With J Hutcherson -- Here's why FIFA president Sepp Blatter is concerned about the English Premier League and the transfer market. There are few things like the interest from an English club to inflate the value of a player.
Feel free to make up your own international All-Star squad, but for every Ronaldo or Eto'o, there are names associated with surprisingly large transfer figures that are just that... surprising. More often than not, one of the eager bidders is from the English Premier League.
The result is exactly what you would think. Regardless of whether the player ends up in England, it's the English clubs pushing the fee. Running along with every example of quality scouting, there's the feeling that the English clubs are playing a version of the money game.
If another club is going to get a player, they're not getting him for a discount. There's nothing wrong with that under any rules that wouldn't hamper the transfer system. After all regardless of who pays the fees this is almost always money moving from one league to another.
Other than expressing discontent, there's not much FIFA can do to promote what they're calling "financial fair play." That doesn't make it a bad idea in principle or in practice, but it would have to be a lot broader than just tweaking ownership regulations in England.
Moving on, last night in the US Open Cup only the New England Revolution really played themselves out of contention, and even that took overtime. There's not much of an excuse for the other three Major League Soccer losers, and that should also include Kansas City who needed penalties to advance.
Tonight takes us to Austin and Portland, where two of the best teams in Major League Soccer should be on their way to the Fourth Round. Seattle has given every indication they're running something close to a normal starting eleven, including Kasey Keller in goal. If that happens, one would expect a win against their old friends the Timbers.
Learning nothing from Tuesday, Houston will be using the regular MLS model of mainly reserves. In fairness to Houston, they're missing players. At the same time, this could quickly become another example of the relative strength of MLS depth.
Think about it like this. Most MLS squad players would be filling the same position at other MLS clubs or starting in the USL-1 or USL-2. It's not much of a surprise that those same players without a lot of games don't run right over USL opposition.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
