In Reply to: My take posted by blindness on July 21, 2026 at 11:18:39
MLS does almost nothing to contribute to the national team pool.
Of the starters on the team, only Ream, Freeze, Freeman, and Adams played a minute in MLS.
Ream is 39. MLS has had 15 years to produce a better centerback than Ream at 39. And, hasn't.
I've got nothing against Freeze, but by USMNT standards, he's weak.*
Adams is a fantastic player that left MLS as a teen. Freeman, his ceiling is very high.
So, MLS contributed two good players to this team. Maybe Berhalter's good, didn't see enough of him to see if he'd get exposed.
1) MLS has very little interest in developing players. They do not develop and sell many players. 2) MLS has absolutely zero interest in developing players for the NT. Actually, it has a financial incentive to do so for other countries 3) there are only maybe 5 MLS teams that have produce any players that get looks for the NT. And that seems to have dried up. A lot of guys went through the Dallas system. Philadelphia has produced fringe guys. And ...?
If you only have a couple of teams that are producing talent that ends up on your national team, you're screwed.
If we'd had to rely on MLS-produced talent this Cup, we'd probably have been the worst, maybe second worst, team in the tournament. Luckily for us, Gregg Berhalter went out and recruited Robinson, Balogun, Dest, and Tillman.
MLS has a funky salary structure that encourages them to bring in big named (old) internationals.** And, MLS is super rich. According to Forbes, none of the top 15 most valuable soccer teams in the world are in MLS. Of the next 15, 7 are in MLS. MLS has plenty of money to sign big name players. And, MLS doesn't have pro/rel, so it doesn't matter if the guy is no longer very good. For decades MLS made money because the Euro leagues were off, someone in the world who wanted to watch soccer could tune in and watch a legend play. They sell a lot of jersey's when the old legend signs. Legends push attendance. There are a lot more people that will buy season tickets after you sign, say, Mueller (he has 4 goals), than if you bring up a product of your academy.
The financial/salary structure roadblocks developing players.
Don Garbers said "we want players that wear national team jerseys, we don't care what that jersey is." The fact of the matter is that it is more profitable to have foreign internationals than domestic. The US-fan MLS audience is what it is, and it will grow slowly. On the other hand, if you can get stars from a country with a large ethnicity in the US, instantly, your viewership increases. Chicago, in it's early days, had an inordinate amount of Poles and Central Europeans. But obviously, the gold mine is Mexico and Mexican Americans. By far the biggest competition for MLS is MFL. Hence, MLS signs washed up Mexican players by the fistful. And, if MLS can develop players for the Mexican national team, that is a huge win. The Galaxy has hosted try outs for the Mexican national team. Mexico (which was clearly better than us) had two US-born MLS developed players play for them. B&H had one. Between those two countries, that's pretty close to what the US had.
Unless MLS changes its approach, then we will be utterly dependent on players that grew up outside the US, were developed in another league and we sold them on switching, and kids that get the hell out of the US at an early age.
I read somewhere that MLS was 6th or 7th highest in number of players in the WC. But, for the US, we got Freeman (yay!), Ream (thank you for your service), Freeze (thank you for your service), Pepi (I feel like there's more in you), Berhalter (nice goal! and ...?)
Unless MLS changes, we are utterly dependent on getting players from other countries to switch.
On the soccer boards, I read that there are 5-6 young guys that look like hot prospects. But, 4 of those guys are dual-eligibles that have other countries trying to flip them.
All the talk about "our best athletes" "culture" is tertiary if the domestic league doesn't care about development.
A quick word about "pay to play." The discussion is so overblown. 1) if the league doesn't care about development, if doesn't matter how many kids are playing for free 2) AYSO is basically free. No one has to pay to play.
The problem comes back to MLS. The league's academy system is flaccid. Everywhere in the world, where there is no "pay to play," a very select few kids are playing on teams associated with a pro team. Everyone else that plays is playing on a community team, not unlike AYSO. MLS is super far from robust in bringing in kids that don't have to pay. If the league was focused on development, there would be a lot less "pay to play." More kids would be in MLS academies. We lost to Belgium. Between their top 2 divisions, they have 30 teams. Those teams are committed to development. For a population of 12 million.
*If the Fed had a time machine, they'd gladly go get prime Marcus Hahneman. (Marcus started and captained in the Premier League and was a fan favorite - never got past being a 3rd keeper on the NT). Hell, I'd say there are 3 former ucla keepers that never got close to being better than third choice for the NT that I'd take over Freeze (Hartman, Reis, Rimando)