re: 2025 MLS Season Long Thread

Miami is above the rules, as we saw with the Club World Cup. MLS suspended Messi to make it less obvious that they’ll cheat for Messi/Miami. When Messi leaves, Ft Lauderdale is gonna be fricked

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When Messi leaves, Ft Lauderdale is gonna be fricked

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They were fricked before they were gifted Messy and have absolutely no depth behind the retirement crew. By 2027 they’ll be back to bottom table.

We should get to relegate them when they become trash. Too bad that won’t happen until the USL starts their Division One, but i think a team can only be relegated to Champions (should be allowed to fall all the way down to League Two so crappy owners are held accountable *cough*Sheffield Wednesday*cough*

Stlcity fc. Is paying for that 1st season of success.

They weren't very good, picked by many to finish last, and had a miracle season. Reality has set in, and finding cast offs from the bundis. Is not a great plan. This isn't the bundis of 5 years ago. The league has bottomed out, all league have these patterns. They have to stop looking for Scandinavian cast off from Germany and be looking for younger talent from South America, like many others have. Mls can out pay many of the leagues down there, but would rather bring in 35 year olds.

This league is on average one of the younger in the western hemisphere I believe. Most orgs have figured out that young South American talent is the way to go if you’re looking for the best bang for your buck. The clear trend in MLS is more minutes going to younger players due to transfer strategy as well as the continuously developing academy system and second tier MLS Next Pro.

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According to transfermarkt, the average age in MLS is 25.9. Compare this to 26.9 for ligamx, 27.5 for Brazil’s Serie A, and 27 for Argentina’s top league. For some reason one league gets accused of being a retirement league but the others don’t.

People take the statistical outliers (Messi, Busquets, Müller, Alba, etc.) and make a broad generalization on the age of the league as a whole. Even in the transfer window where Miami bought all their stars (2023) the average age of transfers in to MLS was 24 years and 62 days. LINK

In case you’re curious about other leagues:
France- 25.1
Germany- 25.6
England- 25.8
Italy- 26.0
Spain- 26.9

Ok. Any statistics or substantive argument for why the development system is garbage or are we just supposed to take your word for it?

The fact that more youth players are getting minutes in the league, as well as more guys getting their starts in the academy system before jumping to Europe, and most importantly that more guys from academies are contributing to the national team are all arguments against your claim that the entire system is garbage.

Your argument about MLS academy grads who stay in the league being “not good” … I mean, yeah, if they were really good they would be off to Europe. At a minimum however they are raising the floor of the league.

Taha Habroune, Oscar Verhoeven, Diego Luna, Jack McGlynn, David Vasquez, Quinn Sullivan, Frankie Westfield, Djorde Mihailovic, Caden Clark, Nate Ordaz, Brian Gutierrez, Sebastian Berhalter, Luca Bambino, Owen Wolfe, Justin Haak, Brooklyn Raines, Gerardo Valenzuela, Obed Vargas, Edwin Cerillo, Jesus Ferreira, Paxton Pomykal, Cole Bassett, Ted Ku-DiPietro, Sam Vines, Reggie Cannon, Alex Freeman, Daniel Edelman, Noah Allen, Benjamin Cremaschi, Peyton Miller, and Jayden Nelson are all good players in this league. What do they have in common? All of them came up through the MLS academy system, many of them getting their first pro minutes in MLS Next Pro.

If it is in fact garbage what is your solution to making them better? Maybe this would be a more productive topic of discussion.

Both LA and Miami got curb stomped tonight

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Miami

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$35m payroll vs. $14m payroll for OCSC. Proof you can't just buy pieces to make a team.

Messi doing Messi things