By Clemente Lisi – NEW YORK, NY (Feb 17, 2020) US Soccer Players – It’s a question MLS teams participating in the Concacaf Champions League ask themselves every winter. How will we be able to win a trophy while Mexican clubs continue to dominate? It’s a puzzle MLS teams, currently in preseason, have to ponder seriously. In a way, participation in the Concacaf Champions League has become a . . .
MLS embraces the transfer saga
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 14, 2020) US Soccer Players - Major League Soccer is a young league with younger ambition. While the rest of the world spent the last three decades engaged in the wild, sometimes sordid, and often thrilling business of high profile player transfers, MLS focused on simply making itself viable. You'd be fine with one hand to count the number of noteworthy MLS . . .
Nashville SC’s stadium moves forward
Friday's soccer news starts with the swift conclusion for what could've overshadowed Nashville SC's MLS debut. The expansion team's stadium plan will go ahead almost as planned. Nashville SC has accepted mayor John Cooper's administration wanting a change in the footprint of the venue and private funding for construction. The negotiations over those changes came to a head in recent weeks, with the . . .
With the Champions league on the schedule, LAFC and Montreal make changes
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 12, 2020) US Soccer Players - The MLS season is mere weeks away, and the teams participating in the Concacaf Champions League are gearing up for games that come earlier than that. In a perfect world, coaches would have set rosters and know what they're working with for games that count. Then again, this is MLS. The primary in-season transfer window doesn't . . .
Ben Olsen in DC
By Clemente Lisi – NEW YORK, NY (Feb 10, 2020) US Soccer Players – Coaches in MLS have come and gone over the past decade. Some lasted a few years, others even less. It is a trend throughout soccer. Impatient clubs dump a coach in the hopes of finding another who can turn the team around. It's always cheaper to change the coach than the entire squad, even if the problems run deeper than the . . .
NYCFC may have a place to play
Monday's soccer news starts with The news that NYCFC might be close to announcing a stadium site. The NY Times' David Waldstein reported on Friday that the MLS club might have a site just south of Yankee Stadium. As the report indicates, there's no deal yet but negotiations appear to be progressing. The news breaks at an interesting time for the club, with NYCFC playing the home leg of its . . .
It doesn’t look easy for MLS in Nashville
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 7, 2020) US Soccer Players - Nothing about Nashville's entry into Major League Soccer has been straightforward. Though MLS earned the benefit of the doubt with its expansion choices after a string of wildly successful new clubs, the choice of the Tennessee capital for the league's 26th team always seemed oddly taken. The city didn't have a massively popular . . .
New CBA consolidates MLSPA position as MLS’s engine, and conscience
By Charles Boehm – WASHINGTON, DC (Feb 7, 2020) US Soccer Players - The phrase "league of choice" has been a recurring favorite of Don Garber for at least half a decade. Few of the MLS commissioner's talking points have ever evoked more ambition along with easy jokes from skeptics. Global superiority has at times looked like a laughably distant proposition for a competition that fought for . . .
Is the XFL an issue for MLS?
Thursday's soccer news starts with the return of the XFL this weekend. The renewed attempt to make professional football a success in the spring raises an old competition issue for MLS. It also raises an old question. Is North American soccer's topflight really in competition with other sports? Major League Soccer's season overlaps with all the other pro sports and college football and basketball . . .
The Chicago and Atlanta MLS expansion models
By Clemente Lisi – NEW YORK, NY (Feb 3, 2020) US Soccer Players – A new Major League Soccer season starts in four weeks. With preseason in full swing, coaches are testing new tactics as teams buy and sell players. For Nashville SC and Inter Miami, it's their MLS debuts. Expansion teams have typically had a tough go at it in North American sports. In MLS, the gold standard remains the Chicago . . .
