Exactly, and I figured that we were kinda screwed with Arenas. I thought we MIGHT be able to make the WC on talent alone, but I didn't think we'd get out of the Group Stage if we DID make it. Obviously, the MLS idea was even worse than I thought it'd be. We have ONE player on a major European squad.
We've actually got a lot of guys in Bundesliga and a few in EPL but they are buried on the bench mostly.
Only Pulisic is seen as "world class".
The biggest thing is to leave those guys in Europe and not have them rush back to MLS.
The benefit of not making the world cup is those younger players aren't the household names they would have been thus won't be overpaid to come back.
Very small silver lining but it probably offers us a legit development course for the Cam Carter-Vickers and Hyndmans of the world now.
Arena tried to call in all those big names but those guys had mostly semi-retired to MLS And were just coasting on fumes.
Watching Pulisic try to full on carry that old man squad was just insane.
MLS is good for building the depth of the talent in the US but terrible at developing elite players because the level of comp is mostly trash.
I think the MLS should enter into an agreement with the EPL and become a league in that overall English League with demotion and promotion.
Obviously as MLS team promote they'd need to facility share with the teams in English and same for those English teams who come here.
But man you'd have such a higher level of interest in the EPL than any other league by far and you'd get the money to really build this up and eventually the MLS would be the Championship level and you could get a team like LA or NYC into the EPL but playing out of facilities such as West Ham.
