By Richard Snowden

In official terms, Major League Soccer is considered the United States' first-division professional soccer league, while the United Soccer Leagues First Division is MLS's second-division counterpart.

In light of recent results on the field, however, one could easily be forgiven for assuming that the reverse might be true.

Head-to-head competition between teams from these two leagues has always been fairly tight, with the underdog USL-1 sides generally proving worthy foes for their wealthier MLS brethren. But this season, the USL-1 teams have shown that there might well be very little difference between America's top two pro leagues in terms of quality.

The streak of positive results for USL clubs began in the third round of this year's U.S. Open Cup, where three separate upsets proved a harbinger of things to come.

A 2-0 loss to the Seattle Sounders saw Chivas USA eliminated, while defending MLS champion Houston Dynamo fell to the Charleston Battery on penalties after a 1-1 draw. In the shock result of the round, USL-2 side Crystal Palace Baltimore knocked off the New York Red Bulls 2-0.

USL teams continued to impress in the Open Cup quarterfinals, as Seattle dumped the Kansas City Wizards on penalties after a goalless draw and Charleston thumped FC Dallas 3-1. In addition, USL-2's CP Baltimore gave perennial MLS Cup finalist New England Revolution all it could handle before bowing out on penalties after a 1-1 tie.

Up north, the inaugural Nutrilite Canadian Championship, played to qualify the Canadian entry in the CONCACAF Champions League, proved to be another humbling ground for the big boys. MLS side Toronto FC was generally expected to advance with little trouble, but the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps of USL-1 had other ideas.

The round-robin affair saw Toronto stumble and then fall after starting off with a 1-0 win in Montreal. Vancouver held TFC to a 2-2 draw after beating them 1-0 while Montreal recovered from the initial setback to post a 1-1 draw in Toronto, sending the Impact into the CONCACAF Champions League at the expense of their MLS compatriots.

MLS's public humiliation then kicked into overdrive as the Champions League got underway. Having long styled itself as the CONCACAF region's top pro circuit alongside Mexico's first division, MLS has so far been dealt dose after galling dose of harsh reality by ostensibly inferior opponents.

In the play-in round, New England crashed out by a thoroughly embarrassing 6-1 aggregate margin against Trinidadian minnow Joe Public and Chivas USA fell 3-1 on aggregate to unheralded Tauro FC of Panama. Meanwhile, Montreal topped Nicaraguan champion Real Esteli 1-0 on aggregate and fellow USL-1 outfit Puerto Rico Islanders upset Costa Rican giant LD Alajuelense 3-2 over two legs.

To date in the group stage, the song has remained the same. Houston has only managed to eke out a pair of draws (0-0 at Panama's San Francisco FC and a wild 4-4 affair against UNAM Pumas of Mexico), while D.C. United dropped consecutive 2-0 results against Costa Rica's Deportivo Saprissa and CD Marathon of Honduras before falling 1-0 to Mexico's Cruz Azul, leaving MLS teams winless so far in the competition.

Montreal and Puerto Rico, on the other hand, have continued to do the USL proud while further enhancing MLS's embarrassment. The Impact have beaten Revs conquerors Joe Public (2-0) and Honduran power Olimpia (2-1) and held Mexico's Atlante to a goalless draw, while the Islanders have defeated Goat-slayers Tauro FC (2-1) and Santos Laguna of Mexico (3-1) and battled Guatemala's Municipal to a 2-2 tie.

While these results are certainly a credit to the quality of the USL teams, it also seems quite clear that MLS isn't anywhere near the elite level that league brass would have people believe. Their lack of investment in the on-field product has clearly come back to haunt them and unless this problem is remedied, further humiliation lies ahead for MLS.

By contrast, USL teams have long been focused on their product, beginning with player-development initiatives that are well advanced beyond those of MLS, and this factor has played a key role in USL's ongoing improvements, USL executive vice president and COO Tim Holt explained.

"USL's multi-tiered approach to elite club and player development since the early 1990s has established a solid soccer foundation in North America," Holt said. "Each of our 130-plus total franchises focuses primarily on player development in their market. This has allowed USL to grow the game in hundreds of markets across North America.

"USL-1 teams are long-term focused on their player-development initiatives, and the most successful teams have been able to keep their core group together over time," Holt continued. "Many of our teams are now many years into developing their own homegrown players through their own [youth-level] teams."

Holt also pointed to philosophical differences in the two leagues' respective business models as a contributing factor, with the USL placing greater emphasis on quality and franchise autonomy as opposed to MLS's emphasis on parity and keeping power concentrated at the league level.

"From a league philosophy standpoint, we remain big proponents of teams having the freedom to shape their teams as they deem fit," Holt said. "We believe this system creates incentive for each team to build a roster of both developing and accomplished players."

This philosophy, of course, is in stark contrast to that of MLS, where the league owns all player contracts and exercises final authority in all player-personnel decisions. This mode of operation, combined with the league's obsessive focus on parity, has resulted in the wide dispersion of a very shallow talent pool, leading to what some observers have called "managed mediocrity."

MLS teams have also long done a poor job of bringing top USL talent into MLS, which likely also contributes to the barely discernible gap in quality between the leagues. With MLS preferring to sign its lower-level players to developmental contracts at pittance wages, most of USL's top players end up staying put, often earning better money while contributing to the consistent rise in USL's level of play.

In many cases, MLS teams have also cut promising players who have gone on to prove their quality in the USL. Players like Puerto Rico's Petter Villegas, Montreal's Matt Jordan, and Charleston's Lazo Alavanja, to name just a few MLS castaways, have made major contributions to their teams' success in both the U.S. Open Cup and CONCACAF Champions League this season, while their MLS counterparts have floundered.   

Such differences may help to explain in part how USL-1 teams, whose average roster budgets Holt puts in the "low to mid six figures … [with] a couple of teams that are in the high six figures," can compare favorably in quality terms with MLS clubs whose roster budgets are roughly four to six times larger.

Whatever the main contributing factors may be, though, both the results on the pitch and the ongoing improvement in the USL's standard of play make clear that USL-1 teams are quickly closing the gap on their MLS counterparts. In light of the rapid expansion MLS is preparing to undertake, which will almost certainly dilute its already thin talent pool still further, we can likely expect more of the same over the next few years.

Should that occur, there will not only be continued parity among MLS's own teams, but even greater parity between teams in MLS and the USL First Division. Unfortunately for MLS brass, that's not the sort of parity they had in mind for their league. 

HAVE YOUR SAY…
Is Snowden on to something with the high level of play in recent matches between MLS and USL sides?  Or is this a case of the different leagues’ teams focusing on different goals (MLS to win in league action while USL teams see more benefit to showing well in Cup action, U.S. Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup and the CONCACAF Champions League)?  Send your opinions to Soccer 365 by CLICKING HERE.  Please include your name and city with your replies and check back to read the reader feedback.

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READER FEEDBACK

MLS will continue to be regarded as an hothouse flower internationally until it accepts the concept and reality of relegation. USL teams are compensated "as a whole," that is, money goes not to the individual team which loses a player to an MLS team but to the league as a whole. At least, that was the last I'd heard.
 
USL teams are imperfectly gratified by this. Teams which assiduously develop players get the same money as those which don't. What's the incentive to develop an exceptional player, if there's no direct payoff? How many time can you lose a player you've developed to the MLS only to receive a "share", before it's not worth the effort?
 
MLS, as a "wholly owned" league is thus in the parochial position of discouraging parity with USL teams. MLS teams can continue to pretend that the Open Cup games are a chance to get their lesser-known players time on the pitch, or that the competition is not too important to them, but the fact remains that the USL matches up well with their "first division" brethren. This is borne out by Champions League results.
 
Meanwhile, the MLS soccer hierarchy remains just slightly more conservative than the USSF, which is saying something.
 
The major investors in MLS might need to adopt in some way USL 1 and 2 teams in order to substantially support soccer in the U.S. and to allow real development of talent between the leagues. This would benefit all, allowing talent to percolate up and to receive coaching and training. As it is, "diamonds in the rough" are on their own as far as opportunities for advancement.
 
A player with exceptional speed and a modicum of skill will often get a shot at the pro's, while a journeyman player out of the back will labor in relative anonymity, as will a delightfully skilled defensive midfield team player on a lesser team.
 
Time to get with the international reality, MLS.
 
James A

I am a Puerto Rican who fell in love with soccer through the eyes of Mexicans during the World Cup played in Japan and Korea.  Afterwards, I've been following the Puerto Rican effort and loving what I see.  I think that the points raised by the writer about the mentality of both USL and MLS are well thought of, especially, in the idea that MLS is not really interested in nurturing young players, but in bringing in "has been" players from Europe and Mexico to increase the perception of their quality.  I believe that neither Chivas USA nor any one of the MLS entrants to the CONCACAF Champions can compare to either of the USL entrants.
 
helion W. C
St. Petersburg, FL

Bravo Rich Snowden, you  ask the right questions while the MLS front office manufactures scripted answers. I've watched several USL games and am convinced that team and player passion in most cases supersedes that shown in the MLS. IMO, the Super Liga success for the USL clubs is wake up call to MLS Commissioner Gardner that his limits on squad rosters and tight scheduling is problematic for MLS teams.  It would be irresponsible to say that DC and  the Revs were a disappointment in the Super Liga 2008. Injuries and the overcrowded scheduling did them in. Is the MLS commissioner listening?
 
In soccer,
juke
west mifflin, pa

Yes, Richard, when you wrote about this same malaise on the part of MLS some 4 years ago, I fully agreed.  Funny how the more things change the more they stay the same.

In absence of 40,000+ crowds, a multi-multi million rights contract and willingness of top players to visit MLS in their prime, development of players via academies is the key to lifting the quality of the league overall.  There are many young players in the Western Hemisphere outside of Brazil & Argentina who, with proper scouting and top-notch developmental staff, can make the transition to becoming quality professionals in MLS.  However, many of the "investors" (not owners) of MLS teams are still prioritizing marketing over substance on the pitch.  Players like Spice Boy Becks & the white stallion in Chicago are big draws, but the investment in these icons is not bringing the LEAGUE the return it needs.  There has been enough money invested in foreign "stars" (Schlerotto excepted) who have only marginally helped their teams succeed which could be used to create a base of long term development programs for every team.

In the absence of this commitment to the league by the investors, linkages with Chivas, Real, Arsenal, etc. are going to have to fill the void.  Their support is welcomed and for now vital, but such reliance is putting the future of the league in the hands of clubs which have their interests, not MLS', first.  No one invests in anything without expecting a return.

To be fair, over the last few years MLS clubs have been involved in more non-MLS events than prior, and the necessary lengthening of all rosters has not kept up with the need for more quality.  But even with that, many league matches are still close to unwatchable.  With this in mind, as much as it would be wonderful to join Copa Libertadores, there is little hope for any success there until the roster quality and depth problems are resolved.  The Champions League results correlated MLS with "3rd world" status, and the league cannot take another hit like that if it ever has hopes of attracting prime-age quality players.  So, for now, no Copa.

Joe Jaworski

P.S.  Red Bulls still have no clue, nor do Galaxy.  With the top 2 markets showing such "success" is it any wonder that interest in the league is stagnant?