re: MLS noob discussion

I for one hope that the MLS prospers and does well. The youth Academies will undoubtedly help with quality down the road much like Europe. For the longest time you'd have to go to college to get noticed and by that time most Americans would be so far behind in development compared to everywhere else. Now you're seeing how a concerted effort to develop young talent at the club level. A lot of them can either sign with their team or go to Europe at a young age and be lightyears ahead of players even 10 years ago.

Here's a good article from a few years ago talking about the MLS academies

There's also a huge pool of select teams in the states, overseas players with dual citizenship, and players going overseas to train in Europe. But I'm getting slightly off topic. My point is the bigger the pool of quality players we have the better the overall talent will be. If it gets big enough here with better quality and interest gets to a level such as the NFL or NBA we could even steal some quality players/coaches from Europe. That might be a pipe dream but it isn't impossible.