Don Garber’s recent allusion to the MLS is more competitive than the Premier League is based on the misapprehension the domestic league in the USA has thrown up 9 different champions in it’s 20 years of existence as compared to the smaller pool of title holders across the pond. Now in the 23rd year since inception and the Premier League winners can be counted on one hand. Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester City. One senses the MLS commissioner is bigging up the league to pitch a formalized version of the ICC which will see the PL pitted against the MLS on an ongoing basis. Whatever Garber’s motives, his statements are of the self aggrandizing variety and mistakes parity for competitiveness.
The Premier League rewards consistency spread over 38 matches in the league. One or two matches do not determine the outcome of the round robin league. The MLS on the other hand breaks up the matches into the regular season and the playoffs. The playoffs going into the finals are two legged and as history shows there is no correlation between winners of the regular season and the playoff victors.
Last season, LA Galaxy finished second to the Seattle Sounders, Western Conference winners and overall league leaders by a margin of 5 points but then went onto win the MLS Cup beating the New England Revolution in the finals, themselves runners up to DC United in the Eastern Conference. Seattle fell to the Galaxy in the semi-finals and DC were outplayed in the quarterfinals by the NY Red Bulls, a team advancing into the playoffs through knockout. The same trend repeated in the 2013 season as MLS Cup winners Sporting Kansas City finished second to the NY Red Bulls in the Eastern Conference but beat the Real Salt Lake in the finals. Winning the Supporters Shield – awarded to the side topping the league is a kiss of death when it comes to the playoffs.
In fact, since 1996 league winners gone onto win the MLS Cup on only five occasions. Clearly, match day performances in the playoffs determine the eventual winners. Such formats favour the scrapping underdog without providing evidence of competitive mettle. More to the point, the league’s unitary structure which disburses finances on almost equal footing between the clubs also encourages egalitarianism in the quality of players chosen.
The Designated Player rule introduced to shake up a league stagnating through salary cap restrictions has achieved unquestionable income inequity with debatable benefits in terms of quality. David Beckham heralded as poster boy also brings to mind the worst of excesses of the DP circumvention.
That guilty nod to capitalism set off a raft of socialistic initiatives to even the keel. Kansas City cited as Garber’s Cinderella team in the smallest market provides its share of players to the USMNT in the form of Graham Zusi and Matt Besler, both instrumental in winning Kansas City its second title two years ago. Both Besler and Zusi were re-signed as “core initiative” players using retention funds which did not count towards the salary cap. They beat Real Salt Lake, another “small market team” which won the MLS Cup in 2009 benefiting from the likes of Nick Rimando and Kyle Beckerman who have logged plenty of minutes with the national side. Jamaican stalwart Andy Williams and MLS All Star Will Johnson were part of RSL’s international flavour during that season. Other ways of clearing the salary cap look at fund allocation through a weighted scale depending on missing the playoffs, 3rd designated player opt outs, expansion teams, qualifying for CONCACAF Champions League group or knockout stages, sale of players to foreign leagues, and trading 2 out of their 10 non-cap roster spots.
As an expansion side NYCFC topped the allocation ranking which allowed them to get hold of Mix Diskerud, a US MNT player who had returned to the MLS from Norwegian side Rosenborg. Benny Feilhaber who’s become the focal point of the attack for SKC was also acquired for the New England Revs the same way from AG Aarhus before being traded to Kansas.
Such parity seeking compensations give the league table a very narrow bandwidth – where the first placed side this season in the Eastern Conference, DC United has won 13 matches but also lost 10 for a goal differential of just +1. Such skews are impossible in the Premier League for sides vying for Champions League positions. The last placed side, Chicago Fire, is just 17 points behind and has scored just one goal less than the leaders. The Fire are just four points behind the Montreal Impact occupying the last playoff spot. The same pattern holds true in the Western Conference. The cutoff being low, the sides have to really fall of the wagon to miss the playoffs from each conference with the first two spots making it to the semi-finals and spots 3-6 into the knock out stage.
Coincidentally, RSL won their first title and Sporting Kansas their second, through penalty shootout; the ultimate roll of the dice. Given more credence to the MLS’s ephemeral nature, the Fire created history by winning the MLS Cup in their first season as an expansion side. Hardly, stunning evidence of competitiveness.
For all the casting of the eyes to the Premier League, the reality is the MLS comes off distinctly second best in the CONCACAF region compared to the Mexican Liga when competing in the Champions League. Since the present format introduced in 2008, the MLS have been unable to break the across border deadlock with only the Montreal Impact and RSL having the honour of making the finals.