At just 19 years old, the MLS is young. And like almost anything that is young, it has potential: the level of play has increased drastically since the League’s founding in 1993, while ticket sales and viewership have followed suit, and the original 10-team format has nearly doubled to 19. It’s what you want to see in a budding industry, what you need to see if the project has any chance of long-term success and stability.
For sports fans of our generation, the MLS feels something like our child. Whereas the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL were already firmly established when we were first rocking our Barry Sanders/Mark McGwire/Michael Jordan/Wayne Gretzky jerseys, the MLS was still in the maternity ward. We have watched it grow; we have grown with it, perhaps claiming our own potential as much as the league’s. C’mon, I’m only seven years old. A three-pointer is hard.
It enjoyed a strong inaugural season in 1996 (yes, the league was founded in 1993 and yes, the inaugural season was in 1996), but then dipped into summer irrelevance until the U.S national team revitalized soccer in America with a scintillating run to the Round of 8 at the 2002 World Cup. Development then stalled for a few years – and this time the National Team was the goat not the cat-alyst, going winless at the 2006 World Cup and restoring mediocrity to American soccer – and the future of the league teetered between hopeful and uncertain. At this point, the MLS had reached a plateau in terms of popularity and growth, and it soon dawned on the league that an assortment of plodding defenseman, interchangeable midfielders, and bruising strikers – almost all of them white and almost all of them uninspiring – was not going to push this ceiling higher. They needed a new type of player, namely an un-American one, who could befuddle defenders and electrify crowds. So in 2007, the MLS enacted the Designated Player Rule (a.k.a. the Beckham Rule), which allowed each MLS franchise to sign players that would be considered outside of the team's salary cap (either by offering the player higher wages or by paying a transfer fee for the player). Soon, the likes of Beckham, Juan Pablo Angel, Thierry Henry, Rafa Marquez, Torsten Frings, and Jéferson, among others, were donning MLS jerseys and bringing credibility to a league that had fallen victim to the quip: “You want to hear a funny joke? MLS.” more times than it cares to remember.
It still is the punching bag in the American sporting landscape, but it packs a healthy wallop itself now, too. Okay, “Hey, we have Thierry Henry” isn’t going to be a TKO of a comeback, but it might make the aggressor pause for a moment. And that’s progress.
Another sign of progress is the league’s swelling ambition. 19 years ago – 10, even – the league had a fundamental goal of survival. In the safety of its mind, in that back corner of the brain where the fields are always green, it surely entertained visions of glowing prosperity, but the immediate focus fell on keeping their precarious raft afloat. Now, though not quite the barge that its 4 brother leagues are, it is a surer ship steered by a surer captain – the steady, but bold Don Garber – reaching higher-water marks. The landmarks that once seemed so impossibly far away are now beckoning on the horizon, and the MLS can dream big.
This big: “We believe that over the next 10 years, if we continue to be smart, focused and innovative, that our league can compete with the other leagues around the world 10 years from now,” says Garber. “It’s not next year but, ultimately, if we keep focused and continue to manage our strategy properly, we should be able to stand toe-to-toe against anybody. America does not want to be second-best.”
By this declaration, the L.A. Galaxy should be Real Madrid’s equal by the year 2022. And in a beautiful manner, it reminds me immediately of this scene from Miracle.
“That's a pretty lofty goal, Herb."
“Well Lou, that’s why I want to pursue it.”
I’m not quite ready to list Garber alongside Herb Brooks, the General who won the most unwinnable fight, but it’s encouraging to see that “Brooksian” aspiration. Like Brooks, he seems to have this novel vision that only he can see, that only he can comprehend right now, but that he has so much faith in it just has to work. Billy Beane carried the same kind of unbreakable confidence when he revolutionized roster management in baseball. If there is one common ingredient in the stories of underdog success, it is audaciousness.
But realization of Garber’s goals isn’t guaranteed just because his character and his vision break from the mold. Brooks and Beane are two examples of guys who dared to dream and were rewarded for it, but there are countless others who marched with the same resolve and ambition but fell well short of their holy grail. It’s what makes these dreams, dreams.
If Garber is to bring his projection into fruition, he will have to attract more stars from Europe. Younger stars, riper stars: stars that can play in the league for more than a few years before riding off into the lucrative sunset of American sports. He needs to court Henry and Beckham, but five to ten years earlier. He will also have to keep his homegrown stars on MLS soil, which amid the mad push of American players to Europe, spearheaded by national team coach Jürgen Klinsmann, is another tall task. But in professional sports, this country likes – demands – to see the best, and prefers to see its own. We are spoiled as a sporting audience, and our predilection for first-rate talent is uncompromising.
On Tuesday, I went to see the Red Bulls play Tottenham Hotspur at Red Bull Arena. I planned on rooting hard for the home team, and I did, though to me the game was just a microcosm of USA vs. England. (To my delight, chants of U-S-A were a crowd favorite.) But I also found myself rooting for good soccer, for world-class football, and whenever Tottenham put together a rousing buildup, my fancy for premier play overrode my fledgling Red Bulls fanhood. I wanted to cheer, to breath a sigh of relief when their attacks fizzled, but I groaned in disappointment instead. I wanted to see magic, and Tottenham, led by the graceful Garreth Bale, wielded the wands.
I left the game no surer of the MLS’ potential for greatness than when I arrived. The Red Bulls were wholly outplayed, aside from the game’s opening minutes, totally unable to crack the Tottenham defense. They rarely had possession, quickly lost it when they had it, and played the kind of artless, straight-ahead game that Americans are so frustratingly fond of.
But three days prior to the 1980 Winter Games, Brooks took his team up against the indomitable Soviets. The Americans were crushed, 10-3. Herb’s goal of beating the best team in the world looked crazy. Unfounded. Unfeasible. 13 days later, in a sold out Lake Placid arena, he did it.
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