The Ideological Battle Within North American ‘Soccer’

The American Way

In order to break down the overarching structure of North American soccer, you need to start at the top; i.e. Major League Soccer. The MLS has been pivotal in revitalizing Americans’ interest in soccer, since the North American Soccer League folded in 1984. During its run, the NASL implemented several rule changes, differing from traditional association football, in an attempt to adapt the world’s game to a largely detached American audience. Some of these changes included a game clock which counted down from 90 to 0 minutes, and as of 1974, all matches ending in a draw resulted in a penalty shootout, eliminating all draws. The late Graham Leggatt, who broadcasted NASL matches, voiced his disapproval, saying that, in order to “be accepted as a soccer nation by the rest of the world, you have to play [with] the same rules as the rest of the world.”

Wayne Rooney echoed Leggatt’s words some 35 years later, saying on Perfect Soccer’s #AskASoccerPro Show that “[MLS] have to take on the rules that Europe and the rest of soccer are taking [on]… if they don't, then they will never get [to the level of the European leagues].” Fortunately, MLS now conforms to the standard laws of the game, meaning that unlike Leggatt, Rooney takes issue with the rules of Major League Soccer’s structural setup. It is a setup which resembles that of the NBA, as opposed to the Premier League. Or in other words, the situation Leggatt outlined has morphed, but not disappeared. 

For instance, Major League Soccer, now in its 25th year, still holds postseason playoffs and a final to decide its winner, and crucially, there is no promotion or relegation. Without promotion/relegation, the MLS, like many top American sports leagues, uses a salary cap to keep the league from getting stale. “I’ve talked to coaches who work in some of the best leagues in Europe, and a lot of them actually find [the MLS’ salary cap] pretty interesting,” Adin Osmanbašić told me, when we spoke via Zoom. Adin is a coach and analyst who has worked in and around the MLS at both the Columbus Crew and Atlanta United. “[These coaches] think it's an exciting thing to watch. And that’s the idea behind the salary cap; to sell MLS as a league which is very competitive.” As Ligue 1 has shown, without the appearance of a competitive and equitable league, you risk being written off as a ‘Farmer's League’ by casual football fans on social media. However, it should be of equal, if not greater importance to MLS, to ensure that this competitive intent does not breed complacency. “[In the MLS] there’s no relegation system so there’s no real pressure, and because of that there’s no genuine sense of winning and losing… you know that you’ll always have next season to try to make amends [for poor performances], with no repercussions,” proclaimed Nigel de Jong in an interview with FourFourTwo magazine; reflecting on his time in the league.

In spite of the clear downsides that Rooney and De Jong point out, there is a silver lining. There is a factor that leagues like the NBA or the NFL rely on to operate, and it is one of the main arguments to continue MLS on its current path. That is the fact that by definition, a Salary Cap is built to increase. Each season, a salary budget is set in accordance with the revenue of the league and its teams. So simply put, the more lucrative the league, the higher the salary cap. For instance, “the teams [in the NBA] now have a salary cap high enough where they can have more than one of the best players in the world on a single team,” says Osmanbašić. “It would be interesting to see if we give the system time and allow the salary cap to rise, if we could see 2-3 big star players at each team [in the MLS].” While it seems extremely optimistic to suggest that the MLS will ever be able to compete financially with a sporting juggernaut like the NBA, it is important to remember that just over 25 years ago, there was no MLS, instead the highest level of American soccer was reduced to either college soccer or the professional indoor soccer league. The point being that, progress is possible.

Getting to the Top

It is not just the MLS which stages a battle between the traditional footballing path and the distinctly American approach to professional sports. The American youth soccer system is a similarly puzzling conundrum. In its current format, grassroots youth clubs and college soccer effectively operate in opposition with the growing number of MLS academies. Every MLS club accounts for a youth academy, which operates in the team’s area. These MLS academies function like those seen in Europe, meaning that academy players are able to progress to the MLS through a single club, bypassing college sports altogether; a luxury that youth players at grassroots clubs do not have. On the other hand, grassroots academies often do not possess the same name-power and financial means to operate on par with their MLS equivalents, further diminishing their role in national youth development. All of which creates an obvious problem; there are not nearly enough MLS clubs across the US and Canada for every aspiring player to have access to an MLS academy.

Issues regarding access to competitive youth football are not new, nor are they unique to the US. In the early 2000s, the German FA looked to undergo similar reform because, as Raphael Honigstein describes in his book, Das Reboot, “youngsters who didn’t happen to play for one of the professional clubs were falling through the cracks.” With such a checkered footballing past, and with the MLS on the rise, the future of North American soccer cannot afford to rely exclusively on 30+ MLS club academies and allow any other players to ‘fall through the cracks.’ 

Fortunately, the MLS came up with a solution to this increasingly complex riddle. In early September, Major League Soccer launched their ‘MLS Next’ program which works to improve collaboration between MLS academies and grassroots youth clubs. The initiative classifies 83 grassroots clubs as ‘Elite Academy Clubs’ which work in conjunction with the 30 MLS academies, improving the national standard of youth development. The number of MLS academies will continue to increase with each new expansion team. In fact, the list of grassroots clubs has already been expanded from its preliminary 65, a few months before the official launch.

This approach is certainly a much needed improvement, the impacts of which remain to be seen. However, if widespread access is the long-term goal, the initiative leaves a lot to be desired. Large portions of the US, and virtually the entirety of Canada go untouched by the program (as seen below), allowing players without access to one of the member clubs to once again fall through the cracks.

Let’s assume that the MLS Next project is an overwhelming success, which revolutionizes youth soccer across North America. Even in this best case scenario, the initiative (with the MLS’ current plan) leaves one large problem unsolved. Where does college soccer lie in this tangled web of competitive youth soccer? In the US, College sports are a vital cog in the machine of major-league sports. Professional sports teams scout college athletes, and at the end of each season, the athletes make up a hierarchical talent pool from which teams fight over their signatures, in an over-the-top televised event known as a draft. Essentially, college sports are a sacred part of American culture, so naturally, Major League Soccer followed suit with its ‘MLS SuperDraft.’ The SuperDraft operates the same as the NBA or NFL, barring the irreplaceable allure of the other big-league drafts. However, in recent years, the event seems to be hanging in the balance, as MLS clubs lose the incentive to participate. The MLS academy system, now bolstered by the MLS Next program, provides clubs with the opportunity to scout and develop talent in-house, as opposed to hiring scouts to observe college soccer matches. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly viable for MLS clubs to focus their resources on establishing an elite and ultimately successful youth academy, while disregarding college soccer and the SuperDraft. Without the attention of MLS clubs, talented players who either valued a college degree or did not have access to an MLS academy, get left behind. 

When all is said and done, the MLS Next program is still not good enough. There needs to be a comprehensive and unified youth development strategy, otherwise Canada and the US will struggle to foster a steady flow of top-class footballers, and ultimately struggle to make up ground with the European elite.

The Bosnia Effect

Adin Osmanbašić was born in Germany to a Bosnian family. Adin moved to the US at the age of 5, but found an interest in the kind of football that would have surrounded him back in Germany. As Adin became increasingly enveloped in the nuances of the sport, he made sure to keep an eye on the paths of German and Bosnian football. “If you look at the Bosnian national team at our peak, a lot of our players were taken and developed by Bundesliga clubs,” Osmanbašić recalls. It is no coincidence that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first World Cup appearance in national team history coincided with Germany’s fourth World Cup triumph in 2014. These successes would not have been possible without the German FA’s aforementioned innovations from over a decade earlier. The extensive rebuild included a more comprehensive youth development strategy and much higher standards for club training facilities across the nation. German players who were ten years of age at the start of the initiative, grew up utilizing the upgraded facilities, and would have been in their early twenties by the time Brazil came calling. 

The Germans managed to craft such a strong football ecosystem that its benefits could extend to foreign talent. Amid the 2014 World Cup, 8 of the 23-man Bosnia and Herzegovina squad were employed by German clubs. That does not include star striker Edin Džeko, who saw his value grow from 4.95 million to 33 million during his time at Wolfsburg (according to Transfermarkt), before joining Manchester City in 2011. “I think the Bundesliga has a good strategy for taking in and developing foreign talents,” Osmanbašić tells me. “They are a league who likes youth and they’re willing to take a chance on young talent [wherever they may come from].” Moreover, the Bundesliga’s focus has shifted in recent years. While the league was once taking a chance on Ibišević, Kolašinac and Džeko, they are now doing the same with Reyna, Davies, and formerly Pulisic. And with the World Cup coming to North America in 2026, the US and Canada will hope for the Bundesliga to work its magic once again.

Why is Football Reform Important?

The concept of professional sports is nothing without the emotional investment of the masses. This holds particularly true in the case of international sports. Ask yourself how often you actually care about professional rowing or gymnastics. Ordinarily, the answer would probably be very little, but during the Olympic Games everything seems to take on a higher level of importance. You want your country to come out victorious, no matter the sport, especially if your country is performing admirably. In short, sports appeal to our competitive nature and our sense of pride. Which is why it is important that there are adequate systems in place to develop talented North American footballers. 

With an influx of quality players, the US and Canada can close the gap between themselves and World Cup qualification. Just like the Olympics, making it to the World Cup can set off a bomb of national interest, causing people to explore a sport they might have once pushed aside. For instance, during the summer of 2014, at which time the US reached the round of 16 of the World Cup, several YouTube videos were uploaded with titles such as “Can Soccer Surpass [American] Football In The U.S.?” That optimism is starkly juxtaposed with a VOX video entitled “Why Americans suck at soccer.” The video in question was uploaded during the 2018 Cup, when the US failed to even qualify for the tournament for the first time in over 30 years.

This creates an advantageous cycle: Invest in a cohesive football system. Use the system to produce quality players who can lead their country to a World Cup. Use the tournament to spark national interest. Capitalize on the growing interest by building stronger football infrastructure, and so on. 

However, with an inadequate system, this cycle is no more than a hypothetical. Therefore, relying exclusively on a few MLS academies and the prestige of the German football system is just not going to cut it. 

We need to take a hard, analytical look at all aspects of North American soccer; youth, professional, or otherwise. We need to iron out all of the long-standing structural discrepancies and conflicting rhetorics. Most importantly, we need to allow North American footballers to thrive. Only when all of these factors are accounted for, will Canadians and Americans alike, be able to witness their team contending for World Cup glory.