I knew I'd awaken the resident MLS stan. You're my man 100 grand though
northoaklandfc
but we will agree to disagree. I gave you a rep because you made some salient points even if I disagree with them.
I realize there are extenuating circumstances that cause the gap between Liga MX vs MLS.
Liga MX is an older more established league, individual teams in Liga MX can spend more, etc, etc but money should not be used as an excuse for a number of reasons like the average salaries for MLS is catching up to Liga MX.
I'll give you that Liga MX teams are already in some form when it comes to the concacaf CL, but it's more like 9 game into the LMX season if I remember correctly. If that's indeed a big enough issue, don garber doesn't seem to care much.
Even if MLS did follow a similar schedule, they would still get washed not only because of the quality in players but more importantly the quality of coaching too. MLS teams still get washed later in the year when/if they play.
The talent level in MLS teams isn't that deep. Each team currently has probably 8 to 10 players of quality. After that, the talent level drops off tremendously and that's not only said by me but its been echo'd by pundits like Steve Nicol, Paul Mariner, & Brian McBride who all have had experience in the league.
But getting back to the money, that's not a good argument either. Case in point, Luis Aragones & his Spanish tiki taka revolution. At the time of his implementation as La Roja's manager, Spain wasn't really thought of as a footballing powerhouse (although they weren't a backwater footballing nation either) even if the likes of Barcelona & Madrid were in their domestic league.
They also weren't in a position to spend the kind of money the Germans did to develop great footballers given the state of their economy at the time.
Spain also didn't have players that were bigger, stronger, & faster. What they did do in-spite of that was develop the very best technical footballers as they could & combine that with the right tactics that would enable them to compete on an international level. What unfolded there after was done in-spite of not having gobs of money to throw at development.
Don Iniesta is the perfect example of this. Had he come up in any other country, including the US, we would've most likely never seen him play because he didn't meet the physical attributes a lot of countries follow.
Conversely, whose to say the "12 year old natural striker" wouldn't be a good striker if he didn't grow into having the prototypical striker's body post puberty?
Using that logic, one would never see a Messi play up front because he dame sure doesn't look like the typical striker but it's ability and the tactics in which he's deployed that help him excel up front.
Also you're making an assumption the 12 year old I spoke of &
sfc415
received the kind of coaching that would help them excel in a different role (which is one of the reasons why we're leaving the team my son is on).
A lot of the youth coaching here in the states footy wise is still very poor (when it comes to youth club/travel footy). It's actually poor in most of the other sports too (do I need to mention aau basketball?) but that's a whole other conversation.
Using you're logic like your acting like US can develop a player like Atleti's Juan Fran who started as a striker & ended up one of the world's best fullbacks. That type of coaching just doesn't exist at the moment here in the US.
I'd rather we have coaches meet tougher standards to achieve coaching licenses who can then identify the strengths of young players & teach them how to play the game across the board & we don't have that right now.
Edit - Outside of the top MLS teams, I'd much rather watch an NCAA footy game (if available) than an MLS game... A lot more fun to watch IMO.