Major League Soccer fascinates me. Hailing from a country where soccer is (or rather was) predominantly working class and has grown organically over more than a century has not given me the smug attitude towards MLS demonstrated by most European soccer fans. Maybe it's just that I have an inner sociologist, but I enjoy watching a new league, seeing how it develops, watching it grow.
MLS is one of a kind. It's a league created out of thin air, established - to the skeptical eye - with the ghost of NASL haunting it at every turn. The very fact that it is expanding is intriguing. Soccer is not the national sport in the States and faces stiff competition not only from sports with which it directly competes, but huge off-season sports (like the NFL) and a domestic fascination with European football. It's called Eurosnobbery, so I'm told.
I don't know whether MLS will ever be recognised in the UK as a leading league, but rest assured there is a small core of fans that fights its corner. I regularly discuss MLS on both twofootedtackle and the twofootedtackle podcast, influenced in no small part by Sean Wheelock. Many English fans struggle to get to grips with the Americans' football terminology - we're precious like that. But Wheelock, the Kansas City Wizards play-by-play man who covers North American soccer on a popular radio show on the BBC, talks our language.
I stumbled into MLS in the off-season after looking to expand my footballing horizons, read up as much as I could before First Kick and then threw myself head-first into this season. I daresay my attention was grabbed by David Beckham's move to AC Milan, but I like to think I'd prefer to watch MLS these days without Beckham. So far, I've not been disappointed.
The quality of play is nowhere near as bad as Major League Soccer's European reputation would have us believe. In English football terms, I'd say much of the play in MLS would be equivalent to the bottom half of our second tier, the Football League Championship.
But there are some pretty obvious flaws which drag it down, and some of them are surprising. Thanks to Brad Friedel, Kasey Keller, Tim Howard and Marcus Hahnemann, among others, we usually see the USA as a producer of top-class goalkeepers, and yet it's partly poor goalkeeping which drags down the average quality of MLS. Take this season - Kenny Cooper's strike against Chicago took incredible technique, but Jon Busch should never have conceded in that situation. Fredy Montero's goal against Real Salt Lake the following week was, again, a brilliant shot which should have been stopped.
Last Thursday, William Hesmer made a couple of very costly errors to allow Real a big victory over Columbus. But Crew's performance at the back highlighted another glaring hole in Major League Soccer's standards: poor defending. Conor Casey's hat-trick for Colorado against the Galaxy this weekend was a further example of the lack of defensive quality.
Thing is, this could all be seen as a good thing. If there's one thing we suffer from in Europe, it's an assumption that high-quality, almost scientific, soccer is a good thing. That's not necessarily the case. Errors make soccer exciting - games can turn in the blink of an eye.
And MLS players do so much well, too. Cooper, Montero and Davy Arnaud have all shown this season that they really know how to strike a ball. Eduardo Lillingston's cool finishing has bagged plenty of points for Chivas already, and he's not the only player to show he can be clinical in front of goal. Much of the play in the middle third is as good as anything you'd find in the bottom half of the Premier League, though Serie A and La Liga might argue they're even better. Much of the MLS action I've seen has been characterised by fast, one-touch passing.
It also has two traits so sorely missing from top flight football in England, namely physicality and competition. In fact, it's something approaching hypocrisy that English fans can bemoan the plasticization of domestic football, often associated with the decline of these two factors, and at the same time dismiss MLS out of hand. Yes, MLS has certain corporate aspects which are unpalatable to many English fans. But if they actually watched the matches, there's a decent chance they'd be pleasantly surprised. There's something very English about the way Major League Soccer is played and officiated.
There's some real quality in Major League Soccer, and I'm not talking about the likes of Beckham and Freddie Ljungberg who are already familiar to English fans. Montero really looks the part, for one. I've been impressed by Gerson Mayen and Lillingston at Chivas, and Dwayne De Rosario of Toronto. With players like these, MLS is well worth watching. Seeing expansion club Seattle Sounders topping the early Western standings only reinforces that view.
Chris' thoughts on all things soccer, both in written form as well as in an exquisite podcast, can be found at twofootedtackle.
MLS is one of a kind. It's a league created out of thin air, established - to the skeptical eye - with the ghost of NASL haunting it at every turn. The very fact that it is expanding is intriguing. Soccer is not the national sport in the States and faces stiff competition not only from sports with which it directly competes, but huge off-season sports (like the NFL) and a domestic fascination with European football. It's called Eurosnobbery, so I'm told.
I don't know whether MLS will ever be recognised in the UK as a leading league, but rest assured there is a small core of fans that fights its corner. I regularly discuss MLS on both twofootedtackle and the twofootedtackle podcast, influenced in no small part by Sean Wheelock. Many English fans struggle to get to grips with the Americans' football terminology - we're precious like that. But Wheelock, the Kansas City Wizards play-by-play man who covers North American soccer on a popular radio show on the BBC, talks our language.
I stumbled into MLS in the off-season after looking to expand my footballing horizons, read up as much as I could before First Kick and then threw myself head-first into this season. I daresay my attention was grabbed by David Beckham's move to AC Milan, but I like to think I'd prefer to watch MLS these days without Beckham. So far, I've not been disappointed.
The quality of play is nowhere near as bad as Major League Soccer's European reputation would have us believe. In English football terms, I'd say much of the play in MLS would be equivalent to the bottom half of our second tier, the Football League Championship.
But there are some pretty obvious flaws which drag it down, and some of them are surprising. Thanks to Brad Friedel, Kasey Keller, Tim Howard and Marcus Hahnemann, among others, we usually see the USA as a producer of top-class goalkeepers, and yet it's partly poor goalkeeping which drags down the average quality of MLS. Take this season - Kenny Cooper's strike against Chicago took incredible technique, but Jon Busch should never have conceded in that situation. Fredy Montero's goal against Real Salt Lake the following week was, again, a brilliant shot which should have been stopped.
Last Thursday, William Hesmer made a couple of very costly errors to allow Real a big victory over Columbus. But Crew's performance at the back highlighted another glaring hole in Major League Soccer's standards: poor defending. Conor Casey's hat-trick for Colorado against the Galaxy this weekend was a further example of the lack of defensive quality.
Thing is, this could all be seen as a good thing. If there's one thing we suffer from in Europe, it's an assumption that high-quality, almost scientific, soccer is a good thing. That's not necessarily the case. Errors make soccer exciting - games can turn in the blink of an eye.
And MLS players do so much well, too. Cooper, Montero and Davy Arnaud have all shown this season that they really know how to strike a ball. Eduardo Lillingston's cool finishing has bagged plenty of points for Chivas already, and he's not the only player to show he can be clinical in front of goal. Much of the play in the middle third is as good as anything you'd find in the bottom half of the Premier League, though Serie A and La Liga might argue they're even better. Much of the MLS action I've seen has been characterised by fast, one-touch passing.
It also has two traits so sorely missing from top flight football in England, namely physicality and competition. In fact, it's something approaching hypocrisy that English fans can bemoan the plasticization of domestic football, often associated with the decline of these two factors, and at the same time dismiss MLS out of hand. Yes, MLS has certain corporate aspects which are unpalatable to many English fans. But if they actually watched the matches, there's a decent chance they'd be pleasantly surprised. There's something very English about the way Major League Soccer is played and officiated.
There's some real quality in Major League Soccer, and I'm not talking about the likes of Beckham and Freddie Ljungberg who are already familiar to English fans. Montero really looks the part, for one. I've been impressed by Gerson Mayen and Lillingston at Chivas, and Dwayne De Rosario of Toronto. With players like these, MLS is well worth watching. Seeing expansion club Seattle Sounders topping the early Western standings only reinforces that view.
Chris' thoughts on all things soccer, both in written form as well as in an exquisite podcast, can be found at twofootedtackle.
