MLS Weakly, 01 30 2021: Ignoring the Big Whale in the Fish Tank

It’s been one of those weeks in the domestic soccer world in which big things have moved very, very slowly. On the one hand, sure, trades great and small continue to come together and fall apart, but an air of irrelevance will swallow them up until the relevant parties land the whale in the fish tank one way or the other…

…which refers, of course, to the ongoing negotiations over the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between Major League Soccer (MLS) and its players’ union (MLSPA). Because my thinking on that has only got more muddled and frustrated, I’ve decided to bury the comments on it at the end of the post. I mean, why not pretend the lockout threatened by the owners won’t happen all the way up to the moment when it does? Let’s pull of a reverse mullet and put the party in the front and the business in the back.

A couple players moved around - e.g., Kelyn Rowe signed with the Seattle Sounders, Atlanta United signed some old dude (37) for a year, and the Portland Timbers are still somehow working on “finalizing” the signing of right back Josecarlos Van Rankin - which doesn’t give much to talk about on that front. The U.S. Men’s National Team* plays a game tomorrow against Trinidad & Tobgao - and I will watch it, thirsty bastard that I am, while refusing to give in to the hype of the countdown to kickoff timer that U.S. Soccer posted (for now) on its site, or the idea that I’ll watch anything of consequence when I turn in, never mind three of them.

[*Ed. - The U.S. Women’s National Team has three games in February and I still feel…funny, I guess about watching one national team, but not the other. The only response/defense I have is that I need a certain amount of context in order to enjoy (or, more accurately, judge something) and that leaves time to enjoy one national team, and so I stick with the one I started with…even as I believe I won’t live to see the U.S. Men win a World Cup….ooh, a poll!]

Thus beginneth and endeth league-wide news. The league released an outline of the 2021 MLS schedule, but it’s unclear at time of writing that they did that for the fans or for their own purposes - specifically, to put more pressure on the players to give in on the presently-stalled CBA negotiations. Think MLS gave the MLSPA until February 5 to captiula…or, rather, agree to a shaf…or, rather, sign the CBA and move on. Y’know, for the sake of unity, a popular argument these days.

The middle section of this post will, 1) kick around some idle thoughts on the two teams I follow, Portland and FC Cincinnati, and 2) talk as if the season will happen. To start with the easy one.

MLS Weakly 01 16 2021: Player Moves, a SuperDraft, Negotiations & No Firm Schedule

A late-winter/spring of cowboy metaphors...

The phrase “silly season” has made its annual return to the soccer lexicon, but the 2021 North American domestic season doubles down on the term. At time of speculating, nobody knows when the 2021 season will start or what it’ll look like; everyone’s counting on a vaccine to make the whole thing possible, as the fucking moronic distribution of that same vaccine races against one or more new and improved strain of COVID-19 in real-time. Also playing for Team COVID: the naked and belligerent unwillingness among tens of millions of Americans to accept reality and take even baby steps to aid and comfort other Americans.

So, this one’s less a “silly season” than a “really fucking stupid with heaping tablespoons of delusion season," which is considerably harder to navigate and/or understand.

On the other hand, that same fucking stubborn stupidity shares a distant relation to a more positive human trait - hope - and so all concerned will prepare for a 2021 season that will kick off ____________, 2021 and end ____________, 2021 (probably) skipping over one obstacle after another outbreak and so on until The Last Team Standing lifts MLS Cup 2021.

 A whiff of parody will follow these posts for the foreseeable future, and mostly because there’s nothing tangible to write about. Tucked into the notes on the negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA; more later) between MLS ownership and the MLS Players’ Association (MLSPA) is the cold, hard fact that no one involved is even talking about opening preseason training, never mind planning for it, which means no preseason games to write about. People have started to talk about whether or not one MLS team or another (e.g., the Portland Timbers) have a shot in 2021’s CONCACAF Champions’ League (CCL), but that competition doesn’t have a start date either, so…

Even qualifying for U-23 soccer tournament in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo remains “slated to unfold” by the end of March, though there will be friendlies for both the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) and the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) in January, and the USWNT has a whole damn mini-tournament in the second half of February. So, yeah, there is soccer on the horizon, if of a sort not really connected to anything but a vague, hopeful, post-pandemic future…

MLS Off-Season Weeky (02.09.2020): Important Players & Unimportant Results

Also warms the heart. My Sunday is planned.

As I look at the results rolling in during this preseason, I’m reminded of the entirely goddamn awful names some American soccer teams have chosen of their own free will: “The Tampa Bay Rowdies”? “San Diego” (fucking) “Loyal”? “Austin Bold”? (seriously, Austin? I expect so much more of you…). Fire your marketing teams…

Back to the grind, the big news from this past week of preseason came with a guarantee that a regular season will follow: Major League Soccer and the MLS Players’ Association agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement…was it Thursday? (And does that matter?) Given how little controversy surrounds it, I don’t have much to say about the particulars of who got what outta the deal (but, for those who want the details). I figured the CBA would get done the day the league and the MLSPA extended negotiations to February 7th, so I guess the most surprising thing about the whole thing in my mind is how much regular people care about how much professional soccer players get paid. Personally, all I need to know is, 1) that the players aren’t getting screwed over, and 2) we've got five seasons before we have to sweat this shit again (that said, the thing with the players getting a cut of a new TV deal is pretty nifty).

So, that’s that. The rest of this post will do the usual: check in with both the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati, followed by a whip-around of results from the past week. Before continuing, I have an editorial note: personal obligations will keep me from posting a weekly next weekend; in the best of all possible world, however, I’ll have preseason games to write about – two for FC Cincinnati (Wednesday and Sunday) and one for Portland (Sunday), so…can I haz streams, plz jesus? I don't think I've got another week of pretending to know anything about (e.g.,) Pablo Piatti, Mattheus Rossetto, or Jeizon Ramirez, because I don’t. We’ll see how everyone fits in or fails to as the results pile up…

Moving on, I wanted to fold one of those peak Off-Season Hot-Take Specials that MLSSoccer.com churns out in between seasons into my discussions of Cincinnati and Portland. In his latest column, Matt Doyle answered the question of which player is most important to each team in MLS. I’ll start both sections by taking issue with his answers (or not), while also checking in on what happened with both teams over the past week.

MLS Off-Season Weekly: Looming, Gaping Holes, A Smart Move (with Caveats), and, Crap, The CBA!

"What do we want? More charter flights! When do we want them? More often!"

If you thought a holiday weekend would slow down the news in the Extended Major League Soccer Universe, you have no goddamn idea how media works. The news is thick and dank, so let’s dig in – starting with one of the two teams I follow (followed by the other one, then a bunch of league-wide news/perspective/angry-uncle ramblings):

Portland Timbers: Stumbling Toward the Next Plan A
Absent any updates on the Valeri Situation, my attention wandered to other parts of the Timbers’ roster – and it turns out I wasn’t alone in that:

“The truth is Chara's probably not high-scoring enough to suit Portland's needs, but it's hard to figure what their budget will be after what happened with Brian Fernandez. There are also rumors that they're leaning in the direction of getting another center forward anyway, and pushing Jeremy Ebobisse out to the wing once again.”

Personally, I’ve had Chara on my mind lately, but in a wholly different way – i.e., less about his alleged limitations (which Timbers fans have internalized by now) than his clear and absolute gifts, and what that means both in terms of managing his minutes over the next season or two and to the impending post-Chara future. So, no, he doesn’t score often (when he does, he times it for maximal effect - like his tackles), but I’ve never seen a player with his capacity for covering ground and knack for ferreting the ball off players’ feet; I’m not sure he can be replaced like-for-like (the same goes for Valeri, with some twists, as I’ll get into below). And that’s why I brought up managing minutes in 2020 and, like, one year beyond, just as much as I pointed toward the post-Chara future. Assuming he comes back, Cristhian Paredes doesn’t play the same game as Chara, or at least not to the same effect, and neither does anyone who has partnered with him so far (and if Paredes doesn’t come back, the same will apply to whomever replaces him). As such, when Chara’s not out there – whether resting for a game or two, or in the Chara-less future - the players around the area Chara vacates will need to adjust in terms of positioning, and adjust expectations as to how and how much of the ground behind or in front of them (as applicable) gets covered. That doesn’t have to be bad, but it will be, without question, different. Next question – and I ask out non-rhetorically (because I don’t know the answer) - how much does it throw players to make those kinds of shifts from one game to the next. Moreover, is what I’m describing even a meaningful issue? I think it is, obviously, but what do I know? Anyway, just fretting about the inevitable…

The CBA: Free Agency, Minimums, and Meaning

I can get my own place? Seriously?

Major League Soccer (MLS) and the MLS Players' Union have collectively bargained to an agreement (CBA is approximated in there) and we, the fans, have a 2015 season to enjoy. This feels good, but it's easier for us, the consumers. We just shell out predictable sums for our bread (beer) and circuses (soccer)...and wasn't that what the league owners wanted, more or less, predictability? Man, I did not lend them much of a welcoming ear in the end. Then again, fuck those guys. But, thank you! I mean, still, you could have made it easier, right? Y'know, spared all of us eager dopes some anxiety?

That leaves the players, then, and the question of what they pried from the league during the CBA negotiations. Because MLS holds its financials close enough to the chest as to be inside it, we, the fans, are unlikely to ever learn the full details of an agreement. (The remarkable vapidity of the league's official release gives a handy primer to MLS's "fuck off, none of your business" approach to PR).

The players picked up two wins by my count; a considerable bump to the league minimum and free agency, even if in limited form. With a fair number of young guys nearly doubling their annual earnings, I see that as nothing but a win. The free agency thing, on the other hand, needs a little unpacking. Jeff Carlisle (among others) provided the details, but the thumbnail version reads 28 & 8 - and that ampersand matters – and graduated percentage caps tied to a given free agent's salary under his expired contract. Again, Carlisle provides, all y'all probably know those numbers as well as I do, if not better. It is worth noting, as Carlisle does, that this new formulation brings in only 10% of MLS's players (some large portion of those players being identified in a post in which The Massive Report did the world a solid).

Eye on the CBA: Running Commentary....Till the Damn Thing Ends

Bless mommy, bless daddy, and bless the MLS Players' Union...

Can I leave this alone? Yes, I finally can. A rant of disgust and shame is below. While I believe that the MLS Players' Union (MLSPU, go team!) and the league will eventually reach agreement, I'm painfully certain it will be a devil's bargain that will do nothing so useful as mirror the employer/employee dynamic of the United States of America as a whole. This does not make me happy. So, enjoy the hostage situation that is the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiation. Just don't expect a satisfactory resolution. 

Links and commentary appear below in reverse chronological order.

The CBA: Yep, Nothing to Do But Wait It Out

Dude...that's Tony Beltran, right?

OK, one more issue to wrap up before rolling out 2015 season previews: the ongoing negotiations over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for Major League Soccer’s (MLS) employees. Here's that...

The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that negotiations will go down to the wire, if not run straight through it. "News" on the CBA will be more of the same – e.g. players talking solidarity as they brace for a strike, while the owners, and the league, remain silent. When I visit reddit's r/MLS (still working toward checking BigSoccer), I see frequent assertions that all the talk of impasse and strikes amount to nothing more than "posturing" (OK, not the best example, but I'm done digging.) I don't share that opinion. I believe all concerned will lose the first weekend of the season and I wouldn't be surprised if we missed more...

In totally unrelated news, I'm really excited about the USL in 2015!

It's the anticipated knock-down-drag-out over free agency that shapes my opinion. Stumptown Footy (along with several others, I hope) posted a piece about former CBA, which expired at the end of January. All the stuff about minimum salaries, playing bonuses, appearance fees, travel and moving expenses was interesting and all, but the focus belongs on the compromises that, for lack of a better word, replaced free agency in that earlier agreement.

MLS & the CBA: Power vs. Persuasion

Live your perfect life! NOW!!!

Those that have, get more. Or, them as has, gets.

Pick your phrase (and hit the links for curious explanations of each), but that seems a good place to start a discussion of the (quietly*) ongoing negotiations over the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that, ideally, will govern the system of compensation for players in Major League Soccer (MLS) for a long, long time. Can we get forever on this? On perfectly balanced terms? (*I say quietly because the latest articles I’m finding date back to last Sunday; this topic remains ongoing, people.)

Anyone who cares to probably knows the basics by now – e.g. that free agency and more equitable/sensible income distribution are the two key issues separating MLS and its owners from the MLS Player's Union (MLSPU). BigDSoccer provided a studiously neutral primer for the uninitiated, but, according to my reading/listening, most sources side with the MLSPU. And for pretty good reason...

MLS owners claim they're losing money. I believe that in broad terms - and not only because the $100 million per annum figure I keep hearing seems suspiciously round, but because of investments in infrastructure like youth academies, stadiums, and, of course, designated players (DPs). At the same time, even a basic understanding of corporate taxation in these United States supports the suspicion that the league and its owners can write-off plenty of said $100 million per annum. I'm highly confident that they do. But money lost is money lost...which is different than money one never sees. Like, oh, the players. Hence the sticking point.

An excerpt for an old-ish LA Times article put MLS wages in pretty useful context:

"The league, which is losing more than $100 million a year, insists the MSL salary cap will continue to grow. But under the old CBA, that growth was minimal. Last year, for example, teams could spend $3.1 million on the first 20 spots on their roster, excluding designated players, a jump of just $29,000 from 2011."

That same article squeezed a few quotes from Mark Abbott, league president and deputy commissioner, about how MLS's structure allows MLS to be "competitive" in the foreign market and, further, that it somehow allows for "greater investment in players every year." OK, but which players? Bob Foose might be hella biased (as MLSPU executive director), but he unpacked the logic of Abbott’s arguments and put them in a neat, little, slightly malodorous pile:

"...the system is designed to squeeze every single dollar they can possible squeeze out of the guys who are in the league so that they can then go use those dollars to speculate on players who are not in the league."

Left unanswered in all that: precisely how the league's structure accomplishes this. It's just a bald statement and, outside creating a big pool of money, I frankly don't see how it works. On a more fundamental level, this is less about players "who are not in the league" getting the big paydays, than it's about long-serving MLS players having too few mechanisms to attain bigger paydays for themselves, even as they are essential building blocks for both their respective teams and the league as a whole. Basically, MLS's labor structure incentivizes certain behaviors that I'm not sure pencil out anywhere but on the bottom line (see me grasping at/grappling with those idea here).

So, yeah, I'm firmly in the players' camp: the cap needs to go up, the league minimum definitely needs to go up, and the players should get some form of free agency. That's the baseline. At the same time, I’m starting to wrap my head around some subtleties.

One argument I've come across a couple times - literally twice - is that the league can't legally hold on to the salary cap outside a CBA/(maybe) single-entity arrangement. The basic idea is that, a CBA creates a party with enough power to sit opposite the ownership group without getting run over; I'll admit I understand this imperfectly, so feel free to read more here. So, that's the legal side, but practical/competitive stuff comes into play as well. The league's "super clubs" (Toronto FC, Seattle Sounders FC, and the Los Angeles Galaxy) have already shown a willingness to spend big and unevenly; add more desired locations against...less desired locations (not about to name names) and the league is likely to see a sorting of talent that will stealthily kill any meaningful sort of parity. MLS would finally be like Europe's biggest leagues (hurray!), but in a bad way (e.g. the same three to five clubs winning the title year after year after year). So, if the whole CBA thing is what it takes to keep a salary cap, I'm for it.

And yet free agency matters. It's the stuff of dignity, for starters. Players should not have to choose between leaving the country to work versus negotiating with what amounts to a nationally-/court-approved single employer. That goes double when said single employer employs a salary cap that barely meets cost-of-living increases, while simultaneously promoting such...uncomfortable growth in wealth inequality with the DP rule. We all know that Tim Cahill just left the league, but how many people think he was, literally, 100 times more valuable to his club, or even 50 times more valuable, than the squad player who shared the same locker room? (Arrived at that figure by taking Cahill’s reported $3.6 million salary and dividing it by a slightly rounded-down league minimum (e.g. $36,500 reduced to $36,000); not unreasonable...right?)

That gets to players getting paid better, which matters, even if it's not as straightforward. Even if this is how they make their living, these guys do get paid to play a game. And, in spite of some drawbacks, is a cool life. They get to follow their passion, like Oprah says they should, and see the world. Even if they fly coach, that's always going to be a draw. This speaks more to attracting employees/talent than income justice, but it bears noting. Players will come, but there has to be some sort of absolute floor for wages. Right?

The players have some things going for them, the more sympathetic (and cogent) argument chief among them. The owners and league, on the other hand, have the money. That means they have options, eating their losses and walking away among them. Can't imagine they'd do that, not with all that money on the table, but it seems like those that have shouldn't necessarily be the ones that get. It wouldn't hurt them to give a little more and to be a little more conscious of what their wage structure says to and about their employees.

MLS, In the Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Suck it! No car for you! And that woman hates you!!

In the past, this space has crowned a modest succession of (significantly) Eastern Conference Major League Soccer (MLS) clubs the official winners of the 2014-15 offseason (winner, winner, chicken dinner). Fun 'n' games and all, but that act of separating and ranking looks past something bigger. And one has to don some to pretty fucked-up goggles to miss this:

This is Major League Soccer's (MLS) best offseason ever. Hands down. Ignore the biggest names for now, or even the returning flocks of high-end American players (zey are like zee swallows zircling zee setting sun….): every week, sometimes every day, some outlet or another drops word of some exotic, new player coming to MLS. Today, for example, I see reports of a defender from Guatemala, a(nother) Argentine midfielder, a Nigerian who comes to the league by way of Switzerland named Innocent. As recently as five years ago, the league had to scratch the world markets damned hard to get such enticing players. And getting this many of them at once? Out of the goddamn question.

Last night, I counted up the designated players (DPs) who will play for MLS clubs in 2015 (a hit-or-miss list) The first count: 43 of 98, all-time (maybe; Wikipedia). Then I noted the absence of some big names (oh, just Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Sebastian Giovinco, Laurent Ciman, etc.) and revised the numbers upward: 47 of 102 last I counted. And that's going to grow. Already has by two (maybe 3; see above). Yessir, the league is stocking up on some big fishies, the kind that feast on steroids. The point is that no one club really won the offseason. We all won the offseason. Even the surprisingly inactive Philadelphia Union.

Virtually every MLS club kicked off their pre-seasons this past weekend, which only adds to the sense that, holy shit, this is really happening. Hell, outlets are streaming no small number of the preseason scrimmages, especially those between two MLS clubs. Yeah, by common consent these games mean nothing, but they do scratch an itch. Between those signs of activity and all those freakin' new players, it's enough to make a guy feel like a dog being reminded that he is, in fact, a good boy by a room full of the world’s kindest people.

It can make one feel like that...so why doesn't it? To sum it up in three letters, C, B, and A.

Until the stupid Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is signed by everyone who counts (not going to be easy), I don't know how to enjoy any of this. I mean, what are MLS clubs telling all those new signings? Not to worry? When I clock preseason results, or even watch the games (two watched so far, one noted, if in a tipsy, bubbly hiccup), at least half my thoughts turn to whether the players, like me, wonder about the point of it all. I mean, do athletes suffer existential crises? Besides Landon Donovan.

I’ve gone through and discarded a series of overwrought analogies to describe this sensation (some of them just plain wrong – e.g. starving children and cancer patients). My closest, and most appropriate translation of the 2014-15/Pre-CBA experience likens it to being shown your dream car at your Sweet 16 and being told that you are absolutely not going to get it. ("You like the car? Aw, that's sweet. Anyhoo, fuck you. Can't have it. That's right, cry. Your tears are my water.")

I’m going to track the CBA negotiations as closely as I can until they're resolved because it really is the first thing I think about when I think about MLS these days (listen to this if you want to feel a little better). Given the tight-lipped nature of these kinds of negotiations, I don’t expect to find much, but I'll pass on anything more damning, than, "yeah, strike" or more uplifting than, "we're close." And, no, this space won't be all-CBA, all the time. I’ve got a USMNT thing I want to get to, plus some Timbers stuff. Even then...

...sigh...

...talking about all that other stuff seems a little pointless till MLS fans across the country – and, dare I say it, here and there around the world? – hear that the negotiations are over and that the league will actually play some games in 2015.

My current (pessimistic) thinking? We're going to lose March. All of March. Keep those expectations low, people. That's one way to survive disappointment. A shitty way, but a way.

MLS, Its Middle Class, and the CBA

Immigration...it's still about where you're from.

As with most offseason weekdays, the noteworthy news followed players moving from one club to another. In one key case, the story follows a player to a club outside Major League Soccer (MLS). There’s a larger story in there (or I just stuffed it in there to service an argument).

One player who landed on the import side of the ledger was French midfielder Benoit Cheyrou, who joined Toronto FC…just like seemingly every other player coming to MLS this year (srsly, isn’t there a roster limit?). Oh, Juan Agudelo returned to the New England Revolution...even if in something short of triumphal circumstances. Both players headed across the Atlantic, but their stories return and arrival have little in common.

I don’t know much about Cheyrou as a player – i.e. a single tweet contains the sum of my knowledge (it liked him!) - but his is a fairly standard issue signing of an aging European star: Give us your aged, your weary, your players listing toward decline, wanting to play where they can still play well and get good money for doing so. And, of course, yearning to breath free, etc.

Yeah, cheap shot, but signings like Cheyrou and Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, and even some of Europe’s lesser-known lights express a pretty straightforward truth: these are good days for European imports. That's not to knock these players, because most of them will show up and do pretty well, if not pretty damn well. With those older guys, though, there's definitely a catch - namely, that these guys won't be around forever, or even for long. In no small way, they serve as a series of expensive band-aids that the relevant clubs have to replace season after season after season. To concoct another analogy, this approach sacrifices long-term investment by MLS clubs to repeatedly hitting the quarterly targets. Worse, they eat up more cap than others while they're here...and a salary cap, by definition, is zero-sum (e.g. you can’t get what someone else has).

Agudelo, on the other hand, comes back not just without allocation-process bonafides, but on the heels of a long, strange trip abroad, sort of an accidental Grand Tour that somehow detoured into the Cyprian real estate market. Hit that link for the full story, but the short version hints at how hard it can be for an American player to get over to the Euro big leagues. And that speaks to another pretty straightforward truth: "he really needs to play at the highest level" doesn't work like the goddamn State Farm jingle. It's not enough to say it, something the hallelujah chorus that loves that line needs to keep in mind. Just like the league.

Then again, there's always Scandinavia. And there's another truth, even if it's a less straightforward one. Way back, oh, I'm thinking the early aughts, the nagging fear existed that the Scandinavian leagues could bleed MLS of just about any player able to make it there. That notion returned to me today when word came out that long-time MLS defender Heath Pearce gave Orlando City a hearty "so long, and suck it!" and packed his bags for Sweden. Even if it wasn't hostile as all that, Pearce left MLS by way of free agency – i.e., the very same bottom-line right for which MLS players are about to strike. He has only a short-term deal in the end, albeit with an option to extend, but he opted to assume the risk instead of trip over the tangle of restrictions that a trip to another MLS club would require.

If it's not clear by now, yes, I think the players should get some form of free agency. I hate clutter, for starters. I'm for free agency even if it comes with the kind of time-in restriction suggested by Ives Galarcep in one of his recent podcasts (e.g. he threw out six years in MLS as a minimum threshold to earn free agency rights; and, fyi, that's solid, clear-eyed chat). Pearce’s situation does, however, speak to something that bears acknowledging: players do have a form of free agency, but only outside MLS. One could call that a spur to action for those players to take charge of their lives and get over to Europe, but I don’t think that should be the only true freedom of movement available to MLS players. I'm also not convinced it’s in the league's interest.

Pearce is a good player. In fact, he's precisely the kind of player that I would love to see my Portland Timbers sign as cover for that thin back-line. Were MLS clubs given the option, I'd imagine that, between Pearce's experience and reputation, he'd draw competing bids between two clubs, maybe even three. And it would be a simpler process for all involved – e.g. player and agent talking to prospective clubs, with the MLS HQ involved only indirectly by way of a salary cap.

From what I gather, the players find this streamlined process so appealing that they're willing to strike in favor. Visions of extra money dancing in their heads surely doesn't hurt either. The overall equation, however, when reduced to its basics speaks to a truth that covers everyone in MLS, with only the DP superstars excepted: the overwhelming majority of players who come to MLS do so, at least in part, courtesy of diminished bargaining power. I suspect this gets even hairier for American players, who lose still more leverage by way an entirely natural desire to live and play closer to friends and family - something else that gets lost when talking up Europe.

Pearce, and every experienced vet like him, represents MLS's middle class. They play regularly, and typically start, and one MLS club or another will generally pick them up year-after-year. The problem comes with the pretty clear ceiling placed on what they can earn. The players want the bidding war and who can blame them? I suspect that the solid, yet unspectacular player – guys like Pearce, basically - will benefit as much as anyone from free agency. Which seems fair, seeing they're getting screwed as hard as anyone by the current system.

Jozy Returns: Good, Yet Not Triumphant

Welcome home, Jozy. Brewski?

The big news of the day – that is, Jozy Altidore’s return to Major League Soccer (MLS) – doesn’t feel so big as it once might have. That’s less a knock on Mr. Altidore* than a subtle acknowledgement that signings of “big” American players don’t ripple across the league as a whole the way they used to. And that’s a positive step, even as I’m certain that news likes this hits heavier closer to home (i.e. Toronto FC fans must be tickled; Red Bull New York fans less so).

It’s also worth noting that some number of MLS clubs passed on Altidore due to the high asking price. I heard a big number for Jozy’s salary (can’t recall where) – something like $6 million – but that’s unconfirmed thanks to league policies that bar the fourth estate from talking pesos. Whatever the dollar figure, I hardly begrudge Altidore for asking or taking it. Get paid, son. I do, however, feel a certain quiet respect for my Portland Timbers for passing on what seems to be a bloated salary. Goals are great and all, but who likes paying too much for anything?

Toronto, ever reliable when it comes to spending, bolted past such quibbles. They’ve mastered the trappings of ambition, at least; and yet they’ve taken strides to creating a roster-as-metaphor for U.S. wealth inequality. Fascinating...

* To pick up that asterisk above, Jozy’s probably a good bet to make the over proposed by Taylor Twellman: 12.5 goals in 2015 (thanks, Soccer by Ives’ podcas!). Altidore will be a good player in MLS, maybe even a little better than his service. So, welcome back and all that.

The other side of the transaction, i.e. the piece that sent the long-disgruntled Jermaine Defoe back to (the shittiest little-big club in) England, is no less interesting, in that it brings in a couple current themes. Defoe’s arrival last season, coming as it did in his earlier 30s, offered an encouraging counter to the typical “retirement league” trend/perception that still attaches to MLS. A little echo of the notorious Frank Lampard Situation can be heard in there, too: if one can still play in the top flight, why the flipping hell would one stop doing so? Lampard answered that question – or Manchester City did on his behalf – just as Defoe arguably did with this move. That says a couple things about MLS’s global rep, the implications of which...aren’t so good.

The mini-glut of returning Americans says something as well. It could be roughly the same thing that Mexicans players’ long-standing tradition has said for years and years and that’s...not terrible (e.g. our guys value comforts of home). There’s also the Cheers Effect (going where everyone knows your name).

Like just about anything between now and when the thing is signed, the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) comes into the picture. No, MLS can’t compete with Europe’s glamor leagues, neither in quality or the grandness of the stage. No matter, what MLS Commish Don Garber says, it won’t likely be able to for a decade. If we’re lucky. But what the league chooses to pay players – and this is total compensation (some details mentioned in this very good article) whether for designated players or the regular guys – will definitely influence the extent to which MLS start picking higher quality players from Europe, or even Mexico. I don’t see how more can’t be better for everyone except MLS owners, but even they could ultimately reap greater rewards. Investments, man...

It should be clear now that American players have some in-built motivation to return to the States to play. They’re people here, if nothing else, and able to command cash and respect. Drawing good, younger players from Europe (or Mexico) constitutes the next big step. And what happens with the CBA definitely matters there.