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MLS News and Commentary

© Corey Arnold

First just let me say that I think MLS has clearly shown that it is making a serious impact on the quality of U.S. soccer. If MLS were not in place, strong potential stars of U.S. soccer, like Clint Mathis and Josh Wolffwould, have been forced to try to find teams oversees to play with. Although this is definitely not a bad experience for a player, getting onto a foreign team can be very difficult to due work permits, limitations on the number of foreign players and the amount of players available for those positions.

MLS teams are required to work with U.S. players because of our limitations on foreign players. And I think that is the way it ought to be. The Project-40 program also allows for young players that seem to have the potential, to be developed into strong contributors for their pro teams, and one day possibly for the national team.

We have seen two indicators of the impact of MLS in national and world soccer this week. The first, and most important was the convincing win that the U.S. had over Mexico in World Cup qualifying. One key point to make about this match is who did the work.

In the past the U.S. has had a fairly set roster that did not vary much, and did not have much depth. In this case, two normal starters, Brian McBride and Claudio Reyna, became unavailable within the first 30 minutes. In the past this would have devestated the U.S. In fact in previous years, just one injury could have cost us a match.

In this case, Josh Wolff and Clint Mathis, both from MLS, stepped up and the U.S. did not miss a beat. I am not saying that we don't need the best players that we can muster, but I am saying that we now have many more of them to choose from.

The U.S. played extremely well, and kept Mexico off their game to the point of frustration. It will be interesting to see how the second game in the U.S.-Mexico series goes in Mexico. Home-field advantage is important, but the U.S. is use to not having a home advantage, even when playing in the U.S. And let me just pause to say kudos to Columbus. What a wonderful community and stadium. Well done!

The second point is the announcement of the draw for the LA Galaxy in the World Club Championships. The Galaxy will open play on July 30 against Accra Hearts of Oak from Ghana. Accra has been a very strong team in Africa of late and all of the teams at this level will give a strong challenge. The Galaxy's second match will be against Real Madrid, at their home stadium, on Aug. 3. This of course will be a huge match. Real is one of the best known teams in the world and their home stadium seats 78,000. The Galaxy's only advatages, if you can call them that, is that they are relatively unknown and will be in midseason form. It would be wonderful to see the Galaxy pull out a surprise win against Real in their home. Their final match of this round will be against Jubilo Iwata of the Japanese J-League. The Galaxy recently toured Asia, and played a couple of J-League teams. Although they lost, they felt that they were the better team in each instance. Paul Caliguri, an LA Galaxy defender and former national team player had this to say about their experience against J-League teams. "Although, we lost both matches against J-League teams at the end of the day we, ironically, felt that we were the better team. We are confident that we can play against the Japanese team." It is going to be wonderful to watch, and I hope it is widely televised.