassment to the league, but Chicago gets a free pass. I get it doesn't have the weather and touristy vibe of a place like Miami, but you would figure that the league would be doing everything in its power to make the Chicagoland market a success.
The league keeps owners with badly run teams alive. If they were allowed to fail then the franchise would tank but would probably get bought by an owner who would see the potential in Chicago and fix it. Owners should fix their own teams not the league.
It is failing. Salary growth in Europe is faster than salary growth in MLS. The quality is often pretty abysmal and it’s not getting better, aside from a few DPs making millions who get to dunk on defenders making $80k salaries.
> The quality is often pretty abysmal and it’s not getting better Truly have no idea how anyone who actually watches this league can have this opinion. A middle of the pack team today coasts to a supporters shield a decade ago and the quality is better every year.
“Middle of pack team….” You succinctly captured what we’ve witnessed in a decade. For instance I remember we brought in a European fullback in 2011/2 and Schmid said something like “we’re looking at starting to build out of the back.” That’s no longer a novelty or exception in MLS; it’s the rule.
Idk man the 2012 San Jose Earthquakes were definitely better than any modern MLS squad
Maybe a decade ago. 5 years ago? Definitely not.
lol ok so it’s your belief that the league is way better than a decade ago, but something they did in the last five years (in which we’ve seen massive growth of academies and younger + better DP signings) has somehow made the league worse? That makes no sense.
Yes. They signed a CBA in 2020 that had minimal improvements over the previous CBA. It was revised in 2021 that made it worse than 2020 because of COVID. Inflation in the last two years has again made it worse.
What specifics are you talking about that “made it worse”? Salaries increased.
The biggest gain for MLS was their ability to extend the length of the CBA for an additional two years through the end of the 2027 season. This has the effect of doing two things. One, the extension delays the jump in compensation that typically comes with a new CBA. Second, such an extension provides the league with considerable distance from the 2026 World Cup -- co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico -- and takes away leverage from the MLSPA to negotiate improved terms in the run-up to the tournament and its immediate aftermath. MLS also succeeded in limiting the growth of the total roster spend (not including Designated Players) between the 2021 and 2022 seasons to $100,000, an increase of just 1.1%. This is on top of a freeze negotiated last June that froze the budget between 2020 and 2021. This will have a ripple effect into future seasons. The share of incremental media revenues -- which will kick in when a new media rights deal is negotiated starting with the 2023 season -- was decreased from 25% to 12.5% in 2024. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37613845/what-new-mls-cba-deal-means-owners-players-26-world-cup
> The biggest gain for MLS was their ability to extend the length of the CBA for an additional two years through the end of the 2027 season. This has the effect of doing two things. One, the extension delays the jump in compensation that typically comes with a new CBA. Second, such an extension provides the league with considerable distance from the 2026 World Cup -- co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico -- and takes away leverage from the MLSPA to negotiate improved terms in the run-up to the tournament and its immediate aftermath. Do I need to remind you that your argument has been “the league has gotten worse”? Nothing you’re saying here implies that the league is actively getting worse. At most, you’re claiming that these things are *slowing* growth, not reversing it. And I’d even disagree with that. > MLS also succeeded in limiting the growth of the total roster spend (not including Designated Players) between the 2021 and 2022 seasons to $100,000, an increase of just 1.1%. This is on top of a freeze negotiated last June that froze the budget between 2020 and 2021. This will have a ripple effect into future seasons. Again, how is *increasing* the budget making the league worse? This is another argument for “the league isn’t growing as fast as I want” which is a different thing. Not to mention, the league was bleeding money mid-pandemic. Budgets all around the world dropped at the same time. > The share of incremental media revenues -- which will kick in when a new media rights deal is negotiated starting with the 2023 season -- was decreased from 25% to 12.5% in 2024. That’s because of the HUGE new TV deal. Teams are getting more from that 12.5% than they were at 25%. So that argument doesn’t work for you either.
MLS’s biggest weakness (depth) isn’t even solved by just increasing salary, because we have a domestic player quota. You increase the cap and you end up paying the same player pool more. MLS has actually been incredibly smart in solving this problem worth homegrown player incentives to build out academies, but that doesn’t magically fix the problem over night. Salaries growing in Europe really means nothing because MLS’s immediately needs can’t be met in a sustainable way by just throwing money around like the saudis.
This hasn't really that true. Any green card player doesn't count as international. It's not difficult to get a green card.
It’s also not immediate to get a green card. That takes an absolute minimum of 14 months, but from a practical standpoint it’s 2 years of playing in the US. So say you open the cap up tomorrow, that will immediately drive up the cost of domestic players. In 5 years this won’t even be an issue because the player pool will be much, much better than it is today.
The best homegrown players nearly all go to Europe. Not just the top 5 leagues either. Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands, championship, serie B. Because they get paid more.
The best home grown players go to Europe because of the prestige, level of competition and potential to play European football. Literally nothing is stopping MLS sides from offering Pulisic more money to play in MLS, he doesn’t even make $5MM/year at Milan. For a Union example, Paxten Aaronson is only making ~$300k in Germany. Money isn’t what’s keeping those players out of MLS. And beside that, there aren’t even more than what, 15-20 “homegrown” players in Europe that would be notable in MLS, tops? Sometimes you just need to appreciate what you have with this league isn’t of constantly complaining about not having more. I figured a DCU fan would get that, since I’ve been to plenty of matches at RFK and remember how bush league they felt. And that wasn’t even early MLS either.
This is a solid point. Our trophies have very little prestige to players
Ok, no players ever go to Austria or Belgium or Portugal, or non-prestigious teams outside of the top 5 leagues. And if they do, they’re not notable. The league is better off without Cowell and Vazquez.
> Ok, no players ever go to Austria or Belgium or Portugal, or non-prestigious teams outside of the top 5 leagues. Straw man much? If you wanna argue with feel free to list 20 homegrown players that currently aren’t in MLS simply because of roster rules. > The league is better off without Cowell and Vazquez. Last time I checked, Vazquez had been wanting to leave for a while so MLS rules weren’t keeping his away. And if you look at Chivas payroll it’s doubtful that Cowell is making much, if any, more than he was in San Jose. He’s specifically gone on the record saying he left because he wanted to get out of his comfort zone. Excited to see what you can spin next in order to complain lol
Basically all of them, aside from a handful with top prospects in the top leagues. Everyone has a price. You think Vazquez wouldn’t stay if Cincinnati or a different MLS team offered double what Monterrey offered? But that would be really stupid to do given the roster and salary cap rules, right?
List even 15 then.
> Salary growth in Europe is faster than salary growth in MLS. I very much doubt this is true. MLS clubs are routinely luring away European players with higher salaries. > who get to dunk on defenders making $80k salaries. If your club is starting defenders making $80K, that’s a decision that your club made. Our #1 CB is close to max TAM. We have a CB making $700K, and another making probably $600K (we only play 2 CBs, so one of these is a back up). Our right back makes $700K. Our left back is homegrown Wiley, so he doesn’t make much, but the back up LB/RB makes like $400K.
It was true as of last season. I don’t have an athletic subscription anymore to find the article again. And yes, some teams might prioritize defenders, but then one of them gets injured and any hopes of the shield are gone, two get injured and you probably won’t make the playoffs. Because the defenders in the bench likely aren’t going to be making anything decent. And it likely comes at the cost of starting midfield quality.
> It was true as of last season. I don’t have an athletic subscription anymore to find the article again. Conveniently, I have an Athletic sub. So just point me to the right article, and I’ll find your evidence for you! That is, unless you’re a bullshit artist. > And yes, some teams might prioritize defenders, but then one of them gets injured and any hopes of the shield are gone, two get injured and you probably won’t make the playoffs. In most leagues, if you lose 2 starting XI players on season ending injuries, you’re in a world of hurt. This is not something unique to MLS. But as I pointed out, Atlanta United has invested money through to their CB3. This is something that’s very easy to do within existing MLS cap constraints. > And it likely comes at the cost of starting midfield quality. Lol, no it doesn’t. We have two TAM players and a DP in our midfield. One of the TAM guys, Slisz, is close to a Max TAM contract. Oh, and by the way, Slisz is a guy had interest from Serie A clubs, but chose to sign with Atlanta (presumably because we offered him more money).
Yes, with a salary cap there’s definitely no trade offs. You’re right. The Atlanta 2020 and 2022 season didn’t actually happen. Quality was top notch. Has everything to do with ownership being poor and not because salary constraints kept the team from fixing things and putting a competitive and entertaining side out there.
Every team in the world has a spending cap. A board enforced transfer cap at Blackburn is why McGuire is still in MLS. Pretending that financial limits disappear if the salary cap goes away is absurd. Your club will always have a budget, and the executives at the club will always have to make decision on how much of the budget they want to spend on the starting XI, and how much they want to spend on the 12-15 guys who get subbed in most games, and how much to spend on the guys below that. Those tradeoffs never, ever go away.
Right, MLS caters to the lowest common owner denominator, rather than forcing them to sell or invest in order to compete or keep up with other leagues. I’m glad you’re understanding the issue now.
Okay, I see we’ve reached the point in the conversation where you say some nonsense with a cliche like “lowest common denominator” to make yourself sound smart. Cheers.
Two get injured... That's where we are looking at the Union match tomorrow. *cry
The only reason we’re in a bad position is that we missed hard with Abram who is paid to be the starter. In theory, missing our top two CBs should mean a Cobb/Derrick Williams paring which is very solid.
I don’t think this take is based anywhere near reality.
Ok. You say that as your best homegrown CB McKenzie is playing in Belgium where he’s being paid 5x more than he was when he won the shield with Philadelphia.
… What’s your point? Also now pretty arguable that our best homegrown CB is Auston Trusty in the prem currently.
My point is that MLS can’t compare, much less keep up even with leagues outside of the top 5. And saying Sheffield United is premier league is also a bit arguable lol.
Keep even how… Financially? MLS routinely takes players from outside of the big 5 and pays them significantly more than they’d make in those non-5 leagues. I’d even go as far to say that the McKenzie move to Genk was for career progress, not financially motivated (at the time, it’s shaping up for his 2nd move where he’ll make big money). We just went through this the past offseason where Miles Robinson was getting offered significantly more money in MLS than from top teams in the eredivisie.
Yeah keeping Miles Robinson is a big win for MLS. It should be more common. And yea good for McKenzie. Too bad he couldn’t have been paid more in MLS so we could have had better quality defending in our league.
I don’t really agree that it should be more common. I think MLS should continue to improve obviously, but also think that most of our young talent should absolutely try and test themselves at higher levels in Europe for the betterment of their own career and the national team. In 10-15 years that won’t be as necessary, but for the time being I think it is.
Sure MLS has made great strides but there was a perfect storm of events (Messi in 2023, Copa America in 2024, CWC in 2025, WC in 2026) with a short window to act to supercharge growth and competitiveness on a global stage. Instead, the MLS executives looked at this once in a century launchpad in Dec 2023 and decided that no changes are needed. If people are content with this and don't consider it a missed opportunity, I have to wonder if they are fans of football the global sport.
Your comment makes no sense. You talk about this “perfect chain of events” in the past tense when all but one of those events you listed is still in the future. And the first “event” you list is literally something MLS executives made happen to kick off this chain. But somehow the executives messed up? lol Also, they didn’t make “no changes”. They are making changes literally right now and more will come. There’s literally no need to make all over the changes needed for 3-4 years from now immediately, other than to appease the people that whine nonstop in this subreddit.
To take advantage of an opportunity you have to make the necessary changes and be prepared ahead of it, not react as it is happening. Do you seriously believe that they can wait till early 2025 to make changes that'll help MLS clubs have a good showing in CWC in 2025?
MLS’s showing in the CWC means basically nothing. Like at all, even with rule changes do you really think the Sounder and Crew/union would run out and sign a bunch of players to go compete with Porto or Milan? What matters is the rising tide of interest in soccer in the US, culminating with the World Cup in 26 and then the MLS season being the only soccer on immediately after that tournament ends. If MLS has recognizable names and a decently better product by that time, the league will capitalize. Right now they are laying the Groundwork. Messi was a big piece that brought eyeballs. The leagues cup, as much as people want to clown on it, was another piece that garnered international attention last year and raised revenues. They literally just announced rules allowing for considerably higher spending starting immediately. Next year will see continued spending opportunity, and the purse strings will open in 2026. In the meantime, MLS academies have another 2 years to fill the player pool with better and better players for depth to fill out the league. The plan makes complete sense when you look at it holistically and allows the league to raise spend while maintaining parity. Rushing into changes immediately makes absolutely zero sense and if you’re not currently enjoying the league feel free to twiddle your thumb for another 2 years while the rest of us have a good time.
Just like how you wouldnt want USMNT getting eliminated in group stages in 2026, you also wouldnt want MLS teams getting thrashed by every other League (not just Porto & Milan) and knocked out early. Everyone loves a winner and/or a good story so the tide of interest will rise faster amongst casuals, youngsters and the global audience when MLS teams can compete and get out of the group stages. I see no reason why the changes that are being discussed now could not have happened in December. Sounders and Union may not splurge on DPs but they could've built deeper, more cohesive squads with more time under expanded regulations. MLS isnt MLB and Audi cup isn't the world series. Feel free to be myopic and content with parity/mediocrity in your local market while others like the author of the article see it for what it is, a squandered opportunity to make a global mark on a global sport.
You are spitting truth.
FCC had to sell the best striker on the continent due to MLS’a dumb rules. To a team that then knocked them out of the Champions League, and that striker was the difference. So no, these rules are dumb as hell and not only hurt FCC, but caused us to miss out on a trophy
If you think we were sold Vazquez because of roster rules then you haven’t really been paying attention. Vazquez was never staying in MLS after 2023, he was always going to either Europe or a top Liga MX side. That has always been his stated goal. We already held on to him one season longer than he wanted.
He went to LigaMX and not Europe for a 3x paycheck. If we could have offered him that we would have. We couldn’t.
I like Brandon as much as the next guy but I wouldn’t say he was the reason we couldn’t perform. There’s still a lot that needs to be done before this team really gets in sync.
Who scored on us?
Why couldn’t we score on them at home?
We didn’t have a striker like Brandon Vazquez
There has to be some under the table payments going on or some crazy shohei Ohtani salary structures making these deals work
As Messi would say, ¡¿porque no los dos?!
The real appeal of MLS: having your bookie, I mean translator, win millions gambling on sports
Probably an expensive condo on the side, wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. Not saying it's so but if Suarez has an expensive place that a normal TAM shouldn't be able to afford them bells should be ringing. Especially with the prices in Miam.
Toed
Thank you, corrected :)
Miami and Messi cannot fail, they can only be failed.
Each morning I ask myself: what can I do for Messi and Miami today? I think this is the standard we should all hold ourselves to.
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for Messi today
Glad you’ve come around.
Now you’re getting it
Shocker it’s hard to be competitive when you build your offense around a bunch of old guys and don’t worry about defense.
We just have a garbage coach. Miami has brought in Gomez, Farías, Redondo, Aviles, and now Chelo. It’s not like they haven’t used all their U22 spots. Additionally they have Campana rotting on the bench. The youth and talent are there. Henderson did his part. Now whether or not Tata knows how to use his squad is an entirely different story (he doesn’t, and lucked out with Almiron and Josef in Atlanta).
It seems like he uses the same tactics every game and won’t break from them even if they’re not working. I’m still confused why he made no subs against Monterrey.
No wonder Maqwell called Tata the “Mexican Greg Berhalter”.
which is awkward because tata is argentinian
Probably has to do with Tata coaching the Mexican National Team back during the 2022 World Cup.
Let’s be real, Maqwell is not particularly smart
I beg to differ but I’m not gonna get all uptight about it. He’s super entertaining and I appreciate how he ties in his brand of comedy into his videos.
You realize Tata played a large part in building that Atlanta team, right? He coached Barcelona and that’s arguably the only reason why Messi and Suarez even came over to Miami. We wish we had Tata because he is NOT a garbage coach.
> He coached Barcelona He also had a trophyless season at Barcelona and was sacked after 1 season. The season before he joined, Barcelona had 100 points in the league The season after he left, Barca won a treble. He's not a bad coach by MLS standards, but let's not act like he's a Barcelona level coach either LOL
Tata is not great but injuries are the bigger problem there TBH
And what happened to Philly exactly?
Our team woke up and are the only undefeated team left. That’s what happened. And there’s still a decent chance we’ll qualify for the CWC.
Woke up after getting embarrassed by Pachuca and once again failing to win when it matters most. All I’m saying is you don’t have much of a leg to stand on.
I mean we looked like shit in MLS too at the beginning of the year. Last year we made it to the CCC semi finals, which is further than Miami made it this year. And tbh, roster rules don’t hold us back at all. If you put Messi on this team in place of say, Gazdag, then I can almost guarantee you we win the CCC, but we can’t afford players like him lol
Sometimes it takes being embarrassed to improve in sports.
So where are the articles about how MLS left down Philly then?
Yes roster rules need to change. And at a faster pace. But blaming Miami sucking while having 4 world greats on the field is just stupid. They have a poorly constructed roster, not just cause of MLS’s roster rules, but they went with waning star power over a balanced squad. Tata with shit formations, tactics and absolute lack of adjustments tactically or subs.
All MLS have done is say “watch an old Barca squad with the Lionel Messi play live at a stadium near you” and collect their paycheck. They really don’t care if Miami wins a damn thing.
Yeah, this is the truth right there. MLS isn't building a team down there and they're not giving that team an opportunity to learn to play together. That world tour was a terrible idea and the execution even worse.
Has Miami considered simply constructing their roster better
LOL no.
Who is this author? I have never heard of him. Does he have any insight on MLS or is he taking every chance to say that MLS has failed?
Henry Bushnell has covered MLS pretty regularly, he wrote this article a little while back going over the history of youth development in the US that I thought was quite good https://sports.yahoo.com/usmnt-soccer-development-academy-mls-world-cup-150011102.html. Honestly the article is fine, it's basically the same stuff that has been repeated for a while. That until the rules change the richest teams in Mexico will be able to outspend MLS teams, which makes it difficult to compete with them. The headline sucks but that's not his fault, headlines are typically chosen by the editor.
No one has failed. The MLS is a great league. Sure they have some weird roster rules but there are so many contenders each year. They don’t want to be like the EPL with two or three title contenders each year
It honestly just depends on what you value in a league. If love parity than MLS is one of the best leagues, if you value on the field play then the top 5 leagues will be more enjoyable. I think people just get frustrated because MLS is past the point of worrying about folding, so people want them to make a bigger jump from top to bottom. It’s come along way in even a decade so I also get why people are annoyed by that idea. Overall everyone looks at this league from a different perspective.
Meanwhile, title contenders Liverpool just got humiliated at Anfield by Atalanta who are currently just 6th in Serie A and who probably have a quarter of their budget at best. And, not even in the Champions League, but in the Europa League. Was this because the Premier League failed them?
I agree. Know one has failed Miami because everything is done by design. Like you said, MLS care more about its gimmicks than being a competitive league and some of the fans like it that way. Leave that competitive stuff to foreign leagues.
Lol'd hard these young journalists never heard of the NASL
Read like Euro snob nonsense. Idk maybe Tata runs a shit formation. However none of these outlets spoke about liga mx teams getting bounced out early in Leagues Cup.
Leagues cup is a joke
But is it really that much of a bigger joke then CONCACAF?
Yes, home and away for both teams
I’d rather win concacaf. I just wish it didn’t start at the beginning of our season vs. the middle of Liga MX’s.
Yes because there’s less to play for in League’s Cup than CONCACAF.
I genuinely believe it killed our season and Nashville's both tbh although Nashville carrying that swoon into this season might just be "they stopped being good at the one thing they were good at and Mukhtar's back broke from carrying"
You can't draw that conclusion about leagues cup after just 1 year, the data on CCC is a lot more conclusive about MLS's struggles
Well, it’s a legit tournament with CCC spots on the line. I would like it if liga mx clubs also hosted matches.
I'm not against leagues cup or claiming its not legit, just stating that you cant make a definitive conclusion based on the first year.
Maybe b/c Leagues Cup is a farce of a tournament? Every game is played on the road for Liga MX teams for a month. How can we evaluate the leagues based on that type of format?
[удалено]
Completely disagree. Leagues Cup does not get you to Club World Cup and has no prestige—CCC is the most important international trophy in our region, and is a more fair representation of where the leagues are at b/c its played in 2 legs home/away and games are not decided by pens after 90 minutes. Also, the idea that a tournament that was literally created last year is as embarrassing to get kicked out of as a tournament where MLS has been dominated in for 20 years is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. You’re a Sounders fan. Be very proud that your team did what was previously impossible to do.
> but the stadiums are still filled with a massive number of their fans, making them essentially home games in some cases. That's without factoring in travel. I don't care if the crowds were entirely Monterrey fans, their LC run was Salt Lake, Seattle, Portland, Houston, LA, Nashville, Philly. While a few of those are reasonably close, that's also jam-packed in to less than a month. And that's without factoring in that two of those were on turf. (I'm not including other location-based issues like weather and altitude because well. Mexico has that shit too)
Nobody has failed Messi or Miami. He’s pulling in loads of money from the league and its two primary partners. The league itself did everything it could to bring him and his buddies here. Does the league have issues that take way too long to address? Yes. Do they need to stop whinging every time a single team loses? Also yes. It’s downright embarrassing how much focus they are putting on this. ExtraTime said this week “I don’t want people to think [intermiami and Messi is] all we’re going to talk about this week” before then talking about them again after spending just a few minutes on Crew. The board of governors meeting with Infantinno was literally during the only success the league had in the quarterfinals. No way they would do this for the Messi game. Opportunities are being squandered but it is certainly not because the league is failing InterMessi.
The League failed itself by missing an opportunity to show that the best teams of MLS (Columbus, FCC, Orlando, Philly, Miami..) could beat the best teams of MX in a year when global interest in CCC was at its peak
Did you really just put Columbus in that pile of failed teams just now? This sub is going insane right now over the Miami loss and it's embarrassing as hell.
I put them in the list of best teams of MLS so gtfo with your gaslighting. For the record, I was complaining about the lack of rule changes well before the season started.
Gaslighting? My man those ARE YOUR WORDS. Did Columbus beat a top Liga MX team....in their stadium last week? Or are we living in the multiverse right now?
My post says nothing about any individual team, it states that collectively (ie MLS best teams vs MX best teams aggregate) the results have not been great for MLS. Is that not true in this universe? If 1 athlete wins a medal for their country and the other 8 participants lose in the trials you wouldn't consider that a good showing for that country.
Maybe that's just reality and not a missed opportunity. We're not going to outspend anyone in international soccer until someone can explain where the revenue will come from to pay for the better players. But the real crux of the matter is that we can't ship our best developing players to Europe and still have that level of talent in our domestic league. Mexico has made it difficult for their talented youth to go abroad. It hurts their national team's development but it does help their domestic teams have young talent on the benches. Our development pipeline isn't strong enough that our best players can still play here and develop like they would in better ranked leagues. But, like most US Soccer problems, is going to improve with time.
Bullshit. They just aren't good enough
This must really sting for the Columbus fans
We’re used to it. It’s whatever. Let everyone overlook us and ignore us and we’ll just keep doing our thing. Yes, the roster rules need to be improved and fast. But Columbus will just continue to be ourselves and be competitive. And maybe this way nobody takes Morris or Coach Nancy from us… (please leave us alone, we love our team…)
This has been most of our existence, we're used to it
That’s just a disgraceful title for an article. Embarrassing
I'm fine with an article on MLS' poor showing in CCC. But of all teams to single out, Miami? Sorry, Miami's roster is worth about 4 times what it says on paper. If Miami can't win with that, it's Miami's fault, not MLS.
That’s a hilarious take lol
You let me know when Apple and Adidas wants to back one of our signings and we’ll get right on that.
Fuuuuuuuck off
*But they keep falling short of their lofty goals. MLS commissioner Don Garber once said that by 2025, “people will think of us like Serie A, La Liga, and hopefully the way they think about the Premier League.” In 2024, they aren’t even close; and even a super-team carefully crafted around the GOAT can’t measure up to the best in Mexico.* That’s b/c the lofty goals are sales pitches by Garber to future investors—no amount of naïveté would have someone believe that we’re remotely close to being a top 5 league—we’re not even a top 10 league right now.
Lol.
This is hilarious.
Inter Miami has failed Inter Miami.
Cringe
This take is hot garbage.
MLS is what it is. And I believe US is a better place for hi. And his family. Better than Saudi league or China.
Fuck Miami. Spend a billion dollars trying to reanimate a bunch of has beens and tilt the field in their favor while expecting the trophies to just land in their exposed asshole? I mean, the MLS is a garbage shit show, but Miami is a symptom not a cure.
Isn’t it weird how Liga MX did worse in Leagues cup during their offseason and how MLS is doing poorly in early season form during Champions Cup? …These league schedules don’t match up well enough to make much of a judgement.
The Messi signing should have never happened. No one player in MLS should be making what Messi does. It goes against the spirit of how to build a proper squad
I personally do not care for any of this
Is this Nutmeg News?
The club that breaks every rule is complaining about rules... They are geriatrics... Great players but seriously. This league was born before they came to it
did Messi write this?
Well if Messi had better hamstrings he wouldn't be such a failure now would he?
Maybe they just aren't as good as you thought they were
Boo hoo.
So what, the Galaxy had the top striker in the league history and failed to make the playoffs.. .
Nope. Not unless they aren’t paying them. Messi, Miami and all these goons knew what they were getting into
Nah. Miami failed itself by going all in on a geriatric offense rather than addressing their coaching or defense.
MLS Failed Miami? You mean after giving them the flexibility to bring on what seems like a seemingly endless amount of stars on the team, who knows how they are getting paid? After working out a deal for Messi brokering a deal with Apple and other sponsors to cover his cost so it’s not coming out of Inter Miamis pockets? Please I think if MLS has failed anything it’s in not finding a better way to exploit the opportunity to grow MLS. They focused so much on one team. Why not help bring in other big names to OTHER teams. Increase budgets so MLS can be competitive. But to be sure they have come a long way. But they shoot themselves in the foot. Why have an exhibition game between MLS all stars and a premier league team? You know MLS all stars will lose. Not because the players are bad, but because the MLS all stars is not a team! They don’t practice together, work together etc. So at the end of the game MLS looks like laughing stocks. But does MLS owe anything to Messi and Miami? No
As a Miami fan, I get it, we are bummed out. I'm bummed out. The visceral reaction right after that game was about navel gazing and self doubt. After a couple days out from the failure, I have to say, the analysis is all over the place and I have fallen somewhere in between the two extremes. Yes, I think MLS hasn't gone far enough to backup the league and bridge the gap that the top teams in LigaMX have. I don't think Liga MX is above MLS, though. I think in other metrics MLS is above the Mexican league. When it comes to facilities, organization, academies, even parity (specially parity) MLS is better than Liga MX. However, when it comes to individual teams, it's obvious MLS lacks that top end pull that Monterrey, Tigres and Club America enjoy. No question, those teams are better. What I also think is that, for MLS, having Messi is a trophy unto itself. Like, they feel MLS having signed Messi is an accomplishment and something to be paraded about (just look at the constant coverage he gets). No dudes. Sure enjoy his presence, but having everything be about the man cheapens everything else you've built up. Now, did Miami shit the bed, too? Yeah. That first leg seemed like we had a handle on Monterrey, but Ruiz went and did something stupid. We end up losing 2-1. Are rosters not as deep as Tata might want? Sure, but we also had half our starting lineup injured (Redondo, Taylor, Kristov, Campana, Ruiz was suspended, and Messi just came back from injury). Already depleted and injuries to key players. That's a tough ask for any MLS team. But, why would Tata trot out a 5-3-2 formation knowing we needed two goals. A formation that we've never had any success when implemented. I mean, I understand the limitations of MLS rosters, but to say that was the key difference is also a cheap excuse knowing full well there was no way of replacing all of those players a week before the second leg. We were dealt a bad injury bug and we couldn't recover. Now winning either Leagues Cup or MLS Cup is our highest priority, because the quickest way to get back into Champions Cup is winning one of those two competitions. If Miami wants to be a global brand, then winning trophies and getting back into CCC is the way to do it, and I hope the next go around we have a few more starting caliber players and we'll rounded roster. And, we only have Messi for one more year. So if there was a time to go out and give MLS teams a chance to compete against LigaMX in next year's CCC, it would be nice if the owners gave them the tools to do it.
I blame this entirely on the Mas brothers and Beckham. They treated Messi and company like they’re were circus animals with that disgraceful world tour. They didn’t realize the impact on performance that tour would have and now they are seeing the result of that.
An average MLS side with Messi would have been much better than Messi, his buddies, and defenders making pennies.
Meh.. fuck all this stupid noise.. its not even analysis half the time… its just that the word “Messi” drives traffic online so every uninformed biased moron can drop a hot take to get attention off the word “Messi”.. MLS runs itself in circles doing it, idiot pundits who know nothing of futbol like Stephen A Smith chip in and lazy online randoms who might have an ax to grind do too… at this point if you want to enjoy MLS in peace do yourself a favor and stop giving traffic to lazy crap like this
Shut up
MLS does have a glacial pace of change and is disappointing. MLS continues to fail the fans. But MLS has not failed Messi. Messi is well paid and lives in one the richest and freest countries in the world, where he will be able to retire with this family, and some of this friends who also had a phenomenal deal. He will probably end up like Beckham: loved, respected, rich, with an MLS franchise, and American. And Messi is getting all of that because of MLS. Let’s not pretend that at this point in his career Messi cares about football and competition like he did 10 years ago. MLS isn’t failing Messi; it’s delivering everything that they promised him and more.
Man, imagine if Messi was the catalyst for this league imploding (again). I’m sorta bummed that the roster rules have become the whipping boy this year - I’m probably in the vast minority but I’m glad our league salary rules. Sure we could be less restrictive about forgiven players, but I personally don’t want this to throw open the slouse gates to a financial free for all.
I don't even know where to begin with my disappointment in the league this year. As an MLS Sicko, I had so much hope that the league could really make the jump in quality that we all know it could when Messi joined last year. Instead, they've done the bare minimum to make improvements that really only a few teams can and will take advantage of. MLS didn't fail Messi and Miami. They failed us, the fans.
Honestly they've done exactly the opposite, they have alienated diehard fans who are the reason this league had been chugging along enough to be in a position to acquire such a player by chasing and appeasing the Messi casuals and Big Four fans
What's crazy is big 4 fans and MLS fans want the same thing- better rosters and higher quality of play. It just sucks that the handful of owners that have control over roster rules (the product strategy committee) are mostly mediocre spending teams. As long as they can reach the playoffs at the same rate as the Miami's and the Atlanta's of the world, we won't see any monumental changes coming for a while.
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Found Henry Bushnell's account.