There was a predictable uproar on Twitter this week when Andy Benoit, an NFL writer for Sports Illustrated, stated that “Women’s sport in general [is] not worth watching.”

Judging from the reaction, you could be forgiven for thinking that the entire American sports social media world had been waiting in a state of high anticipation for someone, anyone, with a degree of prominence to say something sexist about the Women’s World Cup.

The usual ritual followed – mass condemnation, the deleting of the offending tweet and the obligatory apology from the offender.

Frankly, it was all a bit ridiculous.

Count me amongst those who couldn’t care less whether a male NFL reporter likes women’s soccer or not.

I’ve commented before how some in American soccer seem to view the growth of the sport as almost a liberal political project that includes converting (or perhaps just silencing?) the ‘heathens’ who have yet to be won over by the global game.

But I never saw the need for outrage when, every now and then, an American sports writer of a certain generation, pens a ‘soccer is boring and/or unAmerican’ column.

My feeling when I read those kind of columns isn’t outrage – it is more pity.

Soccer is one of the great sports, full of drama and excitement, with endless storylines, fascinating tactics and moments of individual genius. If, through accident of birth, conservatism or cultural deprivation, you haven’t had the opportunity to develop an appreciation for the game – it’s your loss.

And it really doesn’t matter. Soccer’s growth in North America isn’t dependent on ‘converting’ middle-aged newspaper columnists. The kids growing up playing the game, wearing Barcelona jerseys, playing FIFA video games and watching the game on television are the constituency that are changing the sporting landscape in America.

And I feel the same way about people who publicly declare their antipathy for women’s soccer (and women’s sport in general) – it’s your problem and you don’t know what you are missing.

There is one important caveat I should add here. If the tweet had come from an editor of a newspaper or a senior figure at a television network, someone in power, it would be a different matter. It is worth fighting over fair coverage of women’s sport in the media and we are still a long way from having women’s sport given the coverage it deserves in the media – preferably written by women.

But I don’t see the need to ‘convert’ Andy Benoit or for that matter any other male to the appeal of women’s soccer and women’s sport.

If men enjoy women’s sport – great. If they don’t, it shouldn’t be a major cause for concern. The sport doesn’t need men to thrive and it doesn’t need a male seal of approval to grow in popularity.

Women make up 50 percent of the world’s population and there is enormous potential for women’s sport to tap into that market and attract female fans who, may or may not, be fans of male versions of the sport.

SEE MORE — Meet David Neal, the man behind FOX’s slick Women’s World Cup coverage.

Judging by the crowds in Canada at the Women’s World Cup, the sport is doing a pretty good job at attracting both sexes to come out to stadiums and it is particularly encouraging to see entire families present.

If the sports marketing companies are paying attention to this tournament, they will surely see the tremendous potential women’s soccer has to reach demographics not normally reached by male sport.

But the most encouraging aspect of all in this past few weeks has been the fact that the women’s game is getting better and better to watch.

It wasn’t all male chauvinism that lay behind the lack of interest of many in women’s soccer a couple of decades ago. The technical gap between the male and female game really was too big for many potential viewers and spectators – of both sexes.

But have you seen how Japan play?’ Have you checked out the skill of the French team or the precise power and speed of the Germans?

Those three teams are playing soccer which is exciting to watch, technically accomplished and aesthetically pleasing. The chances are that one of those three will win the competition and if they do – expect women’s coaches around the world to be trying to emulate that successful passing and movement style of play.

Indeed, already, the criticism of the United States’ performances is based primarily around the lack of style and finesse of the team. Win or lose the title, you can expect the U.S. to be under some pressure to find a better, more elegant, way to play in the future.

Women’s soccer is benefitting from the same forces of globalization that other emerging parts of the game enjoy and it is interesting to see the relative strength of the game in the ‘new soccer markets’ of Asia and North America.

Coaches around the world now have unprecedented access to information, scouting reports and tactical studies, game film, thoughts of other coaches and the whole globalized knowledge network.

The cliche about there being ‘no easy games in soccer anymore’ has some truth to it because every country that chooses has the chance to import knowledge and, if they wish, the international personnel to impart it – and the women’s game is no exception.

It seems clear that the same process that has seen Asian teams start to become competitive on the global stage, is going to see women’s soccer spread well beyond the handful of ‘early adopters’ such as the North Europeans and North Americans. We saw a glimpse of that with the likes of Colombia at this World Cup.

So expect in four years time, at the next Women’s World Cup, to see better and better women’s teams from Asia, Africa and South and Central America – and with them more and more fans around the world tuning in to the women’s game.

Women’s soccer doesn’t need to guilt-trip people into watching or to cover itself in a veneer of political correctness in order to progress.

The sport is entertaining and exciting and has shown, with the impressive television ratings in various countries, that it has an appeal.

What it needs now is financial backing – people putting money into clubs to build the talent base and strengthen the week-to-week presence of the game.

We are starting to see that happen with MLS, Bundesliga and French clubs amongst the most prominent to take the lead.

Women’s soccer is on the rise and if you aren’t interested – well, you are the one who is missing out.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

Imagine for a moment that an Englishman had been General Secretary of UEFA for two decades and a member of the FIFA executive committee.

A rather eccentric character, who had a driver transport him around England in a gold-colored Rolls Royce and who and constantly posed Churchill fashion with a large cigar, this English football official had been running UEFA’s affairs out of a luxury apartment in swanky Pall Mall and dined at the city’s finest restaurants, running up massive bills in lap dance clubs on UEFA’s company credit card.

Although he rarely involved himself in English football matters, he was close to the chairman of the English FA. He had been finally forced out after UEFA claimed he had been lining his pockets from the confederation’s funds for 20 years. 

Then picture a scenario where that official, after being questioned by police and tax authorities, admitted to taking large cash bribes in connection with the hosting of the 1998 and 2010 World Cups and kickbacks in relation to television deals for five different editions of the European Championships.

Hard to imagine? Well yes. Because such behavior would have immediately prompted the British and European media to investigate his wealth and his business dealings. Because  the English FA, embarrassed by the public exposure compatriot’s extravagant flaunting of his wealth would have taken some sort of action. Because UEFA, for all its faults, would not allow their affairs to be run in that manner.

And if, somehow, this man had still survived at the top of UEFA for all those years, his admissions of corruption, would surely have led to a major public inquiry into how this was allowed to happen, the failings of the FA and UEFA and questions about who knew, what, when and how?

And yet, in the United States, which has spent the last week congratulating itself on the DOJ’s ability to indict FIFA officials, there has been silence from the soccer authorities about American Chuck Blazer.

There has been little questioning in the American media of how Blazer, sat in his apartment in the heart of Manhattan and driven around in a black Hummer, was able to enrich himself from the game for years without any scrutiny or consequence. Indeed Blazer was long celebrated and honored in many quarters of the soccer establishment and media.

American talk show hosts and columnists mock international soccer’s seemingly endemic corruption, without appearing to notice that one of the most corrupt of all was one of their own, living it up on a CONCACAF credit card in New York’s most expensive restaurants (and lap dance clubs).

This is not to make the point that the English or Europeans are in some way immune to corruption – they certainly aren’t. Nor that the British media is more diligent or critical than the American media. But it does show that soccer, not one of the top sports in the United States, has not benefitted from the kind of scrutiny and investigation that it receives in countries where it is a national obsession.

Nor is it being suggested that due to that lack of scrutiny, the absence of people holding them to account, the United States Soccer Federation itself has been guilty of the kind of corruption we have seen exposed elsewhere. There is no evidence at all to suggest anything of the kind and nothing to link USSF president Sunil Gulati to any sort of wrongdoing.

What is open to question about the behavior of the USSF and Gulati is the fact that they went along with Blazer in power at CONCACAF for years, working in tandem with Warner, without, publicly at least, raising anything other than an eyebrow from time to time.

SEE MORE — Watch ‘FIFA’s Dirty Secrets’ documentary featuring Jack Warner.

Perhaps soccer leaders in the U.S. should be forgiven for being taken in by Blazer. As well as being an eccentric, he was also a charmer with a sense of humor – in stark contrast to the aggressive, threatening presence of his sidekick Jack Warner. Blazer was a strange man but a very sociable one.

And con-men prosper because they convince people to believe in them – in that I was also among those guilty of being taken-in by the most recent CONCACAF leader to have been exposed – Jeffrey Webb. Webb’s words about reform and transparency, about transforming the administration of the game in North and Central America and the Caribbean were taken at face value by myself and others.

But there have to be broader lessons to be learnt from the Blazer case for soccer in America. An inquiry into the role of Blazer in the game and how he was able to get away within enriching himself at the expense of the sport, would be a start. Likewise the role of Traffic Sports, a major part of the Department of Justice investigation, needs to be looked at closely.

CONCACAF itself needs more than just new leaders – it needs a thorough review of its entire structure and the lack of openness and true transparency that continued throughout the Webb era.

Lessons have to be learnt from the Blazer, Traffic and Webb affairs if North American soccer is to avoid such scandals in the future. Ending corruption and creating a new, accountable and open management of the sport is by no means a simple task of changing the leadership in Zurich – it needs honest assessment and change at every level – confederations and the national associations. USA included.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

Let’s cut to the chase with this FIFA nonsense. Department of Justice indictments here, Swiss federal investigations there, the corrupted or corruptible soccer leaders from around the world are still going to vote for Sepp Blatter as president.

British newspapers headlines can scream for Blatter to go – FIFA congress delegates will vote for him to stay.

The FBI can round-up the latest generation of bribe-takers in the Caribbean and the Americas – that region’s representatives will still back Blatter.

As Nascimento Lopes of the Guinea-Bissau federation told a gathering of African officials on Thursday: “It is a state conspiracy. People are always trying to knock Blatter. Africa will vote for Mr Blatter and I will follow that. It’s not all about the major European football countries.”

Spend some time around FIFA people and that sentiment about the European nations will never be far away. While officials from Africa, Asia and the Americas have faced serious corruption charges, somehow it is the threat of the Europeans that is seen as the biggest danger to FIFA.

The major football nations of Europe have tolerated the tawdry decline of FIFA for too long. Two Europeans, Luis Figo and Michael van Praag, tried in this sham of an election to give it one more chance, to see if a reasonable approach to reform and change would be listened to.

Both actually offered to increase the amount of ‘solidarity’ paid to the  developing football countries – both ended up pulling out of the election because they couldn’t get enough support to defeat Blatter and his system.

When it comes to FIFA congress – men who have never kicked a ball from countries that have never been close to qualifying for a World Cup – will decide the future of FIFA.

Countries that win World Cups, like Germany, Spain, Italy and France, help generate a huge amount of the revenue that ends up being spent in places like Guinea-Bissau and the Cayman Islands. But the German Federation, like the English FA, have the same single vote as the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Yet they are not powerless. Far from it. The UEFA nations, have football’s version of the big red button.

Everyone knows that there is a nuclear option and it is simply this.

Who wants to watch a World Cup without any of the top European nations?

UEFA could, if it chose, simply walk out of FIFA congress on Friday and into a nearby hotel where they could found an alternative governing body for the sport.

They could withdraw from the World Cup and announce they intend to hold their own international tournament, call it a World Championships – for now.

Then, with major television contracts secured from those like ESPN and others who have been snubbed by FIFA, the Europeans could invite a select number of attractive nations which such a tournament would need. Welcome on board Brazil, Argentina and the rest of the South American elite.

Of course, a World Cup isn’t just about Europe and South America. So, come on down United States and Mexico with your large television audiences. Japan, China and Korea. South Africa and Ghana and others.

Blatter and FIFA would still own the name of the FIFA World Cup. Qatar would still be preparing to play its winter tournament but perhaps they might struggle attracting viewers for Cayman Islands vs. Guinea-Bissau in Doha.

SEE MORE — FIFA is all about cash for votes; Here’s how it could be ended

FIFA would be left with their tournaments, the name of the ‘FIFA World Cup’ but none of the major teams. It would be like hosting the Oscars with only B-List actors. Good luck flying round the world in private jets and staying in five-star presidential suites when the Turks and Caicos Islands are one of your most marketable assets.

Of course a new body, call it perhaps the International Football Union, would soon be getting requests for membership from the rump FIFA members. So how to avoid simply replicating the entire history of FIFA?

SEE MORE — 6 potential consequences of UEFA pulling out of FIFA.

Well, there is a simple mechanism used by other sporting bodies – full members and associate members. Founding members and other nations which have qualified for and appeared in a World Cup, would be considered full members. Those members would vet any future applications, making sure there is no hint of corruption. New rules on transparency, term limits, salaries and so on could be put in place. An independently managed global fund could be set up to support football projects in the developing world – ending the gravy train.

A president (if one were even needed) would not be allowed to serve more than a single term. And so on and so forth. The point being that a new organization would have the chance to set up a structure that was specifically designed to avoid corruption.

While many have hoped that FIFA’s top-tier sponsors would be the ones to force change, the reality is that there are no shortage of companies ready to fill the shoes of those who might leave.

The real ‘market pressure’ that FIFA would feel would be from direct competition – from a rival with the power to push it out of the market.

Maybe UEFA doesn’t have the stomach to take on such an enormous task.

But perhaps even the threat of that nuclear option might start the process of real change.

UPDATE: Michel Platini said today, “If Mr Blatter wins, Uefa will meet in Berlin to discuss the future of our relations with Fifa.

“We cannot continue like this with Fifa.”

Is the nuclear option near?

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

The North American Soccer League hates being called a ‘second division’ and so the turn of phrase used by Italy’s venerable daily newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday will have cheered the league’s commission Bill Peterson.

Reporting the announcement that Miami is to have an NASL team from next season – owned by soccer television entrepreneur Riccardo Silva and former AC Milan and Italy defender Paolo Maldini, the famous pink paper described the NASL as “the alternative league to Major League Soccer”.

In a certain sense, NASL is indeed the alternative. The structure of the league, in which clubs are independently owned and face few if any restrictions on their spending, stands in direct contrast to MLS’s ‘single entity’ business model. No salary caps, no limits on spending and no complicated allocation procedures. It is a free market structure that is very familiar to soccer people around the world – the NASL is set-up in the way of leagues almost everywhere.

However the NASL has been careful, most of the time, to avoid setting their league up as a direct competition to MLS. There has long been the sense that they are itching for a fight with Don Garber’s league but generally they have been careful to avoid face-to-face battles. The decision to start a team in Miami, where MLS and David Beckham have been very publicly trying to find a stadium for a new franchise, is however a potentially confrontational move.

I suspect however that the news of the creation of the new Miami FC club was greeted more with a sigh in MLS headquarters rather than a shudder of fear. Because while the NASL is an alternative to MLS it is, in most senses, only an alternative in theory.

SEE MORE — Why NASL expansion to Miami smacks of desperation.

A few years ago, one of the NASL’s founding figures enthusiastically explained to me that the absence of salary restrictions meant that there was no limit to what kind of players NASL clubs could sign. In theory, that is true. But in practice, NASL clubs are paying at the lower end of the salary scale in North American soccer. As I put it to the official, “That is all great – let me know when you sign Landon Donovan.”

Players who can’t get contracts in MLS are glad that another league exists but there aren’t many looking to the NASL for a more lucrative future. In practical terms, for MLS players, the NASL is just a solution for if they find themselves without work, which is no bad thing.

NASL is no real competition commercially. There is no battle for television deals between the league and sponsors aren’t tempted by NASL over MLS.

What NASL does do is provide professional soccer in cities where MLS hasn’t set up shop. Fans in Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Tampa, Minnesota and Fort Lauderdale can enjoy a game on a Saturday night thanks to the NASL. And that is a very positive thing. There is no way that MLS can cover all the cities in North America and unlike with the traditional American sports, college soccer is never going to fill the gap, so another league is needed.

The Miami deal is, however, an attempt to challenge MLS. By starting a team in 2016, the NASL is planting down its flag in Miami before Beckham and Garber. The aim is surely to get a team up and running, with a fan base and a media and commercial presence, that will scare off MLS from finally getting a deal done.

While Beckham and his partners continue their long search for a site on which to build a stadium, the NASL team say they don’t need to worry about such things and will play in an existing venue in the city. The FIU stadium could comfortably hold even a top-end NASL crowd of, say, 12,000.

But the reason why MLS will not be shaking in their boots about yesterday’s announcement is the same reason why they are taking their time over getting things right before committing to a franchise in South Florida. Most informed observers of the soccer scene in Miami know that the only way for a new club to truly establish itself in Miami is to make a big splash with big names and a huge marketing and publicity campaign and a team playing at an accessible modern venue that people really want to visit.

So, the challenge facing Silva and Maldini, if they want to make a club that could truly deter MLS from entering the market, is to create a team with a big-time feel that doesn’t look or play like a minor league outfit. That means the kind of investment that NASL has never seen – not even with the New York Cosmos. It means top international players (on the field and not on the bench or in the director’s box) and a big spend on promoting them.

Are Miami FC ready for that kind of investment and commitment? It remains to be seen but South Florida fans, becoming weary of promises of big-time soccer, can be forgiven for some skepticism.

If Maldini and Silva create a club with a similar profile and reach as the NASL’s other South Florida team – the Fort Lauderdale Strikers – which is pleased to get 5,000 fans through the doors – then that won’t worry Beckham or MLS. It is only if the new club becomes, de facto major league, that there is a potential problem.

So for now, NASL’s little skirmish with MLS in Miami, looks little more than a cheeky tweak of Don Garber’s nose but it does put some pressure on the Beckham group to speed up their initiative.

Maldini, not for the first time in his career, has made a timely intervention. The question now is whether his former Milan team-mate Beckham pulls out of the challenge or not.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

In two weeks time, Sepp Blatter will almost certainly win a fifth term as president of FIFA and we can expect another round of the ritual despairing comment from the British press and the other pockets of resistance to the way the global game is run. But nothing will change.

The three candidates who have stood against Blatter in this election may pick up a little more support than skeptics would expect. Luis Figo, Michael van Praag and Prince Ali of Jordan knew they had little chance of overthrowing the Blatter regime but they have traveled widely and worked hard in an attempt to rally some opposition.

They will have found some mavericks willing to turn against Blatter, but the odd rebel here and there isn’t going to change anything significantly inside FIFA. As ESPN’s documentary this week showed (for anyone still to be convinced), Blatter has built an electoral machine around the distribution of funds and favors to federations.

The trio of opposition candidates have tried to play Blatter at his own game – they have actually offered the national federations even more money than they currently get from Zurich. Offering more funds to tiny nations, some of whom barely have a national team let alone a national league, was probably the only way to build a majority to turn against Blatter. But most will prefer to stick with the devil they know and the guarantee that the cash will keep on flowing. It is a pathetic and tawdry state of affairs.

The money that heads out of Zurich comes mainly from the revenue generated by the World Cup, primarily from television rights. It is the huge fees paid by television companies in Europe and the U.S. and increasingly Asia that ends up being sent off to ‘development’ projects which Blatter uses to maintain his power.

The television companies therefore hold some power and influence – in theory. In practice, they keep quite about Blatter and FIFA because they desperately want the men in Zurich to give them the rights to the biggest event in world sport. It was telling that ESPN produced its critical Blatter documentary only after they lost the rights to the 2018 and 2022 tournaments to FOX Sports and were later carved out of the 2026 rights.

If the big television companies united and refused to pay the rights or bid for them until FIFA cleaned up its act, change would follow. But they won’t unite because they compete against each other.

Of course, we all are in some way guilty of playing along with Blatter’s game. National federations in UEFA may be sick of Blatter but they aren’t about to boycott the World Cup or break away from FIFA. The British newspapers lambast FIFA with impressive frequency, but their journalists still line up for their press passes to cover World Cup games – as does this writer. And the fans could, in theory, undermine everything, if they boycotted FIFA tournaments.

Blatter is going to be around for as long as he can physically do the job, but eventually he will stand down and then there will be a brief opportunity to change the culture of FIFA as well as its leadership.

One of the most depressing effects of the Blatter regime has been to poison such honorable notions as solidarity to developing nations with cynicism. Using the vast resources from the World Cup to do good in developing nations would, if it were done properly and not as part of a client-system of cash-for-votes, be a noble endeavor.

FIFA has proven incapable of ensuring these funds are properly distributed, applied and audited and somehow it should be forced to relinquish the responsibility for these programs.

Instead of FIFA’s leadership deciding where the money goes and how it should be spent, the process should be taken out of their hands. The World Cup revenues should be put into a Global Football Fund to be administered by key organizations in the development sphere such as the Red Cross, United Nations, Medicine sans Frontiers and others. There are good projects being done already – read this report on a refugee camp in Jordan for victims of the war in Syria.

Instead of ‘World Cup bonuses’ just being handed over to national federations, there should be a bidding process for grants. Federations and/or governments or NGO’s should state clearly what they want to do with the money and the Fund would have the power to assess whether they have kept their word. Those countries that fail to deliver the projects, will be banned from future grants. Not only would this system deliver a more just and efficient use of resources, it would remove the FIFA president from the handing over of cash.

The World Cup cash should be used entirely for grassroots football initiatives where the game can do social good – building facilities for kids and not for programs related to national teams and not for federation headquarters or staff salaries. FIFA could provide a minimal administrative grant to help federations participate in World Cup qualifiers – nothing more.

Taking the distribution of World Cup funds out of the hands of FIFA and the FIFA president would end the client system that has kept Blatter in power and could be replicated by his replacement. Forcing a change such as this wouldn’t be easy and would require pressure from the outside – from governments, sponsors and television companies as well as those inside honest and decent federations.

It is a long shot of course. The status quo is perfect for unaccountable federations, particularly those in countries with limited democratic checks and balances and where there is little real scrutiny over the use of resources from the press. It is ideal for FIFA presidents who know they can keep power and its rewards through their hand-outs.

It isn’t going to happen while Blatter is in power. But if FIFA is ever going to clean itself up, breaking the link between cash and votes, is the vital first step.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

Jerome Boateng had barely got back on his feet after Lionel Messi’s sublime second goal before the instant-pundits of the social media world were declaring the ‘debate over’ regarding Lionel Messi.

There are of course two debates about Messi. Is he the greatest player of the modern era? In other words, the Messi vs. Ronaldo debate. Then there is the ‘Greatest of All Time’ debate. Otherwise known as Messi vs. Pele/Maradona.

I’ll never tire of watching Messi play like he did in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final but I am certainly weary of these endless debates which are without end simply because there really is no way to answer them.

There is no player that compares to Messi when it comes to tight control, his movement in tight spaces and his ability to exploit the slightest opening to score. But, then again, I’ve never seen a player attack on the break with such speed and yet still maintain total command of the ball like Cristiano Ronaldo. Both are great dribblers, but in very different ways. Both are a joy to watch when they are at their best – Messi wriggling out of tight-marking to make a goal out of nothing, Ronaldo when he is in full-flight, bursting forward, terrifying a back pedaling defense.

Spare me any discussion of these two that focuses on statistics. The numbers for both players are remarkable but reduce the two players to goal scorers when they are so much more. Which one would you rather have on your team? It rather depends on your team, doesn’t it? What league do they play in? In a slower-paced but more technical league, such as Spain or Italy, Messi would get the nod. In the higher-paced, more physical leagues, such as England and Germany, Cristiano might be more effective over the course of a season.

Messi carried Argentina at times during the World Cup, even though his performances were below his own high-standards. Ronaldo’s Portugal failed to get out of the group stage. But, for the sake of argument, how would you defend an Argentine strike force of Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo?

But if it is hard to definitively, without any reasonable doubt, name Messi the undisputed best player of the modern era, it is even more difficult to place him as the Greatest Of All Time.

The reason is simple. It is impossible to compare players of different eras in a game that has changed so much over the years.

Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo Di Stefano played in an era when the game was played at a tempo unrecognizably slower than in the modern era. Does that make them any less great?

Whenever anyone offers a strident opinion on Pele vs. Maradona, I have one question for them. How many Santos games have you watched? Or for that matter how many Napoli games during the seasons when Maradona led them to glory? If most of us are honest, our memories or knowledge of those two players are gleaned from special moments in World Cup finals.

If someone says no-one else could have scored a goal like Messi’s second on Wednesday, I’d suggest they go and watch some YouTube clips of Roberto Baggio, who was a master of leaving defenders on their backsides with a subtle body swerve.

How many times, in the context of this debate, have you heard people say ‘Messi needs to win a World Cup?’ But what a player has won should not come into the debate over individual geniuses. Nor does the quality of their team-mates. The suggestion that Messi needs to be downgraded because for years he was served by the quality of Xavi and Iniesta can certainly be jettisoned after last night.

And does the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) have to be a forward? If not, then Franz Beckenbauer surely comes into the discussion. If you are looking for players close to perfection in their position, then you would have to be a severe critic to find fault with Paolo Maldini – not that a left-back is every going to be considered the all-time greatest in the game.

Do you spot a slight bias towards Italian players here? Well, yes, I watched plenty of Baggio and Maldini at their prime. Perhaps I mention Puskas because I lived in Hungary where there is virtually a cult around that player. Would a Dutchman throw Cruyff into the discussion? A Frenchman mention Platini or Fontaine in their list of the best? Very probably.

The candidates vary according to where you ask the question. The BBC on Thursday put together five possible players to vote for, which included George Best. As wonderful as Best was, he would be unlikely to get in the top-ten in many other countries.

We view the history of the game through our own national experiences. Or at least we did until the modern-era, where we can watch the Spanish league every weekend and where we all watched Messi on Wednesday. It is worth remembering that in the 1970’s and even into the 1980’s most of Europe just watched the European Cup and UEFA Cup games of their own nation’s teams.

So, here is a little suggestion. The next time Messi or Ronaldo produce a breathtaking goal and someone on Twitter suggests the ‘debate is over’, head over to YouTube and spend ten minutes watching goals from Maradona, Cruyff, Pele, Puskas, Baggio, Eusebio, Di Stefano and so on.

There have been plenty of geniuses in this game. There is a rich history of wonderful talent, from many countries and many eras. Messi is part of that rich history and we can enjoy his talent without the need for pointless comparisons.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber re-opened his dispute with Jurgen Klinsmann last week when he said that the league would continue to pursue U.S. national team players regardless of what the national team coach thought of that approach.

While the comments sparked another round of debate about the relationship between Garber and Klinsmann, the reality is that this is mostly hot air – because when it comes down to it, there aren’t really many Americans left in Europe to tempt back.

Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, Jermaine Jones and Mix Diskerud have all moved to MLS in the past year or so. Juan Agudelo and Brek Shea have headed back after failing, for differing reasons, to establish themselves in Europe. The German-American players performing in the Bundesliga, the likes of Fabian Johnson and John Brooks, are in a different category, unlikely to be tempted by returning ‘home’ to a country they have never lived in.

There are a crop of very young players in the youth systems of mainly English and German clubs, the likes of Christian Pulisic at Borussia Dortmund and Cameron Carter-Vickers at Tottenham, but they aren’t the players that Garber is thinking about at this stage.

Geoff Cameron at Stoke, along with goalkeepers Tim Howard and Brad Guzan, are the only American players of national team calibre playing in the Premier League. But utility defenders and goalkeepers tend not to make Designated Player material. Alejandro Bedoya, who recently signed a new long-term contract with French club Nantes, is perhaps the only current U.S international who would fit into the same sort of category as a Diskerud. DeAndre Yedlin might fall into that category if he can earn a regular place at Spurs.

This is a surprising state of affairs because many observers expected to see more and more Americans establish themselves in Europe. Dempsey’s success at Fulham, followed that of Brian McBride, Claudio Reyna and John Harkes in England, while Steve Cherundolo and Carlos Bocanegra also proved their worth in Europe.

There is surely no doubt that it is good for the American national team if it has players performing in the best leagues in the world. I don’t blame Dempsey or Bradley (and certainly not Jozy Altidore) for accepting the big money deals to come back. What is more concerning is why so few Americans are being targeted by European clubs and why so many American players are under-achieving when they do move to Europe.

Let’s dismiss one argument straight away. Despite what is sometimes suggested in the States, coaches in the Premier League, La Liga and the Bundesliga don’t have an anti-American agenda and aren’t discriminating against American players. Almost all top flight teams across the continent are multinational these days, with African and Asian players alongside South Americans and Europeans from all corners of the continent. If coaches have got used to playing Japanese and Ghanian players, why would they have a problem with an American? They don’t.

What may have slowed down the movement of senior American players to Europe is the fact that MLS is now willing to pay to keep those players at home – the likes of Omar Gonzalez, Matt Besler and Graham Zusi might, in other times, have headed to Europe. Instead, they are on Designated Player contracts in MLS.

But I also wonder if enough modern American players have the hunger and desire to take the risk and test themselves in Europe.

When Harkes went to Sheffield Wednesday in 1990, he had no real chance of being a professional footballer in the United States. There wasn’t a serious national pro league and the indoor circuit offered only low wages and low security and, of course, a very different kind of soccer. Wednesday offered Harkes a chance to earn a living in the game, if he was good enough and if he worked hard enough. Harkes wanted it bad enough to put in the effort, cope with the challenges of living abroad and grind out a pro career in England.

Even when Dempsey went to Fulham in 2007, he did so at a time when MLS could only offer limited rewards to a player of his ability and he played like a man who knew he would have to give his all every week if he wanted to enjoy the benefits of playing in a better paying league.

Now read what Brek Shea said in an interview this week about his time in England where he failed to make the grade at Stoke City and was unimpressive in loan spells in the division below:

“One of the reasons I didn’t enjoy England so much is that it’s so small and soccer is the biggest thing there. So everything you do is magnified times a thousand.”

While he was still in England, Shea told Sports Illustrated:

“It’s more like a 9-5 job over here. In America, you’re having fun and you’re with a group of friends. It’s still very serious – you want to win – but you have that camaraderie. It’s just different. (In England) it’s a job. You go in and you go home and in MLS, you have a team barbecue once a week. You hang with people outside the facility. You don’t really do that here.”

Of course, players in England do ‘hang’ with their team-mates. The most frequent lament of players who have retired from the game is that they miss the camaraderie and the dressing room banter. But even if Shea was just unlucky to have been at a club where that was, according to him, missing, his comments are still revealing.

Yes, soccer is the biggest thing in England and there is a lot of attention on it. The same goes for Germany, Italy or Spain. Being a professional footballer is a job and people approach it as work. What did Shea expect?

I wonder how common the Shea attitude is? How many American players actually prefer the lack of intense pressure in MLS and the relative anonymity of being an MLS player? How many, like Landon Donovan, just prefer the comfort of living and playing in their own country to proving themselves in the best leagues in the world?

I doubt Michael Bradley fits into that category. He learnt languages everywhere he went and appeared totally dedicated to becoming the best player he could be in Europe. But what are the percentage of Harkes, Dempsey and Bradley types in MLS compared to the Shea/Donovan types?

If there is a sense that MLS allows a good soccer player a chance to extend his college athlete years into his 30’s, that is likely to change. The influx of foreigner players on MLS club rosters will surely change the mood. Players from Colombia and Argentine aren’t in MLS for the barbecues.

As for American players in Europe, it will be interesting to see what happens to the generation of Under-20 players currently working their way through the systems in Europe. These are players who have played little or no college soccer, have had no experience of MLS and who have been living in Europe, playing at top pro clubs throughout their formative years as players.

Will they emerge in the coming years as a new kind of American player – to whom there is nothing strange at all about being under constant scrutiny and pressure? It will be fascinating to see and potentially crucial to the national team program.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

It is far too soon to be declaring Jordan Morris the future of the United States national team attack, but his goal and performance against Mexico on Wednesday showed once again that coach Jurgen Klinsmann has an eye for talent and that his months of experimentation may not have been in vain.

Klinsmann has spent the post-World Cup era experimenting (or for his critics ‘tinkering’) with his squad, bringing in new faces, trying to unearth some talent that might be able to make an impact on the road to Russia 2018.

My problem with the past nine months of friendly performances from the U.S. hasn’t been that Klinsmann has used over 50 players, but that so few of those brought in have made the kind of strong impression the coach would have been hoping for.

Indeed, until Wednesday, it could be argued that only Tijuana’s Greg Garza, who instantly looked like a first choice left-back, had truly staked a claim to be in the ‘real squad’ – the one which will take part in the Gold Cup campaign in July.

Some of those tried have looked badly out of depth – forward Bobby Wood being the most obvious example. Others, like Alfredo Morales, have shown glimpses of their talent, without truly convincing.

Morris’s confident play, his pace, his touch and a goal that he never looked like missing, was the kind of impact performance that has been missing through the experimentation phase.

But he wasn’t alone.

On a field that was, frankly unsuitable for an NPSL game never mind a clash of this stature, Ventura Alvarado at center-half, delivered the kind of commanding performance that has been lacking in that position.

The Club America defender looked solid and composed, as did his partner Omar Gonzalez.

Another player who Klinsmann controversially, in some eyes, picked out of relative obscurity and threw into the national team, DeAndre Yedlin, also delivered – showing few signs of the effect of several months without regular action for his club Tottenham.

It is worth remembering that many pundits questioned the wisdom of bringing Yedlin into the team ahead of last year’s World Cup – preferring the perceived safer choices of a Michael Parkhurt or Brad Evans.

As with Morris, Klinsmann saw something in Yedlin – his extreme pace, his confidence and directness – that made him believe he could be an asset in Brazil. The German was smart enough to know that Yedlin wasn’t yet ready, in terms of his defensive skill set, to play at his club position of right-back, so he played him ‘out of position’ on the right of midfield at the World Cup and it paid off.

The ‘out of position’ phrase has been widely used to describe the advanced role that Klinsmann has given to Michael Bradley but the captain certainly didn’t look lost in San Antonio, as he delivered one of his best performances in some time for the national team – covering a huge amount of ground, leading by example with his industrious work-rate and aggression.

In an ideal world, Bradley would be played at the bottom of a midfield diamond, sweeping up in front of the defense and then initiating attacks. But while Klinsmann has several options for that role, including the ever reliable Kyle Beckerman, he has a real absence of talent in the attacking midfield slot.

Bradley showed he can be effective in the final third and while it may not be his most natural role, the fact that Klinsmann simply does not have a quality out-and-out number ten to call on means that the team is probably best served by having him in a more attacking role.

True, this was a friendly against a weakened Mexico and it would be silly to draw too many conclusions from it, but what the game did show was that experimenting with players can increase options.

Jozy Altidore is the first choice striker and Aron Johannson is his most likely partner. But on Wednesday, Morris and Agudelo truly staked a claim for Gold Cup spots.

Omar Gonzalez and Matt Besler could still be the first choice options at the back (along with Geoff Cameron if he can consistently get himself regular games at club level) but Alvarado is now in the frame, as is John Brooks, who made a good impression in the recent friendlies against Denmark and Switzerland.

Garza could have become the first choice left-back, but Brek Shea is growing increasingly (and for me surprisingly) comfortable in that role and of course there is still Fabian Johnson who can play that role, or further forward on the flank.

In other words, as we reach the end of the experimentation phase, with friendlies against the Netherlands and Germany likely to feature the main squad for the Gold Cup, Klinsmann has a lot more credible options than he had after the World Cup.

Which surely was the point of all that ‘tinkering’ anyway, wasn’t it?

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

When I moved to the United States from Italy a little over eight years ago, one of the several motivating factors behind the decision was the desire to take a break from soccer.

Covering Serie A in Italy for eight years, pretty much all-day, every day, took me to the brink of soccer burn out. The move to Florida, covering the NFL, NBA, golf, tennis and cricket in the Caribbean, was a fresh challenge and given that Americans didn’t care much about soccer and MLS was something of a sideshow to the main U.S. sports, the game I had been obsessed with since a kid, would take a backseat for a while.

It hasn’t quite worked out like that.

Once I started to investigate the soccer scene in America, I discovered that while not many Americans cared about the game, those that did really cared. What was unique was that the obsessiveness was very different from the kind of all-consuming passion for a team that drove Italian, Hungarian or English fans. In America, so many of the soccer people I met – especially fans, bloggers and journalists, were intensely committed to the game. In particular they were dedicated to what I’ve come to call ‘The Project’ – building the sport in the U.S, growing its influence, creating converts. This was evident in the excitement generated by a good attendance for an MLS game, a good television rating for a national team match, a celebrity showing interest in soccer. Behind every blog post or tweet relating to a bit of positive news was the often-unstated but always present, defiant sentiment of “So no-one cares about soccer in America huh?”

This hasn’t changed much in the past eight years. The topics that generate the most debate amongst American soccer people are issues to do with the growth of the game and the structure of the game, The Project. Not, as in most of the world, refereeing decisions, why a coach should be fired or a certain player benched.

Instead there are endless debates over MLS expansion markets, the merits of promotion and relegation, the league’s calendar, television ratings, natural grass versus artificial turf, attendance, and comparing MLS to other leagues around the world. These domestic zealots have little respect for Americans who just enjoy watching the game and who tune in to follow the Premier League on Saturday morning and catch the Champions League highlights in midweek. The ‘Euro Snobs’, who for whatever reason aren’t interested in MLS, are considered to be traitors to The Project.

I confess that I find most of these debates fascinating. I also find something very admirable in the commitment many make to building the sport in the country with a passion that is by no means any less genuine or intense than that of the Italian ultra or the loyal fan of a lower division English club.

But it seems as if soccer, for the hardcore in the U.S, is almost an ideology – it is the better future for America. It’s globalized, its cosmopolitan, and, perhaps, you sense, seen as more sophisticated than American sports. It certainly feels a little more liberal and the reaction to some frat-boy, college football fan type behavior within the American Outlaws certainly would support that view. Perhaps it is no coincidence that two of the more prolific and obsessed people I’ve come across in the ‘scene’ have backgrounds as organizers and activists in Democratic party politics.

That is not to say that this commitment to soccer is, in itself, necessarily ‘left-wing’. The same kind of fanaticism can be found on the American right in libertarian politics and, for that matter, on the religious right. There is certainly something Evangelical about the desire to convert the country to the one, true sport. In fact, you could argue that wherever there is a ‘cause’ in America, you find this kind of ultra-commitment and subscription to some form of an ideology.

Like all of these scenes, the American soccer world has its own language that is barely understandable to people from outside the milieux. If you are not convinced, try talking about ‘pro/rel’ or ‘Eurosnobs’ to someone who isn’t a hardcore supporter of The Project and take note of the blank or puzzled looks you will receive.

Within the scene though is also another quasi-political trend that is less easy to pigeonhole but which is certainly present. It could be called ‘soccer-nativism’ or ‘American soccer exceptionalism’. It is evident when Bruce Arena says American soccer has nothing to learn from Europe. It was there in the sneers and sniping when David Beckham arrived in MLS. It is constantly present in the debates over Jurgen Klinsmann and the scrutiny of his ‘philosophy’ or supposed ‘European mindset’. I suspect it is also present in discussions about dual-nationality players on the national team and foreign coaches in MLS. It is certainly there when it comes to comments about accents in television coverage. It is the sense that ‘we are building soccer in America and it is going to be ours, it is going to be American soccer’.

This trend is just as committed to The Project, if not more so and its distrust of the role of foreigners, shouldn’t, I stress, be mistaken for racism or any kind of xenophobia. If anything, it is more akin to protectionism, which is certainly not something alien to the political left. It wants American soccer jobs for American soccer people. And it has been pretty successful as a glance at the list of coaches in MLS or commentators and analysts on American television would illustrate.

What makes the Klinsmann situation so fascinating is that he upsets both trends within the American soccer world. He questions MLS and the direction of the game’s progress and he obviously doesn’t believe that Americans can learn nothing from the rest of the soccer world. Yet in his own way, Klinsmann is also intensely committed to The Project and the overall belief that soccer is going to, sooner or later, break through to the mainstream.

When that happens, and I firmly believe that the demographic and cultural trends in this country mean that soccer will become one of the major sports, the ideologues will be pushed to the margins. We can see this already with the supporters of the national team and the more popular MLS clubs. Increasingly, the big crowds behave like Americans fans do at any other sport. They tailgate, they drink beer, they cheer on their team and jeer the opposition. The bigger the crowd in American soccer, the more mainstream the culture is.

And away from the online activists, the bloggers, the podcasts and the soccer media, increasingly, most people who like soccer in America are, I suspect, fairly mainstream people. There are sports fans who probably watch the NFL and the NBA sometimes, catch the odd match from the Premier League on television, maybe go to the occasional MLS game if they have a team nearby, and who cheer on the national team.

And the more mainstream the game becomes, the more corporate it will surely become too because American sport is, of course, extremely corporate. The American soccer decision-makers will embrace the globalized aspect of the game not out of any ideological commitment but because it makes business sense. The more money that pours into the game, the more willing and able American soccer will be to hire the best in the business in an attempt to be the best in the business.

That process will be a testing time for those who have long been ultra-committed to The Project. Perhaps the more hipsterish elements will slowly fade away from a sport which has become too popular. They liked ‘early MLS’, the first two albums before it sold out. The others will probably, like the game itself, gradually move away from the debates over the game’s structures and culture and simply accept what soccer becomes here (whilst probably enjoying the discomfort of the soccer-haters as the game invades their traditional spaces).

American soccer will, I suspect, become both more American and at the same time more ‘normal’ to the rest of the world. As that happens, the subculture of the niche sport will either transform or die out. It may be a painful process for some.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

On Saturday, largely ignored by the national media, another new American soccer club will be born. And once again, it looks like being another success story. Jacksonville Armada will open their NASL campaign and they hope to beat the league’s regular season attendance record of 14,593.

It is another sign that North American club soccer is booming – and it’s not all about Major League Soccer. While MLS continues to break towards the American sporting mainstream in communities across the United States, lower division clubs are putting down roots in a way that has never been seen before.

Jacksonville hasn’t featured on the frequent lists of cities likely to be included in the next round of MLS expansion talks. But if attendance and interest is as high as the Armada expect in their debut season, you can be sure that there will be some wondering if Jacksonville aren’t going to be the next Orlando or Minnesota. Then again, the same could be said of Sacramento Republic in the third tier USL, or the NASL’s San Antonio Scorpions.

It is hard, at the moment, to think of a city in the U.S. that wouldn’t embrace a new soccer club – if that club does all the necessary marketing and community work to establish their presence and credibility. With a soccer specific stadium built in the right part of town, MLS could set-up shop in almost any city in the nation and find a population ready to embrace it.

But there are only so many cities MLS can accept. The league may well expand past 24 clubs, to 28 or even 32, but that would still leave significant, large cities in North America without a top flight professional soccer club. That’s why MLS can never be the be-all and end-all of American club soccer.

Think about this list of non-MLS cities: Phoenix, Austin, Detroit, Cleveland, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Birmingham, Nashville, Charlotte, St.Louis, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Tampa, Cincinnati. You could add others of course and there is no reason why smaller communities across the country couldn’t embrace a team.

The same can be said for all of North America’s major leagues of course but there is a crucial difference – when it comes to American football and basketball, those large cities without an NFL or NBA team will have a college team to satisfy the demand for big-time local games in the sport. College soccer, though, is never going to fill the gap.

In the rest of the world, it is completely normal, of course, for towns and cities of all sizes to have professional soccer teams playing at varying levels in their country’s pyramid. Most have long histories and deep roots that took hold when the game was establishing itself. North America is finally undergoing that process, a century later than Europe but it faces some key decisions in the coming years.

Because MLS is a closed league, open only to clubs who can pay the large entrance fee and win the backing of the league office and the owners of the existing MLS clubs, the dream of rising through the divisions isn’t open to the smaller communities in the United States. That is a pity but a reality nonetheless.

That doesn’t mean that those clubs can’t survive or even prosper – English football has scores of professional clubs who are vibrant presences within their community despite never having a realistic shot at reaching the Premier League – but it does mean that U.S. Soccer, if it wants to help the game spread at all levels, needs to think hard about how to harness the enthusiasm that is seeing clubs being set up at all levels.

The U.S. Open Cup is the perfect way to channel the energy of lower level soccer into a competition that gives them the chance to face the likes of L.A. Galaxy and New York City FC. How can it not be good for the game to give fans in Jacksonville or Louisville a chance to see their local team up against the likes of Steven Gerrard and Robbie Keane or Frank Lampard and David Villa?

Yet the tournament is treated like the unwanted stepchild of American soccer. Despite offering its own rich history, which touches upon every era in the ups and downs of the game in this country, the competition is barely televised, hardly marketed and not taken seriously by MLS clubs. This is an area where U.S Soccer could take the lead and really energize the competition. With promotion and relegation unlikely to be on the agenda for many years (if ever), the Cup offers the chance to open the game up – to allow the small clubs to dream of their day of glory.

The Cup is a huge missed opportunity but U.S. Soccer also needs to wary of the dangers inherent in the ad-hoc layers of leagues that it has allowed to develop. There is a risk of ‘turf wars’ between USL and NASL that will only harm the game. It is one thing for the two leagues to compete for potential investors looking to set up clubs – another thing altogether if the leagues place new clubs in existing markets and risk destroying whatever has been built. So far there have only been skirmishes but it is a danger that US Soccer needs to be alert to.

SEE ALSO: Watch or listen to the interview with NASL Commissioner Bill Peterson on Soccer Morning.

USL’s bid to be designated a ‘Division Two’ league would, if successful, create the ludicrous situation of American soccer having two competing second divisions, neither of which would offer promotion to the first division or relegation to a (non-existent) third division. It is hardly likely to discourage the potential turf wars.

US Soccer needs to have a serious think about how it wants to see professional club soccer structured. The games has moved to a level where a laissez faire attitude of simply being glad that leagues exist is no longer adequate. MLS, NASL and USL are all going to follow their own interests but there is no guarantee that those interests are always going to coincide with what makes the most sense for a growing sport. The history of American soccer offers plenty of examples where selfish feuds have undone years of progress.

SEE ALSO: Watch or listen to an interview with USL Commissioner Jake Edwards on Soccer Morning.

There is so much talk about ‘player development’ in American soccer but the lower divisions offer one of the best ways for players to emerge and grow as professionals. If America truly is becoming, as Don Garber has suggested, a ‘Soccer Nation’ then it needs to make sure it has a national structure that can capitalize on growth and not fall apart under the strain of it.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

There were two developments on the expansion front in Major League Soccer in this past week, that generated two very different reactions in the American soccer community.

In Minneapolis, MLS awarded a franchise to the Minnesota United group which is set to become the 23rd team in the ever-growing league.

From being a club that was at risk of going out of business in the NASL, Minnesota United are suddenly heading into American soccer’s big-time – and most people are pretty happy about that. Minnesota deserved an MLS team.

Also this week, David Beckham arrived in Miami for the first time since June, as he looks to create the 24th team in the league. The visit was, in the eyes of the hopeful, future supporters of his team in South Florida, long overdue. The well documented troubles that the lazily named ‘Miami Beckham United’ group have had in finding a stadium site had raised concerns that the new team in South Florida might not happen, Beckham’s absence merely added to that uncertainty.

Whenever there is news about Beckham and Miami, the soccer wing of social media buzzes with barely disguised contempt – and this week was no different. The arguments range from how MLS would be making a massive mistake to go to such a ‘crappy sports town’ to how Miami doesn’t ‘deserve’ a team and inevitably references the short-lived history of the (badly-named) Miami Fusion.

There are of course always those who can think of somewhere better or more deserving for MLS to set up in than Miami. This time there were even arguments that rising coastal waters caused by global warming should cause Don Garber to think again. And there is always a liberal amount of Beckham-bashing.

The sentiments were summed up by one tweet I received which declared: “Miami isn’t even in the league yet and I’m already sick of them.”

It is hard to fathom why there is such hostility towards the idea of an MLS team in Miami. The city is, after all, one of the biggest soccer markets in the United States. The diverse population is made up of scores of nationalities who traditionally love the game – Colombians, Argentines, Brazilians, Hondurans, Ecuadorians, Peruvians and El Salvadorians. Beyond the Latin-American communities, Miami is also home to a growing number of Europeans – from both East and West – that of course count soccer as their favorite sport.

The large Cuban-American community is always typecast as baseball lovers but, as with other aspects of life in that community, preferences and attitudes are changing with each generation. Today’s young Cuban-Americans are more likely to be watching Barcelona on beIN SPORTS (based in Hialeah by the way) than pining for the ballparks of Havana. Haitians? Crazy about the game. Jamaicans? They love it.

Ah, say the skeptics? But if Miami is so in love with soccer, why did the MLS’s Miami Fusion fail? Didn’t the city already have its chance and blew it? The main problem with that argument is that the club should really have been called the Fort Lauderdale Fusion. It didn’t play in Miami but at Lockhart Stadium, which is 35 miles from downtown Miami and (at the best of times) an hour’s drive away. Its distance culturally is probably even further. Yet, even stuck out in Broward County, next to a small airport, in an old stadium with few modern facilities, the Fusion still managed to draw an average crowd of over 11,100 in their final season in 2001. Not great, but not so far off the league average in that year of 14,900.

SEE ALSO — Ask Simon Evans questions about MLS Miami, US soccer or other soccer-related topics on your mind in Thursday’s Reddit AMA with him at 6pm ET / 3pm PT

Recent attendances for friendly games in Miami shows the potential for the new club. Brazil v Colombia sold out the Miami Dolphins’s SunLife Stadium with 73,429 turning out for what was one of the loudest night’s that venue has experienced in years. Real Madrid and Chelsea drew over 67,000 and even two teams with no obvious connection to Miami’s Latin communities – Manchester United and Liverpool, attracted 51,000 fans, at just a few day’s notice.

Of course, the argument raised is that Miami may be full of soccer fans but they won’t become MLS fans. The Argentine who watches Boca Juniors and/or Real Madrid on television won’t be prepared to turn out to watch the lower standard of MLS.

This is the most relevant objection and the biggest challenge that will face a future club, to convince the population that the team will be worth watching. MLS has been successful in some small-to-medium-sized markets by selling the sport as a cool place for hipsters to drink craft beers, stand in scarves and chant strange versions of European soccer songs. That isn’t going to work in Miami and not only because humidity and long beards don’t go well together.

A new club in Miami needs to be big-time. It needs to be a club that looks and feels like an international team. My fear has been that Beckham would be advised into following the ‘tried and trusted’ approach of smaller cities that have made MLS work. But the comments out of the Beckham camp this week suggest they understand what they are dealing with.

Explaining the slow pace of progress, a source close to the Beckham camp told the Miami Herald they have been working on putting together the finances to ensure that a Beckham-owned club will be one that makes a real impact.

“Will we be a rich stable club or a very rich club that attracts a Ronaldo or a Messi, the caliber of player that would really excite fans in Miami? Will we build a 20,000-seat stadium or can we afford 60,000? Public land or private? Will our academy be the envy of MLS or the envy of all of Latin America?” asked the source. In even asking the question, he provides the answer.

There is no need to turn Miami’s massive soccer fan base into ‘MLS fans’, what will be needed is for them to become Miami fans. Messi and Ronaldo would help of course! But Beckham will need to ensure that the club is seen as something that the city can rally around and identify with. Yes, the club will need to make a splash with big name Designated Players to establish its serious soccer credentials. Yes, it will need a modern stadium in an accessible location. But above all the team will need to capture the identity of the modern Miami.

Miami’s identity, especially its sporting identity, can be hard to pin down, but I saw it emerge in the midst of the anti-LeBron, anti-Heat hysteria after the big-three were put together, when all the bitterness and jealousy came pouring upon the city and the team’s fans. The response was a defiant middle finger, a South Floridian version of the Millwall chant ‘no-one likes us, we don’t care’.

It is telling that during the Heat’s playoff campaigns, I sat in a packed, rocking, American Airlines Arena reading tweets from people in American soccer about imagined empty seats at the game.

Miami didn’t ‘deserve’ LeBron was the message. Miami didn’t ‘deserve’ a championship winning NBA team. And now we are told that Miami doesn’t deserve Beckham’s investment and doesn’t deserve a place in MLS.

What is it about Miami that makes it so ‘undeserving’? Perhaps Miami is just too different from the rest of the United States, a little bit too Hispanic, too much of a frontier town, too close to the Caribbean, to Cuba. “They don’t even speak English…”

Perhaps its the rather over-played television and movie image as a brash, in-your-face city that plays by different rules to the rest of the country that has generated a distrust. Perhaps it is just ignorance, a lack of knowledge about the vast majority of people in the city who live far from the South Beach glitz. Or perhaps it is simply jealousy that as well as living with palm trees, golden beaches and sunshine, the people of Miami will also have a soccer team owned by one of the biggest names in the game.

If Beckham and his team are as smart as they like to present themselves then they would be wise to latch on to that animosity, to use it to create a club that does things its own way, which doesn’t make patronizing token gestures towards the Hispanic community but which really represents that community. Beckham needs to forget everything he learnt in Hollywood and to be skeptical of MLS orthodoxy.

Instead, he needs to spend some time talking to people in Hialeah, in Little Havana, in Little Haiti, in Overtown, in Little Buenos Aires and all the diverse communities of the city. He discovered Miami through having an option for a franchise but he may have stumbled upon potentially the most vibrant soccer market in North America. He has to get it right.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

So much for the ‘Greatest League in the World’ eh?

For the second time in three seasons, no Premier League club has made it into the last 16 of the Champions League. All the millions spent by Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool counted for little when it came to the crunch. England’s elite just weren’t good enough.

It is a far cry from the years 2007 to 2009, when the Premier League produced nine of the 12 semifinalists and four of the six finalists and it is surely going to prompt a major inquest into the failings of the English game.

Well, perhaps not. 

For sure, there will be the familiar rehashing of weary debates over ‘winter breaks’ and fixture congestion and Europhiles will tell us how tactically naive Premier League managers, players and teams are compared to their European counter-parts. But there was no winter break when English teams dominated and I don’t remember many experts lambasting the tactical naivety of Manchester United and Chelsea when they faced each other in an-all Premier League final just seven years ago.

Those who have an agenda against the Premier League will enjoy the schadenfreude for a few more days. There is, after all, no league in the world that generates as much jealousy as the Premier League but the reality is that the most popular league in the world has very little to worry about.

The next Premier League television deal, for the 2016-1019 period, will bring in a record £5.14 billion ($7.9 billion) – and that is just the domestic deal. Later this year the league will sell its international rights packages, which last time generated £2.23 billion ($3.5 billion) and could double this time around.

That money will ensure that the top Premier League clubs can continue to buy big and probably even bigger. Of course Real Madrid and Barcelona, who don’t share television revenue with their domestic rivals in the way that Manchester United and Arsenal do, will continue to be able to buy from the very best – especially from South America. But, apart from ‘super clubs’  Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain, does the Premier League and its elite clubs really have much to fear – on or off the field – from the rest of Ligue 1, Serie A or the Bundesliga?

This year was never going to be a vintage year for Premier League clubs in Europe. Liverpool weren’t ready for a two-pronged challenge at home and abroad, especially after losing Luis Suarez to Barcelona. Manchester City still haven’t found their feet in European competition. Arsenal are building an interesting team that may yet provide Arsene Winger with a successful finale to his career but this year was too early to expect a major breakthrough from them and Manchester United’s rebuilding process left them outside the Champions League. If there was an English team that was capable of going all the way in Europe this year it was Chelsea, the only team that really failed to live up to expectations.

But does anyone doubt that Chelsea will be a strong challenger next year? Manchester United have signed some quality players in the past 12 months and it is surely only a matter of time before they are competitive again at the European level. Arsenal’s squad is packed with young talent that is only getting better. Things are less certain with Liverpool and Manchester City but they have the resources to make a serious go of improving in Europe.

But is improving in Europe really their priority? As much as people talk about the importance of qualifying for and competing in the Champions League, it is hard not to believe that for Premier League clubs, the priority is winning the domestic competition. 

Yes, they will sometimes rest key players ahead of big European games, but look at it this way – there is no question of Jose Mourinho losing his job because of the defeat to PSG in the last 16, but if Chelsea were out of contention in the Premier League, his position would certainly be in doubt.

To some extent, that is true for all of Europe’s top clubs but some have an easier task than others on the domestic front –  in mid-March, Juventus are already 14 points clear in Serie A, while Bayern Munich are 11 ahead of Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga.

Both those clubs enjoyed dominant positions in their domestic transfer markets and that should remind us that, in most cases, in European football money talks. A look at the money trends in the European game suggests that the Champions League is likely to remain, in the next five years, roughly what it has been in the past decade – a competition between the top Premier League clubs, the two Spanish giants and Bayern.

Whether that is good for European soccer is another question. But for English clubs, this year’s failings should not cause undue panic.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

So after all the strike threats, tough talking and marathon negotiations, Major League Soccer’s 20th season will kick off on time this weekend – and the new campaign is in many ways marks a second chance for the league.

With a new television deal and a series of expensive ‘name’ signings in the league, along with two new clubs, there is a different feel about this season and a rare opportunity to win over those American soccer fans who are not yet followers of MLS.

Sunday’s game at the Citrus Bowl where Orlando City and Kaka take on New York City with David Villa, certainly feels like a very different MLS.

And the fact that 62,000 tickets have been sold for the game at the Citrus Bowl, the overwhelming majority of whom will have never been to an MLS game before, highlights the fact that this is a potential turning point for the league’s popularity.

If the game was being played in England, there would only be one Premier League stadium, Old Trafford, big enough to hold the crowd. Sunday’s MLS game will be one of the best attended games in soccer anywhere in the world this weekend.

Of course, Orlando aren’t going to draw 62,000 on a regular basis, but their ability to engage their community has been hugely impressive and shows that in an American city without an NFL team, soccer can be mainstream and big-time.

But, impressive as Orlando’s arrival in MLS has been, we already know that MLS clubs, if they are run well and have imaginative and professional strategies, can put down roots in communities.

What stops MLS from moving to the next level in the American sports scene isn’t local support and stadium attendances but it is the lack of big audiences on television.

The discussions about why MLS’s ratings have been so modest usually focus on the struggles the league has to compete in the quality stakes with the Premier League and other European leagues.

But the reality is that there is no head-to-head competition. MLS doesn’t play on Saturday or Sunday mornings and there is no reason why soccer fans in America can’t take in foreign and domestic games.

Of course, the quality of the soccer matters, but so does the way the television networks present MLS.

There is a second chance here too – with the new television deal which sees MLS in regular time-slots on FOX Sports, ESPN and Univision.

Crucially, the trio have signed up to eight-year commitments, meaning that it is in their interests to generate a lot of interest early on to get the most value out of the product for the term of their contract.

In the past, there has been the feeling that MLS has been something the networks almost felt obliged to show rather than something they wanted to make successful. But instead of shunting the league away from prime-time, all three are committed to regular time-slots.

It remains to be seen how wise it is for FOX and ESPN to make those regular time-slots be a Sunday, especially given the climax to the MLS regular season and the push for the playoffs takes place during the NFL season. Why go head-to-head with the most popular sport in the country in its prime-time?

I am slightly baffled by that decision, but perhaps it will work – there is crossover between soccer and NFL fans, but the goal at this stage is surely to win existing soccer fans to MLS.

Certainly, the overall concept is right and the approach of creating a ‘home’ for the game on two huge sports networks is sure to bring some dividends, as is Univision’s Friday night slot, which if well done, could make further inroads for the league amongst Hispanic fans.

What matters is that the networks start to present the games in the same way that they present NFL and NBA games. If you are trying to take soccer out the niche and into the mainstream – be mainstream yourself.

People involved in American soccer, especially in the media and social media, love to talk about the ‘growth of the game’, the ‘state of soccer’ and the ‘development of the American player’ and so on. We like to debate formats, schedules, rules and regulations and those blessed Collective Bargaining Agreements.

But here is a suggestion for the television networks – forget all that stuff when you are on-air in pre-game, half-time and post-game.

If you want soccer fans to feel committed to the league, to a product your network has invested millions in, don’t talk about structures and policies, talk about the game, the players and the storylines that emerge on the field.

Yes, we all know the standard of play in MLS isn’t up there with the best yet and there is a long way to go. But if the television networks want the fans to take MLS seriously, they should do so themselves.

It is clear from their personnel choices that the ‘accent’ debate is now over — Adrian Healey at ESPN is the only non-American given a spot on English-language MLS coverage – but having chosen that route, the networks should go the whole hog – and cover the sport like every other American sport.

If MLS is to be presented as a significant part of the American sports television landscape, the networks, along with the clubs, the league and the players, need to take this second chance.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

With eight days until the start of the Major League Soccer season and no sign of a deal between the players union and the league over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, MLS clearly risks a work stoppage at the opening of its 20th season.

All reports indicate that the issue of free agency is going to be the stumbling block that could lead to a player strike with the union insisting this is a right they are ready to fight for and the league adamant that they won’t budge on the issue.

So does MLS face the prospect of a damaging long-term strike, possibly wiping out the 2015 season?

Probably not.

I don’t doubt the players when they talk about their determination to secure the same free agency rights that soccer players around the world enjoy. Nor do I think the union are bluffing when they raise the prospect of a strike.

In fact, having made free agency the over-riding issue in the CBA talks and threatened to strike, the union have almost boxed themselves in. Without achieving their goal, which is far from within reach, a strike is possibly the only way the union leadership can maintain their credibility with their members.

Perhaps it might have been wiser to have stated ‘serious progress towards free agency’ as the union’s goal, allowing for various kinds of deals to be struck, but as it is the free agency or bust approach, pushes the union towards a strike.

On the other side, MLS teams have no interest in allowing the kind of free agency that exists elsewhere in the world inside the tightly controlled and highly regulated structure of MLS.

Nor does the league really have too much to lose from a work stoppage where the cards appear to be stacked heavily in their favor.

While MLS clubs would surely prefer the season to start on time, there is no particular hurry for the league and judging by the apparent lack of intensity to the meetings with the union, there isn’t yet an impetus to get a deal done.

So a strike looks likely but the odds are stacked against the union – and that usually leads to a short dispute.

If a union is going to go long and hard in a dispute, it has to be ready to support its workers with a fighting fund – reports suggest the MLSPU has just $5 million in resources.

That isn’t going to cover the rosters of 20 MLS clubs for very long, meaning that an extended strike would involve players going without income. That happens in strikes of course but how long can players who have been earning less than $80,000 a year survive without income?

NBA players could afford their season being delayed due to a CBA dispute because most of them have a few million tucked away in the bank. Outside of the handful of Designated Players, there aren’t many millionaires in MLS.

Do the players want free agency so badly that they are willing to go months without income? Maybe the 27-year-old mid-to-low paid American MLS player will think it is worth the hardship for the longer term goal. But what about the many foreign players in MLS who probably don’t expect to be in the league for longer than a few seasons? Are they going to remain committed to a long strike?

The only way I can imagine the strike being an extended one is if the MLSPU were to get outside support from either FIFPRO, the international players union, or in solidarity from the other North American pro sports unions. But do foreign players outside of MLS care enough about tackling the single entity format to invest in a strike? Do NBA or NFL players care enough about their fellow athletes to back them in a meaningful way beyond words?

The union doesn’t appear to have much leverage at the moment and it is worth remembering the precedents within other North American sports leagues regarding free agency where strikes have not been the route to results.

The Major League Baseball Players Association was formed in 1885 but it was not until 1975 that they were finally able to achieve free agency and it was not won through a strike but through legal action.

Oscar Robertson’s antitrust suit won free agency for NBA players in 1976. Likewise NFL players only achieved full free agency in the early 1990’s, again through legal means.

If the past is a guide, free agency will eventually appear in MLS but probably after a series of court cases and so far there has been no indication of legal action from the MLSPU and a wariness to challenge the league’s single entity structure.

All of this doesn’t mean there won’t be a short strike, more of a dispute where the players miss the first few weeks of the season. I could be wrong, but I just don’t see the conditions in place for a long and bitter industrial dispute.

The whole situation is the price North American sports pay for rejecting the free market approach to compensation taken by soccer leagues across the world.

By creating ‘five year central plans’ and having officially recognized unions, the major pro leagues set themselves up for set-piece labor disputes every five years. It is almost inevitable that there will be conflicts.

In the rest of the world, players unions are more like professional associations rather than real labor movement bodies – because the free market systems leave it up to player and club to determine the value of the footballer. It is the agents who are the agitators over pay and conditions not the unions.

Both systems have their pros and cons. In Europe, massive wage inflation and excessive payment to agents infuriates fans but the open market allows clubs great freedom in creating their teams and gives players much more power over their own careers.

The North American model controls costs, restricts wage inflation, but limits the freedom of clubs to buy and sell players and weakens the players ability to generate the maximum revenue and limits their choices.

MLS is in the unique position of being part of the open, global, soccer market but operating on the more closed and controlled principles of the North American pro sports model.

This is inevitably going to create tension and conflicts but the hope expressed in some quarters that some ambitious owners would back the players demands because they want greater freedom over their own investments looks to have been misplaced.

The American businessmen who have invested in MLS are a different kind to the global rich who invest in European soccer.

It is well understood in Europe that a soccer club owner will probably lose money as he ‘invests’ in his team, buying players at huge cost. Hence the ‘Sugar Daddy’ title. What motivates most owners in the Premier League or La Liga is the boost to their reputation and public profile, the sense of importance that comes with heading a soccer club.

SEE ALSO: Watch the interview with Stefan Szymanski for an opposing viewpoint.

MLS owners, like American owners in other sports, want a return on their investment, they want to make profits out of their clubs – and at the moment most of them aren’t seeing that return anytime soon.

That partially explains the hardline they are likely to take in the upcoming dispute.

MLS’s economic structure will likely evolve in time, maybe even radically, and most likely as a result of legal or industrial action.

But it is difficult to see 2015 being the year in which a defining shift takes place. When the players do take the field this year, it is unlikely to be in an economic structure massively different to last season.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

Arrigo Sacchi’s comments that “there are too many colored players” in Italian youth teams is the latest in a series of racism cases that have emerged in Italian soccer but it is arguably the most revealing.

The Italian game is in the midst of a dramatic decline and it is sometimes easy to forget that it was not so long ago that Italy’s Serie A enjoyed an image as Europe’s most stylish and sophisticated league matching the country’s global (and self) image.

Like many others, I was entranced by Serie A during the time of Sacchi’s wonderful Milan team in the late 1980’s and when Channel Four in the UK began broadcasting live games from Italy, I lapped it up – everything seemed to be on a higher level than in England.

The stadiums for the top teams were bigger, louder and more dramatic stages for games with banners, flags and smoke bombs. The technique on display was far superior than that found in England’s top flight and they had the best foreign imports.

Later, when I spent eight years in Italy as a reporter, I was fortunate to be able to watch some of the best players of that era perform in the great Serie A derbies – Ronaldo, Zidane, Nedved, Batistuta, Veron, Shevchenko and Crespo alongside great Italians – Maldini, Del Piero, Vieri, Totti and Inzaghi.

The Italians described Serie A with some justification as the ‘most beautiful league in the world’ but even in that golden era, racism reared its head.

Usually, it was the fascistic Lazio ultras but even supposedly more progressive Fiorentina fans abused Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke when they played for Manchester United at the Stadio Franchi back in 1999.

Sadly, there is little beauty in modern calcio.

The decline of the top Italian teams, who now struggle to make an impact in European competition, has led many international fans to downgrade Serie A in their rankings of the world’s best, but it is the racism that has laid bare the myth of Italian sophistication.

Italian fans were once viewed as among the most colorful and passionate in Europe, the occasional violence of the ultras notwithstanding, but the series of incidents involving abuse of black players has exposed many ultras for what they often are – far-right racists.

The lack of action from officials was often put down to bureaucratic inertia but the shameful comments from football officials and politicians such as the “banana eating” jibe from the head of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) Carlo Tavecchio regarding African players, suggests the problem is much deeper.

Tellingly, despite his racist slur, Tavecchio remains the head of the FIGC having been backed by key leaders of Serie A and B clubs, many of whom clearly have little concern for the impact of such words on their own African and black players.

Sacchi’s comments, like Tavecchio’s, were in the context of a lament about the state of Italian soccer.

Tavecchio targeted the signing of players from Africa with little proven talent or experience: “Let’s say there’s [an imagined player] Opti Poba, who has come here, who previously was eating bananas and now is a first-team player for Lazio … In England, he has to demonstrate his CV and his pedigree.”

Sacchi was upset about the number of foreign and black players in Italian youth teams.

“Seeing so many players of color, so many foreigners, it’s an affront to Italian football,” he said before commenting on the lack of “dignity” and “pride in our own country.”

Sacchi seems to be unaware of the possibility of black Italians playing in youth teams despite the fact that the Azzurri have already featured the likes of Mario Balotelli, Angelo Ogbonna and Stefano Okaka, all of them black players born in Italy.

The personal histories of those three players reveals that the problem is much deeper than the ignorance of a 68-year-old coach.

Balotelli, born in Palermo and raised in Brescia, was unable to play for Italy’s Under-15 and Under-17 national teams because he didn’t receive citizenship of the only country he had ever known until he was 18.

Likewise Okaka and Ogbanna were denied their full rights as Italian citizens until their 18th birthdays, ignored by national youth teams because the Italian state denied them the chance to have the same opportunities and rights as others born in the country.

The most revealing piece of racism that Balotelli faced was the chant from Juventus fans of “Non ci sono negri italiani” – “There are no black Italians”.

Even when the Italian state decides after 18 years, that a black man born in Italy deserves citizenship, in the eyes of too many Italians he remains a foreigner.

It was surely no coincidence that when Balotelli’s younger brother Enock Barwuah faced abuse in a lower division game near Brescia last September, the chant used was “black ‘Bresciani’ don’t exist’.

Clearly these attitudes reveal a societal problem and while Sacchi’s racism is obviously not in the same category of crudeness as the fans abusing players, he also appears unable to come to terms with the fact that black Italiani esistono.

Sacchi’s comments also reveal the all too common habit of blaming minorities and foreigners for decline – something seen in many societies, of course, and a common view from the kind of Italians who shake their heads at the sight of kebab shops and Chinese-owned stores in streets where traditional Italian shops once thrived.

The decline of Italian soccer has many explanations. A lack of finance to allow clubs to compete with the top teams in Europe is the primary reason but arguments can be made about coaching, player development and a host of other factors.

The presence of black players in youth soccer clearly isn’t one of those reasons, indeed as the world champions Germany have shown, embracing the offspring of immigrants can bring tremendous results.

Sacchi’s denial of the racism charge featured the familiar utilization of the ‘black friend’ argument, as he cited the presence of Dutchman Frank Rijkaard in his great Milan team.

Perhaps Rijkaard should remind him that, before he became a Milan star, he too was one of those black teenagers playing in youth soccer.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

This week’s news that the Premier League has sold its three-year domestic television package for a record-shattering $7.7 billion dollars highlighted once again the dominant position the EPL has gained in the global game, which makes Major League Soccer’s most recent record deal look like spare change.

But while the vast economic gulf between the two leagues is stark, MLS is in a position to, in time, become the second truly globalized soccer league in the world.

Commissioner Don Garber has set the date of 2022 as the year when MLS should be among the elite leagues in the world. At first hearing, that date, just seven years away sounds hopelessly optimistic. The choice of year though wasn’t just plucked out of the air. 2022 will be the year when MLS signs its next multi-year television deal and it was also the year that the USA hoped to host the World Cup finals before Qatar won the controversial vote.

I don’t think Garber is far off though with his target – and if we move it back four years, a  strong case can be made for MLS being a truly elite league by 2026. 

Over the next eight years, MLS will be pushed and marketed to viewers by the two giants of English-language sports television in the US – ESPN and FOX Sports. On top of that, the dominant Spanish language broadcaster, Univision, will be directing its audience actively towards MLS. Eight years of major broadcast network promotion will surely result in an upturn in television ratings. Then, barring a surprise turn in the market, the next MLS television deal in 2022 should see a seriously significant rise in revenue. That will take time to manifest itself in increased competitiveness in the transfer market as MLS clubs look to spend that cash on international talent, but it should have filtered through by 2026.

By 2026 we should also be seeing the fruits of the investments currently being made to turn MLS into a bigger and better league.

In terms of size, MLS by will have grown to 24 and perhaps 28 teams with most of the major cities and regions of the country included.

MLS should also have become a significantly better product on the field. The money being spent on academies and player development at the moment will take several years to deliver tangible results but surely by 2026, MLS will be showcasing the best young American talent to have emerged from a system which is far better designed to find and nurture talent than anything that has existed previously.

That talent will be more likely to stay in MLS and be joined by quality imports because, after two more five-year CBA deals, the salary cap will have been pushed up significantly and (regardless of what happens in this set of negotiations), players will enjoy greater benefits and contractual rights making MLS a much more attractive league for top players.

All the trends point towards further, intensified growth in interest in MLS. Average attendance of over 19,000 is already the envy of most of the established leagues in Europe. With big city clubs like NYCFC, LAFC, Miami and Atlanta, coming on board, all with owners with deep pockets, crowds can reasonably expect to continue to rise. More TV and stadium eyeballs will mean bigger sponsorship deals and increased merchandise revenue.

When it comes to investment in ownership of clubs, we are already seeing two key trends that should intensify growth. Firstly, owners from existing major league American sports franchises are looking to enter MLS. Already there are links with the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks while the arrival of the Atlanta Falcons and the Minnesota Vikings could be the start of a wave of NFL teams looking to fill up their stadiums during the spring and summer months. Secondly, the global wealthy who have been so attracted to the EPL are starting to show similar interest in MLS. New York City FC are owned by Sheikh Mansour of the UAE, Orlando City’s majority owner is Brazilian. It would not be a surprise if David Beckham’s Miami ownership group ends up with a strongly international element. 

An increasingly globalized, wealthier ownership, with an international selection of players and coaches, doesn’t just give MLS more resources and better soccer – it also, crucially, puts the league in a great position to globalize itself and take advantage of the kind of foreign television rights and merchandising deals that the Premier League has excelled at.

This is the crucial factor. While the EPL is out of reach, it is not fanciful to see MLS in 2026 as the second truly globalized league. A key element is that MLS (like the EPL) is an English-language product, allowing fans around the world to follow the storylines, the arguments, the controversies, the characters and personalities, as well as the action on the field. This is an area where the Bundesliga, Serie A and to a lesser degree La Liga (with its dominant position in Latin America) struggle to compete with the EPL.

That doesn’t mean that MLS would be the second best league in the world in terms of quality or competitiveness. But rather, commercially it has the potential to be truly globalized in a way that few other leagues can be.

Global sports consumers are already used to following American sport from afar thanks to the NBA, MLB and increasingly the NFL. If MLS in 2026 is a serious product on the field, with recognizable names and well established clubs, it would be in a great position to sell itself around the world. It is not by accident that MLS recently announced a new deal with marketing giants IMG to improve the league’s foreign television rights deals.

The final reason why 2026 is, I believe, set to be the year when MLS is transformed is that year the United States stands a very good chance of hosting the World Cup. CONCACAF has a strong case that, with no hosting since 1994, it is long overdue the chance to hold the showcase event. For a host of reasons, the U.S. should beat off any rival bids within the region from Mexico and Canada. 

Having the biggest soccer tournament in the world on American soil will obviously give a huge push to an MLS that by then will already have over-taken the NHL as the fourth major league in North America and will be breathing down the neck of MLB.

Thirty two years after FIFA brought the World Cup to the United States in a bid to ‘conquer’ a country that had yet to fully embrace the global game, the task will have been completed. And appropriately America’s full establishment as a major soccer nation would be celebrated on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Whether this analysis proves to be overly optimistic or surprisingly cautious, the next decade of soccer in America should be fascinating.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.

Jurgen Klinsmann is under-fire from his critics in the US once again, this time for his comments that some of his players didn’t return from the long winter off-season in the shape he expects. Yes, remarkably it is Klinsmann who is being criticized, not the unfit players.

In most countries, statements such as Klinsmann’s would lead to questions being asked of the players. Certainly if Roy Hodgson or Vicente del Bosque were to say the same of English or Spanish national team players fitness, a media inquest would follow. Who wasn’t in shape? Why weren’t they fit enough? Which players didn’t do their off-season workouts? Why when the staff gave the players workout programs didn’t the players keep to those plans? What is the coach going to do about it?

But this is soccer in America and this is a foreign coach criticizing American players, so it is Klinsmann who is feeling the heat – not the players. “You can never argue that US soccer players are unfit,” said Alexi Lalas. Never Alexi? Even when you are coach of the national team and you see the fitness levels of your players when they entered training camp? 

Of course Klinsmann, as he often does, brought in other issues and instead of sticking to the specific problem of players not doing what should be their professional duty, he again threw in the question of the length of the MLS season – a largely separate issue.

The real problem with MLS isn’t the length of the season – it is the lack of intensity of most of that season. There are some benefits to a playoff system but one undoubted weakness is the way it undermines the importance of regular season games, particularly in the first half of the campaign. The absence of a relegation threat only adds to the problem. 

Intensity affects fitness of players but also many other factors – the sharpness of touch, the alertness and awareness, the mental toughness, the levels of discipline. Playing games that really matter, week in week out, improves all those aspects of a player’s game. Playing games where a couple of defeats on the bounce isn’t a big deal has the opposite effect.

Klinsmann’s friends and foes both tend to highlight his frankness, the lack of a ‘filter’  which can cause him to upset people and start debates such as this one. But in this case, I suspect he isn’t saying all that he thinks about this problem. It is possible that last year’s big row with MLS Commissioner Don Garber has caused Klinsmann to self-censor a little.

But here is the real problem facing the former Germany striker: When Klinsmann took the US job he clearly hoped, and possibly expected, to see more of his players going to play in Europe where they would face greater pressure to perform at their best every week and he went out of his way to encourage those kind of moves. Instead, the opposite has happened as a number of players have left Europe and returned to MLS.

The January training camp used to be about bringing the second-string national team players from MLS in for some work while the bulk of the first choice players were doing battle (or at least trying to get a starting place) in the Bundesliga, Serie A or the EPL. Yet in terms of American players in Europe, the situation has gone into reverse – almost back to the days when goalkeepers were the only Americans playing at top European clubs. Apart from Geoff Cameron at Stoke, the outfield players really making the grade at the top level in Europe are German born and raised.

It is great for MLS to have the likes of Altidore and Shea in the league this season but their return also highlights the fact that American players just aren’t being successful in Europe. Indeed since Clint Dempsey at Fulham and Steve Cherundolo at Hannover, there hasn’t been an outfield export from the States to Europe who has been a truly long-term success. 

For all his ‘frankness,’ Klinsmann doesn’t talk about that. Nor can he really talk about the overall absence of players of the Dempsey or Landon Donovan quality level in the 22-30 age group – itself a damning indictment of the youth system. But the fact is the coach has to work with the products of the American development system from the past 10-15 years and they are, on the whole, not good enough to play, week in, week out, at the level he wants. 

After a run of five games without a win, it is understandable that some are critical of what they see as Klinsmann’s over-experimental approach to tactics and personnel. But Klinsmann looks like a coach who is trying so many different approaches in the hope that somehow, somewhere he will find something. He has the task of finding players or a playing system that will bridge the gap between the kind of soccer he knows is needed to be successful on the international stage (see Germany, Spain) and the reality of the talent-level he has been given (see MLS).

There is an air of frustration among media and fans when it comes to the U.S. national team and sometimes that manifests itself in criticism of Klinsmann. The feeling is the team should be progressing better and quicker. And it should. But while coaching, selection and tactics matter, the big picture, uncomfortable though it may be for some, is that the United States is still, simply not producing enough, really top-level players.

It is going to take time for the next, hopefully more talented, generation to come through and Klinsmann probably won’t be around to work with them. But in the meantime he is absolutely right to demand the basic minimum that his players turn up for national team training camps fit and ready to play international soccer. 

What is really puzzling is how such a demand is considered, in any way, controversial.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans.

So for a few months at least, FIFA will become a multi-party democracy.

After former Portugal international Luis Figo joined the list of those challenging incumbent Sepp Blatter, there is now a broad range of candidates offering change.

The big question is whether FIFA’s member associations will truly embrace the opportunity to listen to the alternatives and choose the best candidate for the future of the game, or whether the Blatter electoral machine will simply churn out a depressingly predictable outcome.

If this were an open ballot of soccer fans, it would be a fascinating contest with voters given a choice of men from differing backgrounds in the game.

There is the option of Dutch FA chief Michael van Praag, a European official with extensive experience and who has been a vocal critic of Blatter.

Also from Europe, there is the former French diplomat and ex-FIFA official Jerome Champagne who has presented himself as a moderate reformer and a more gentle critic of the status quo.

From Asia, there is Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, the Jordanian royal who has been president of his country’s FA since he was 25 and who at 39-years-old is the youngest of the candidates.

Then there is David Ginola, the former Spurs, Newcastle and France winger, whose candidature has been roundly criticized for being publicly backed by a bookmakers.

In contrast, Figo, the classy former Real Madrid and Barcelona midfielder, offers a more credible challenge from an articulate and thoughtful ex-player and the chance to put the game in the hands of someone who has played it at the highest level.

And then there is Blatter himself, the 78-year-old who has presided over one of FIFA’s financial growth but also its most scandal ridden eras, involving the questionable decisions to hand the World Cup finals to Russia and Qatar.

If this were a ballot of soccer fans, Blatter would surely struggle to make it to the second round of the vote and Figo would likely be one of the favorites.

But, of course, it isn’t football fans, or players or club officials, who will decide who the next FIFA president will be – it is the heads of the 209 member associations who make up the congress who will cast the crucial votes.

And these men in suits, many of them from countries without a single fully professional club let alone a real professional league — a number of them from countries without effective checks and balances on corruption, are arguably the only group of people who seem to believe that Blatter offers the best leadership available to the game.

Or rather, they believe Blatter is the safest bet if they are to continue receiving their flow of cash from Zurich in a system that clearly provides insufficient controls over the spending of those resources.

Just before the World Cup in Brazil last year, FIFA held their congress and the link between cash and votes was made explicit by Blatter.

The FIFA president announced $750,000 bonuses for all 209 national associations as well as a generous extra $7 million for the regional confederations.

Barely pausing for breath, he then asked congress if they really wanted to get rid of him by imposing term or age restrictions on the FIFA president?

To no-one’s surprise, congress rejected limits which would have brought an end to the Blatter regime and ensured there would never be a long-lasting rule of that kind again.

With that vote won, Blatter then, in his usual corny style of false-modesty, suggested he would be happy to run again if that was the wish of those who had just had their budgets filled up with fresh funds from ‘the home of football’.

It was blatant but it was still slightly less nauseous than the sight at previous congresses where Blatter has been heralded by a series of delegates leaping to their feet to loudly declare their unswerving commitment to his great leadership.

That is the client system that Blatter’s predecessor João Havelange created after beating England’s Sir Stanley Rous in 1974 and which the Swiss took over in 1998. The system works and has consistently delivered him a pile of votes from Africa, Asia, South America and the CONCACAF region.

The key question in this election is whether a single candidate can emerge from those against Blatter who is capable of breaking that block of votes by convincing those delegates that they will be even better off without Blatter.

It was noticeable in Figo’s statement on Wednesday that he made reference to increasing the money going to national federations by dipping into FIFA’s vast reserves.

It may be depressing but it is a depressing reality that beating Blatter will involve such promises, as much, if not more than talk of reform. Perhaps to smash the system, it needs to be used and turned against Blatter.

Still the ‘Zurichologists’ in the media believe the numbers look good for Blatter – he starts the campaign with the assumed backing of most of Africa, Oceania, South America and CONCACAF and a slice of Eastern Europe.

The odds are that the Blatter machine will deliver again. If it does, it will say nothing about Blatter’s abilities as a football administrator but plenty about the system he has created and the people who populate it.

Those who wish to see a clean, modern, efficient and progressive FIFA can only hope that one of the challengers finds a way to turn the tables on Blatter.

Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans.

In the space of a week, Toronto FC have gone from the laughing stock of Major League Soccer to headline makers. The club, which has failed to reach the playoffs in any of their eight seasons, has committed a reported $70 million in wages over the next five years to bring in Jozy Altidore and Sebastian Giovinco as designated players.

It is the arrival of Italian international Giovinco that has led to the talk of Toronto changing the face of MLS. The attacking midfielder is 27-years-old, significantly younger than the usual age for players signed under the ‘Beckham rule’. Despite struggling to make the team at Juventus this season, he remained a member of the Italian national team and could have expected a move to a first division European club when his contract ran out this summer.

The Giovinco signing is proof then, that European players not yet beyond their prime, are willing to come to North America to play if the money is right. We already knew that the likes of Steven Gerrard, David Villa and Kaka would come to MLS for the final years of their careers – this is something different. 

While the deal is eye-catching, at least doubling Giovinco’s net salary from Juve, it is unlikely to herald the start of an MLS ‘gold rush’. Toronto is so far the only MLS club willing to pay well over European market value for players.

The real significance is that Toronto are following the example of the LA Galaxy by creating MLS’s version of NBA’s ‘Big Three’.

While the Miami Heat showed the approach can work in basketball, the question is whether it can be effective in a sport where there are eleven players on a team and not five. 

Altidore, despite his dismal spell at Sunderland, should be good enough to score goals in Major League Soccer. Giovinco, despite fading from the limelight at Juventus, is good enough to create them and score a few himself too. Michael Bradley is a top quality central midfielder, who if it wasn’t for Toronto’s money would still be playing at a good level in Europe.

But then what about the other eight players on the field? What about the back-up squad players? What about the coaching staff? What about the playoff game when Giovinco is injured?

Toronto head coach Greg Vanney said this week: “Michael will play a bit deeper in midfield with Giovinco connecting us to the attacking half. Then Jozy finishes things off for us.”

He surely knows it isn’t going to be that simple. 

Vanney, in his first head coaching job, now has to make a success out of the most expensive, but also must unbalanced, MLS team ever assembled. It strikes me as remarkable that a club which can spend so freely on designated players, couldn’t find a coach with more experience but in fairness even Jose Mourinho would be tested by handling a locker-room where three players earn seven times more than the rest of the squad combined.

It can work though. LA Galaxy coach Bruce Arena managed the process well, with Beckham, Robbie Keane and Landon Donovan, all on designated player deals, but he did so with a team that had gradually evolved, with plenty of experienced players and as a coach with three decades of experience.

But the situation does raise a broader question. What if a club could spend Toronto’s $20 million a year salary budget, spread out on a squad of 16 players? In other words, what if they behaved like any other club in the world – trying to assemble the best squad possible on a given budget?

The reason MLS has such a unique set-up is that it believes a salary cap can keep costs down, stop teams driving up transfer fees and salaries and maintain a level of equality between clubs that allows anyone to win the league – the oft-mentioned ‘parity’.

But where is parity when Toronto can spend more on three players than another six clubs will spend on their entire squads?

Where is the parity when LA Galaxy have won three of the last four league titles and still get assistance (reportedly $750,000) from the league in signing Steven Gerrard on a $6 million a year deal?

The Designated Player rule was originally created to allow each club to have one big name signing that, primarily, had a marketing and promotional value – a Beckham, a Thierry Henry, a Cuauhtémoc Blanco. It was a good idea.

But it has gradually been expanded to three slots and there is constant talk of a fourth.

Adding one star player to an MLS roster doesn’t have a massive impact on the competitive balance in the league. Adding three or four certainly could. But it also forces coaches into the unnatural position Vanney now finds himself in.

MLS is a success story in so many ways yet its weak point remains the quality on the field in most games. Adding three ‘stars’ to a mediocre team might bring results in television ratings and other areas but it doesn’t help improve standards overall significantly. Allowing teams to spend more, as they please, would.

Increasing the salary cap radically would allow the clubs who can’t afford the Gerrards and Giovincos to at least be able to keep their squads together and to gradually improve them in areas of need. Imagine if Real Salt Lake, instead of having to dissemble and rebuild their squad over the past three seasons, had been able to build upon it, adding quality where it made sense, offering salary increases to those who merited them?

Is the best future for MLS really one of low-paid average players supporting a couple of big-name stars?

A talented central defender with little marketing value may make more sense for some MLS teams doing more to raise their standard, than a ‘name’ from Europe. Some clubs, on the other hand, might need a star to raise their profile and boost attendances. Others would choose to invest in their homegrown players or recruit from Central America as some clubs are already doing, albeit within the restraints of a tight salary cap.

Clubs will have different approaches but the problem with the status quo is that it gives a free hand to clubs massive budgets, such as Toronto and LA, to bring in big, glamor signings, but it keeps a tight lid on teams who would like to build more organically.

It no longer makes much sense.

Editor’s note: Today marks Simon Evans’ debut column for World Soccer Talk. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics every Thursday. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans.