By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (May 13, 2011) US Soccer Players -- Major League Soccer’s product is most outwardly the quality of play on the field. There are other things that go into the popularity and success of a professional sports competition, some of them related to the star power of individual players and the experience teams can create in their stadiums, but the ability to draw eyes and interest at its most basic relies on entertainment value.
That’s why LA’s Saturday night showdown with New York at the Home Depot Center was such an important moment in the evolution of MLS. This is the marquee cross-country matchup for every league that has teams in both cities for obvious reasons. MLS only has two of these games on the regular season schedule, giving this game more glitz than regular season soccer games can usually muster.
All of that would have been meaningless if the two teams hadn’t delivered a pulsating, back-and-forth, notably skilled affair. It mostly did, with the first half in particular being time-capsule level quality. Saturday night was a shining moment for Major League Soccer, 15 years in the making.
There are cynics everywhere. Even avowed MLS boosters find reasons to minimize League “successes” and argue that progress has been much too slow. Nothing is taken at face-value. Through the prism of world soccer and other professional sports in America, MLS is still a second rate league. One game doesn’t change that, no matter how good it happened to be. It would take ten LA – NY’s in every season to quell even a small portion of the (healthy) discontent. It was a great game, but it also painfully reminded us that MLS is that good so rarely.
While caveats flew in the aftermath of the Galaxy and Red Bulls match, the reaction was mostly a gleeful reveling in the excellence of it all. The cynics can say what they want, and might still have points to make, but there’s no doubting the fact that the two highest profile teams in the League delivered on the promise of high quality soccer. With MLS, the end product is too often a letdown (see, MLS Cup 2010) so a game that lived up to the billing is worth celebrating. That’s especially true when it’s available on national cable.
Yet even a great night for MLS is a two-sided coin. Sure, LA and New York put on a show. Yes, the concessions to greater payroll freedom for the League’s more deep-pocketed owners appeared to pay dividends in the form of entertaining soccer. That prompts uncomfortable questions for League leadership in New York. Namely, if two teams with the payrolls of LA and New York can play an exciting brand of soccer the likes of which MLS rarely sees, doesn’t that give credence to the idea that the League is doing more harm than good with strict salary restrictions? Why wouldn’t they want to loosen the purse strings and give more clubs a chance to shine?
Shouldn’t there be more than two teams who can raise the level of the game in North America to those levels?
It was unique, in an environment that fosters as much ingrained, expectant disappointment, that so many of the usual contrary voices were awed into silence, if even for a short time. It won’t last, and there it’s appropriate to look at that game in particular and wonder why Major League Soccer can’t seem to even approach that standard more consistently. The Designated Players rule was a start. Without it, the match last Saturday night doesn’t include Beckham, Henry, Marquez and possibly, Landon Donovan. The rule works, to a point. Those players heightened the anticipation in the buildup and did their part to elevate the game with their play on the field.
Major League Soccer’s problem with re-creating that high quality - over and over and over as they should be striving to while balancing the ever-present financial concerns - has little to do with the highest paid stars. The DP rule provides for the ability to sign a big talent, but there will always be at least 16 players (and invariably more for the foreseeable future - we’ve yet to see a 6 DP game, and may never) who fall into the “everyone” else category. For an overall quality perspective, it doesn’t matter if there’s a world famous striker on the field if the level of the players around him isn’t good enough to complement his skill.
Perhaps that’s the most amazing thing about LA and New York giving us just a glimpse of nearly inscrutable soccer entertainment - it happened with players involved who aren’t household names, whose salaries aren’t unfairly labeled with the phrase “a pittance,” and whose options don’t include playing in richer leagues elsewhere. The bulk of Saturday night’s open, attractive, and well-played marquee match-up at the Home Depot Center was the result of guys either raising themselves to new levels or playing to their full potentials.
Maybe it was the energy in the building and the reputation of certain players on the other side. Maybe the coaches involved, contrary to the usual instincts of MLS managers, let their teams play. Maybe it was a taste of ambrosia handed down by benevolent soccer gods, both a gift and a curse. It’s distressing that there’s almost no real expectation that it will happen again any time soon.
The midweek slate was, as expected, a dose of harsh medicine. LA went to Philadelphia and drew with the Union from a winning position. TFC and Dallas slugged it out in Texas, with the Canadians coming out on the bad end of a dodgy penalty. Vancouver and San Jose finished 1-1 in the rain and the cold. There were exciting moments spread across those games, but nothing that came near the heights of Saturday night, and definitely not in the thrilling extended stretches.
We have plenty more like that to look forward too. Not every game will be abject, but it might be more difficult to accept the status quo than ever before after what happened in Carson last weekend. A wonderful possible future, the kind that might launch soccer to new heights or at least convert a few fans, was on display for a brief, glorious window in time. What it really shows us is a League that knows it can do better.
Jason Davis is the founder of MatchFitUSA.com. Contact him: matchfitusa@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davisjsn.
