Hotmail
MLS and the SPL share similar paths to the present
The very best of the lot played in the old English First Division but there were plenty left over to stock outstanding teams in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
2009 MLS Playoffs
| 2009 MLS Cup | |
| Sun., Nov. 22 | |
| L.A. 1-1 (4-5 pks) Real Salt Lake | Recap |
| Eastern Conference Final | |
| Sat., Nov. 14 | |
| Chicago 0-0 (4-5 pks) Real SL | Recap |
| Western Conference Final | |
| Fri., Nov. 13 | |
| Los Angeles 2-0 (aet) Houston | Recap |
| *Airs on FSC | MLS Playoff Central | |
Scotland routinely qualified for the World Cup — an event England occasionally missed. And yet, Scots were unhappy with the fact that their team never won it. Really.
Scottish fans expected to win the Cup because everyone knew they had a seemingly endless supply of outstanding talent. Every Sunday afternoon the playing fields were filled with youth games. You couldn't go to a beach in Scotland without falling over packs of children chasing after footballs.
And no one watching Alex Ferguson leading the Dons to Euro glory would have believed it possible that, thirty years down the line, Scottish football would be completely bankrupt. Today, Scotland is bereft of top-level clubs, the national team ranks among the minnows and even the most patriotic of us are forced to admit that's we've ceded to world stage.
The dismantling of Rangers — twice — at home in Champions League play this year was not a harbinger. It's a coda.
Scotland hasn't qualified for anything since the 1998 World Cup.
This is also a true story. In the 1980s, soccer in the United States was nearly invisible. The NASL was dying, and its best players were imports. I would bet that the only two American names you can remember from that era are Ricky Davis and Shep Messing — the former because he actually had an endorsement deal, the latter because he infamously posed for Playgirl.
It also helped that both men played for the Cosmos.
The USA had not qualified for a World Cup since 1950. In 1980, it would have been very difficult to find any knowledgeable American fan (or writer ) who could explain the qualifying process to you, let alone fill you in on the fact that the Americans were routinely sunk by the likes of Canada or Costa Rica.
Major League Soccer
 |
Photos
League Pages
A victory over Mexico in that era? What are you smoking?
But there was a group of people in America who believed soccer could be much, much better. Many of them came to the USA via the NASL and then stayed to develop the sport.
Quixotically, they believed America might one day be a major soccer power. The idea was straightforward. Unlike Europe, which had kids playing everywhere, the United States needed to create youth soccer.
And they did. This was the era of AYSO and USYSA and Junior Soccer Associations from Maine to California.
Not surprisingly, kids enjoyed playing. And, because of the timing, the USA's youth system developed a quirk — girls played the game as often as boys did, and certainly with as much enthusiasm.
Today, we sit in 2009 having advanced to six consecutive World Cups, including the 1994 Cup, which we hosted.
And yet the USA remains far, far behind the rest of the world in the sport. How is that possible?
I bring this up because the Americans have long been influenced by ideas from Scotland, Ireland and England. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of British coaches in America, plugging away at the youth level.
And, if we've taken to heart some of the ideas about how to succeed from these folks, we'd better be prepared to learn from their mistakes as well.
It turns out, it's much harder to make great soccer than anybody believed. The idea that developing Americans players simply required playing fields, coaches and a national program has proved to be as gauzy as Scotland's Cup-winning dreams.
Major League Soccer
Scotland's problem was that it didn't take player development seriously and allowed its two big clubs to crush all comers. That effectively killed off a league that was at one time far more balanced and interesting than it is today.
The United States, on the other hand, has succeeded in getting tons of kids to play without being able to get its professional league into mainstream sporting culture. We've spent a lot of time giving kids the tools to play, but not a lot of time in allowing our professional league to flourish.
Everyone posited that the USA game could not flourish until we had a strong professional league filled largely with American talent. MLS would not repeat the 'mistakes' of the NASL because they were 'wiser' even if that meant they foolishly elected not to involve many of the people who could have helped them mightily in the early days.
That meant we ignored reforming the college game, which eliminated a natural feeder line for the league, lagged on developing referees, and spent more money on facilities than the players in them.
Fourteen years have passed since MLS kicked off, and where are we? Soccer in America is largely a pastime, still not a mainstream sport. And the real interest in the game comes and goes with the World Cup cycle. This is progress, for sure, but have goals been met? No. Not quite.
This brings us to the MLS' final weekend, one of the few that really matters. Sadly, because of the way the league's playoffs are structured, the league's choice to have many teams competing in the final weeks means that many of the mid-season games don't have a heightened sense of urgency.
This means that despite the fact that we have been able to enjoy a heckuva battle for the final playoff spots the last few weeks, few people know about it. Take Chicago, where I live. The Fire was in a heated battle, and clinched second place on Saturday night at home. Yet no one was talking about it.
Think about this. The Fire are the only team in Chicago to be playing in postseason play this fall. And yet, even in my neighborhood, which is heavily Hispanic, almost no one knows about it. This is astonishing.
It's easy to say that MLS problems derive from being a 'niche' sport in a country where the big fish remain unchanged — it's baseball, the college sports, football, hoops and maybe hockey. You can also honestly say that soccer isn't yet a real part of the U.S. sporting culture and excuse the level of talent on that basis. You can also venture that more folks would watch MLS if it had more of the best players in the world.
But soccer is deeply rooted in the Scottish culture and is heading south faster than the Toronto Maple Leafs. Lifestyles have changed and soccer is no longer the only path to riches (or at least to a pub with your name over the door).
The last time I was over there it was stunning to pick up the Saturday papers and see more space devoted to the Premier League than to their local SPL games scheduled for the weekend (twenty years ago, the old First Division was relegated to a small box).
Just as MLS, the SPL has turned into a second-class league on television. Over there it's the Premiership from mid-afternoon to night. Here, the NFL kills everybody in the fall and what is left over goes to college football or the baseball playoffs. And our soccer? More people watch the Prem here, too.
I'm not sure what all this means, but I do know there are not any simple answers. Bringing Scottish football back may be every bit as difficult as making MLS important to people here.
But I can say this — the things that have been tried up to this point have not been adequate, and we need to learn from this.
Jamie Trecker's newest book, "Love and Blood: At the World Cup with the Footballers, Fans and Freaks" is out now from Harcourt. Jamie is assisted by Jerry and Janice Trecker. Contact Jamie at jamie.trecker@gmail.com and visit his blog and website at www.jamietrecker.com.
The views and opinions expressed by Jamie Trecker do not necessarily reflect those of the Fox Soccer Channel or FoxSoccer.com.
Add a comment
advertisement
