By Richard Snowden

If you're hearing something resembling the sound of thousands of hyenas right now, you don't need to have your ears checked.

That irritating cacophony is simply the sound of every other country in North America, Central America and the Caribbean laughing their collective backsides off at American soccer, and with good reason.

With Major League Soccer already smarting from multiple spankings at the hands of allegedly inferior United Soccer Leagues clubs in this season's U.S. Open Cup, the New England Revolution and Chivas USA have earned MLS another dose of scorn and derision with their abysmal performances in the CONCACAF Champions League.

Facing minnows Joe Public FC of Trinidad and Tobago in the group stage play-in round, the Revs thoroughly embarrassed themselves, MLS and American soccer by following up a 2-1 road reversal with a shameful 4-0 home drubbing that saw even Revs diehards booing and jeering their team off the pitch – the ones who didn't skate out early, that is.

For their part, the Goats managed to stink things up just as badly. After playing an awful away game in losing 2-0 to Panama's Tauro FC, a lowly side whose goalkeeper was charitably described as "butter hands" and "Mr. Vaseline" by the Galavision announcers, Chivas showed further ineptitude by blowing countless scoring chances (including a dirt-poor penalty kick from Sacha Kljestan) to draw 1-1 in the return leg.

By contrast, both entrants from the ostensibly weaker USL First Division managed to advance from the same play-in round. The Montreal Impact defeated Nicaragua's Real Esteli 1-0 on aggregate while the Puerto Rico Islanders upset heavily favored Costa Rican side CD Alajuelense 3-2 in their series, thus making MLS's humiliation complete.

Predictably, we're already hearing the excuses about injuries, crowded schedules and so forth, and to be fair, there's some truth in these rationalizations. But let's be honest: In year 13 of MLS, results like these should simply never happen, period – and such results certainly place all the hot air and hype about MLS into stark contrast with reality.

The reality quickly became obvious while watching these games. Despite making solid strides in recent years, American soccer is still clearly failing to produce players with the requisite technical skill to compete against even modest teams whose players possess such skill.

This fact was also made clear during the U.S. team's recent 1-0 World Cup qualifying win in Guatemala. Time and again, the U.S. players found themselves overmatched by players of superior skill – including a pair of MLS rejects, ironically enough. As a result, the Yanks were forced to rely on a set-piece goal and dogged defending, as they were outplayed and overrun for lengthy periods by their more skillful opponents.

To its credit, MLS has tried to address this problem at the club level by allocating more roster spots to foreign players, whose technical abilities are generally allowed to develop naturally instead of being coached out of them, as is typical in the U.S. developmental system. However, the league's efforts to date have been insufficient, and this speaks to the heart of the problems that hampered Chivas USA and New England.

For all of MLS's recent progress, the quality of play has improved very little thanks in large part to two related factors: small rosters and meager salary budgets. These factors limit MLS teams to a small handful of truly quality players, while the remaining roster space is largely filled out with players who are, at best, no better than most of the talent on offer in the USL pro leagues; indeed, some are surely worse. 

MLS clubs are thus forced to rely on a few players to carry the team – and when more than two or three standouts get injured, the team is effectively decimated. Little soccer savvy is needed to note the gap in quality between Maykel Galindo and Justin Braun, never mind between Taylor Twellman and Brandon Manzonelli. The latter are decent enough young players, but they should not be expected to carry an MLS team.

Yet that's exactly what happened Tuesday night. With the Revs' roster ravaged by injuries, Manzonelli – a developmental prospect who had never played a single minute for the senior squad – was suddenly thrust into a serious international competition. Likewise, MLS rookie Braun started for injury-plagued Chivas in lieu of experienced veterans like Galindo, Ante Razov and Alecko Eskandarian.

In both cases, the results spoke for themselves. With most of their handful of top players sidelined through injury, New England and Chivas USA floundered badly against teams they should have bested in a walk, particularly when given two chances to do so.

In light of all the grandiose rhetoric we've heard MLS's movers and shakers spout about their league over the years, you have to wonder if they're feeling a bit of embarrassment right now. If not, they should be, for they have only themselves to blame.

It is they, after all, who have nickel-and-dimed their league into mediocrity for years, substituting marketing hype for quality product. This tactic has caused the league considerable embarrassment on more than one occasion, but on the upside, the solution may be as simple as throwing more money at the problem, so to speak.

That money, if invested wisely in three specific areas, would go far toward ensuring that such galling humiliation will not be repeated in the future – not to mention making the future of American soccer a good deal brighter.

First, the league needs to increase its salary cap significantly, plain and simple. This would allow the league to hire better talent, and more of it. The inevitable mediocrity that results from paying a sizeable number of your players little better (and in some cases worse) than graduate teaching assistants will only be remedied when MLS ponies up the funds to entice quality talent in numbers.

Second, expand roster sizes. A roster of 18 "senior" players is simply nowhere near sufficient, especially in light of the increasing number of games many teams are now required to play. Inadequate rosters plus more games equals excessive exhaustion and injuries – it's not rocket science. Here again, the fix is fairly simple: make the money available to hire more (and better) players.

Third, boost development resources and execute wisely. Hire youth coaches who are committed to developing creative, technically capable players instead of those who overcoach in a misguided effort to win at all costs – that's what created the awful existing system. Set up residential academies similar to U.S. Soccer's Bradenton program at every MLS club. And hire enough good scouts to scour every inch of the country and find the gifted ethnic prospects we're letting fall through the cracks for want of wealthy parents!

Admittedly, all this may seem a bit much to ask of owners who have lost tens of millions of dollars on soccer over the years. However, it should be noted that MLS is financially healthier than ever today, as more and more soccer-specific stadiums have opened for business (and continue to do so) and large cash infusions from the adidas deal, TV rights fees, and ever-increasing expansion fees have swelled the league's coffers.

Moreover, the league's impending expansion threatens to deplete the already shallow talent pool badly. This could easily render the on-field product, which is often mediocre as it is, so poor that the league might lose a fair number of the fans it has worked so hard to gain while simultaneously turning off prospective fans.

As such, it is obviously in the league's (and therefore the owners') best interest not to permit the on-field product to devolve into something resembling 1996 standards. There is only one sure way to prevent this from happening: A sizeable chunk of that fresh change must be spent on improving the product, and that means investing in more players, attracting better-quality talent, and improving player development.    

While these solutions seem fairly straightforward, that's not to say they will be quick. As with our nation's energy problems, we cannot simply start "drilling" for talent and expect the problem to disappear in short order. There's no escaping the fact that it will take some time for the effects of these measures (especially developing players) to become visible.

But the way forward is clear. And if MLS's bigwigs want to wipe the rotten egg of embarrassment off their faces once and for all and secure their league's future, they will need to drop the snake-oil salesmanship and pony up the resources that will enable their teams to prove their worth in the only place that counts: on the pitch.    

HAVE YOUR SAY…
Do you agree that Major League Soccer needs to invest more to improve the talent level? Were the recent results of Chivas and the Revs due to lack talent in the league?  What do you think should be done to insure the league continues to improve.  Send your emails to Soccer 365 by CLICKING HERE.

READER FEEDBACK

Although I do agree that the MLS should invest in more talent, I am not sure that they have the money to do so. I do not think they have the financial resources as of yet to meet the three pronged plan of the writer. Where would the money come from? The top players from each team consume most of the budget for these teams.

We must also account for the amount of talent that we are losing to overseas clubs. Keep in mind the three huge signings of Cooper(Dallas), Gusman(Chivas USA), and Altidor(New York), with talk of more to come. Oh and btw, these signings do build legitamcy of MLS internationaly. Perhaps the money the MLS does have could be spent to keep the depth MLS currently possess from going oversees, although this makes for better players too.

MLS could also try a loan or swap system which would encourage young MLS talent to go overseas and bring young oversees talent to the US. This way we could benefit from seeing naturally gifted talent develop here in the US while US players could gain valuable international experience to bring back to the MLS.

Either way, the writer should not fret about Chivas and the Revs early exit from an inaugral CONCACAF Champions League event. Great teams can have really bad games. Keep in mind there are still two MLS teams remaining in CCL competition, Houstan and DC. Don't count them out yet.

David S
 
Dear Richard
 
The MLS needs to hire me to create a NEW SPARTA. But most likely that will not happen. The MLS/US players are ok but they are not the best. Bringing in players from abroad is not the answer. To make the best players you must first create an environment that makes warriors and not girl scouts selling cookies in front of Safeway. The first phase is for US Soccer to establish many sites, which have an environment where 5 year olds can play everyday for free. Without the first phase you can not do the second phase properly. The second phase, which can start immediately, is to travel around the country to search for talented 10 to 14 years old who live in the inner-cities of America. Once you have this talent then New Sparta must be established near the border of Mexico, because Mexico is our number one opponent that we must totally dominate before we can conquer the world. When we can beat Chivas, Atlas, and rest of the Mexican youth clubs consistently with a score of 7-0 then we have arrived. Meanwhile, soccer in America will continue to be a hobby for the middle and upper middle classes of America. New Sparta shall have a house with a soccer field in front of it covered with dirt, broken glass and rocks. On this field that is where our players are going to become the best. Warriors are not going to become warriors if they are training on beautiful grass fields or state of the art artificial turf fields.
 
I am the only one in this country that can do this. There is no one else because everyone else has become soft and complacent. It has been my dream to build a New Sparta for 33 years. Hopefully, one day I will build a New Sparta and then we will have a generation of soccer warriors that will conquer the world and at the same time the world will finally respect the USA. The only way a person can truly grow mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually is to be constantly out of your comfort zone. Our players are to comfortable. That is why they are soft, arrogant and have very little gratitude. My way is the only way. The other ways are Bull Crap. You can not make chicken soup with chicken s**t. If you think I am full of crap. No problem.

Cony K

What if as a partial solution the MLS rewards teams that qualify for championships (or superliga) in the following year with a roster slot (and some cap space)?  Yes there would be inequality among MLS teams, but there already is with successful teams having to be spread thinner without being able to spend more money that successful teams normally have.  Anyway, the Galaxy has been repeatedly rewarded with hidden cap space for being a bad team.  There is a saying at universities (which have similar types of constraints): good universities punish bad departments and bad universities punish good departments.

This would also make end of season games even more valuable to teams.  Finally, it rewards teams for being smart with the MLS constraints they have faced.

Alfred P

Richard's subject article is on spot and a no-brainer for the comatose MLS commissioner. Yes, the rosters are too thin; yes, the amount of quality players are too thin; yes, the schedule is crowded; and yes, even so-called Carribean CONCAF mediocre teams have players that shine.
 
A quality player keeps team shape, has field awareness, reads the game, has the touch, moves off the ball, and is comfortable on the ball. These player qualities in the MLS are mostly missing. What's not missing is athleticism, speed, and braun which is a miniscule part of 'football'. In addition, most MLS teams refuse to play simple-soccer, on the ground, short passes, and ball control. Under minimal pressure, most MLS players cough up the ball or get themselves into extreme pressure situations and, what else, but cough up the ball. It all starts in high school where 'make something happen' has no meaning.
 
juke
west mifflin, pa