World Cup. USA: at the home of the hosts, lots of Europe and little MLS

The United States they will be the hosts in the world of football that they will host from June together with Mexico and Canada, but never like on this occasion will they find little space for the players in their championship of reference, the Major Soccer League (Mls), the North American professional tournament.
In the 1998 World Cup in France, 16 of the 22 members of the Stars & Stripes national team came from MLS. This year it is likely that in the starting eleven there will be no more than two: Matt Freese (NYC FC) and more unlikely Matt Turner (New England Revolution) in goal and the 38 year old defender Tim Ream (Charlotte FC).

Diego Luna is also at risk

It will be difficult for others to find space, even for attacking midfielder Diego Luna of Real Salt Lake. The 22-year-old is highly rated by Mauricio Pochettino but for the two squares behind the tip the ‘Italians’ have a clear advantage Christian Pulisic e Weston McKennie and Malik Tillman of Bayer Leverkusen. The former Tottenham Argentine coach tried to stimulate internal competition by traveling to the United States to go and watch dozens of matches in the US: “We must enhance MLS”, he declared, “I think that the players who compete in this championship can demonstrate that they are worthy of the national team, it is not necessary to move to Europe”.

The MLS, however, seems to have exhausted its phase of impetuous growth which began with the launch in 1996 promoted by the US Federation in exchange for the organization of the 1994 World Cup. The new tournament brought together international stars but also launched many American players, to the point that at the 1998 World Cup (which ended with elimination in the group stage) the USA fielded on average seven MLS players in the starting eleven. In 2002 the Yanks reached the quarterfinals with an average of 5.4 starters from MLS. In 2006 this figure had dropped to 3.33 and in 2010 to two.

In South Africa

The negative trend was interrupted in 2014 in South Africa with an average of 4.75 starters coming from Soccer. There had just been the last great effort by MLS to attract American champions with mega-contracts, recalling them from Europe as Clint Dempsey (dal Tottenham ai Seattle Sounders) e Michael Bradley (from Roma to Toronto FC). Today the stars of Soccer are mainly foreign, from Lionel Messi to Rodrigo De Paul, from Son Heung-min to Thomas Mueller.

In Qatar

In fact, already at the following World Cup, in 2022 in Qatar, the average number of MLS starters had fallen to an all-time low of just one. In the last match of the group stage against Iran, for the first time since the foundation of the MLS the Yanks took the field without even a player from their domestic league. And even in the first three matches of the next World Cup, two scheduled in Los Angeles and one in Seattle, American fans will see very few faces from their championship on the pitch.