Two stories today, which seem unconnected on the surface: Anton Peterlin, most recently of the Ventura County Fusion, has officially signed with Everton. Yura Movisyan, currently of Real Salt Lake, has signed with Danish side Randers FC and will be leaving MLS shortly.
As I mentioned; two seemingly unrelated stories concerning players on two distinct tiers of the American soccer pyramid. But each highlights continuing issues with our top-flight league, issues I think will only be exacerbated in the future.
Peterlin's signing with Everton leads to an obvious question: If he could impress David Moyes and his staff enough in a ten day trial to land a contract with a Premier League club, why wasn't he already on the payroll of a Major League Soccer club?
There are several reasons, of course, because nothing with MLS is ever simple; most basically, though, it comes down to money and roster size. Signing Peterlin would not only hit the salary cap of the team in question, it would also take up one of the precious few roster spots teams have. This means that unless Peterlin was ready to step in immediately (which is doubtful), then having him on the roster is a luxury many teams can't afford, at least at the salary he might have commanded. With a European passport (his father is Danish and his mother is Slovakian), Peterlin wasn't locked into signing for an MLS club as a poverty-level salary; he could bide his time and look for trial opportunities, hoping to eventually end up signed by a European club. Which is exactly what he did.
Roster limits and the salary cap conspire to make it difficult for players like Peterlin to be easily picked up by clubs that could certainly benefit from developing him in-house. Because Peterlin didn't rate as a player coming out of college, he slipped through the cracks, and his background made it difficult to sign him following two trials with MLS clubs.
Peterlin is exactly the type of player that MLS teams must sign if the league is to continue growing while maintaining a core of American players. The Superdraft has served its purpose to this point, and provides the league with some semi-refined talent; but as long as the business of developing players themselves continues to receive only lip service, MLS will find itself missing out on more than a handful of quality players that are available right here in the US.
Movsisyan represents an entirely different problem, but one that's equally as frustrating to MLS fans, and involves elements of the same league-operation issues. A young striker with great potential, Movsisyan has quietly become one of the most exciting young players in MLS. But his contract situation, as well as his own passport status, has led him to sign with a European club rather than remain in the league that gave him his start. Movsisyan's salary, while mid-range by MLS standards, pales in comparison to what he could command in even a second- or third-tier league Europe. A player with Movsisyan's work status holds all the cards; if RSL/MLS didn't step up with a contract to his liking, he's able to flit off to Europe, more than likely for a significantly higher salary, which is exactly what he did.
I'm willing to bet that RSL may not have even attempted to seriously negotiate with him, knowing it was a lost cause.
Two players, two black-eyes, two examples of the league's inability to find and hang on to talent in its own country. One player MLS missed on because of the system as it exists for finding talent didn't allow teams the leeway to risk bringing him in, and the other leaves before he really hits his full potential because the salary restrictions make it impossible to keep him. Each highlights the same problem from difference angles, and each is mind-wrenchingly maddening.
MLS can bring in all of the overpriced foreign talent that it wants to, something I've actually advocated for as a way to raise the quality of the league quickly; but MLS should first and foremost work towards maximizing the talent available in the United States, something the example of Peterlin and Movsisyan prove they are not doing by any stretch of the imagination.
Maybe neither player really wanted to play in MLS in first place; if true, that might lead to an entirely different post on a entirely different set of problems. It depresses me to even consider the possibility.
