Two scenarios for your consideration:

Scenario A:
You are a young soccer player from a smallish European nation, a nation in the second or third tier of the UEFA pecking order. You came up through the youth system of a club not usually mentioned among the European powers, and you've logged some first team time. Your profile has steadily risen, and it's obvious you'll soon be ready for stiffer competition. Soon, foreign clubs come calling, and it's apparent your future lies in a top-tier league in one of the hotbeds of European football. How much are you worth?

Scenario B:
You are a young American soccer player. You're an oddity, a player drafted into MLS without ever playing college soccer. You make your debut at a very young age by American standards. You play for a time in the American league, your skills drawing the interest of the national team manager and foreign clubs despite your youth and inexperience. You star in youth World Cups, raising both your profile and your potential transfer price. How much are you worth?

If you valued yourself higher in scenario A than you did in scenario B, then you are no different than the rest of the footballing world. Americans are the blue light specials of European soccer, the cheap alternatives to higher priced options when times are tight or transfer kitties lacking. The highest profile American players often head off to European pastures for amounts that seem a pittance when compared to those paid for European and South American talent.

To move this comparison from the abstract to the concrete, let's assign to each scenario a player that matches its general circumstances. For scenario A, Stevan Jovetic; for scenario B, Josmer Altidore. Both are strikers, both are young (in fact, they are only six days apart in age), and both made big moves to a big club in a top four league in 2008.

If you don't know who Stevan Jovetic is (I sure didn't), here's a brief bio:

Jovetic was born in Montenegro in the former Yugoslavia on November 2, 1989. After rising in the youth system of Partizan Belgrade, he subsequently made forty-seven appearances for their senior side, scoring twelve times. After being named captain of his club in January 2008, Jovetic was sold to Serie-A side Fiorentina for a fee of 8 million euros in May 2008.

For the sake of brevity, I'm going to assume you know Jozy's story. I'll just review a few facts to frame his place in this discussion: Jozy's scoring record in MLS was 15 goals in 37 appearances, and Villareal paid MLS a record $10 million for him in June 2008. To better compare the fees paid, let's convert dollars to euros: the $10 million paid for Jozy was equal to just under 6.5 million Euros at the time of the transfer.

At first glance, the discrepancy in fee doesn't seem that large; keep in mind, however, that the 1.5 million euros represents an almost 20 percent "discount" to Villareal. Even allowing for the imperfect direct player comparison, it seems fair to call this discount significant. To further the point, the paths of each player continue to parallel, as Jovetic has made eight senior appearances (with no goals) for Fiorentina, and Alitdore has made six senior appearances (with one goal) for Villareal.

I could spend all day, and write thousands of words, giving example after example of the "American discount". American players with similar playing backgrounds, of (seemingly) similar abilities, and with similar potential to their European counterparts are sold or signed in Europe at rates often thousands or millions of euros (or pounds) less than those European players. European teams are learning quickly that the best place for bargains is the U.S.; Sacha Kljestan is just the most recent example of the phenomenon, as he's being linked to Celtic at a rate that seems too low for his burgeoning talent.

This situation is the result of several factors, not the least of which is our brief history of exporting players. A young league and still evolving world presence is just now allowing American players to sell themselves on the world market. The amount of players leaving the U.S. is increasing, but the number is still just a drop in the world talent pool. While many footballing nations send their young players abroad at rates disproportionate to their population, the United States is on the opposite end of the ratio. With a large population, we have yet to export a significant amount of quality players to European leagues, leaving the reputation of American players a incomplete one.

Those Americans that do transfer to major European leagues often do so at a later age than their European peers, a situation exacerbated by our youth-to-professional infrastructure. The reliance of MLS teams on the college soccer system has created a class of young players with no professional experience at an age when players from other nations who possess similar abilities are often entering their second, third or fourth season as pros. A European player in his early twenties is invariably more advanced as a professional than an American of equal age. This later development naturally leads to the American player transferring abroad at a price much lower than the market would bear for a European target.

The discount for American talent is likely to prevail as long as the development of players here follows a different timeline than the rest of the world, as long as the number of players moving overseas remaing relatively low, and as long as those players that have moved are not able to make significant contributions on a large scale. The repuation of the American player is likely to improve in the future; the growth of the game in the United States, as well as the continued effects of the domestic professional league, should lead to more and more Americans making their names on Europe's biggest stages. Until then, however, American soccer will continue to be European football's prefferred bargain shopping desitination.


A couple of videos, just to add visuals to the Jovetic-Altidore comparison:

Stevan Jovetic


Jozy Altidore