MLS IS SHIT!
USA '94. David Beckham. And LAFC. My 30 year journey into the arms of Major League Soccer.
‘MLS is shit.’ That was the original name for this blog. But despite what it reads like, it was never a slight at the league. On the contrary. The title was mocking me. And every other football snob out there who thinks MLS isn’t up to their ‘standard.’
You see, over the last few months I’ve been introduced to a league that has brought so much joy and fun to my life that I’ve felt compelled to not just write about it but to shout from the rooftops, “MLS ISN’T SHIT!”
But before I climb up onto that rooftop, I feel I must explain the ‘Why?’ Why did I, and why do so many, think America’s top football league is a pile of shite? Well, we can trace it back to one moment on a hot Summers day in Chicago 31 years ago. That’s right. Diana Ross’ penalty miss.
Diana Ross’ penalty miss.
Diana Ross at the Opening Ceremony of USA ‘94.
THE KICK HEARD AROUND THE WORLD
It was the opening ceremony of USA ‘94. Famed football fan and Chicago Fire Ultra, Oprah Winfrey took centre stage to introduce the Queen of Motown in what would go down in World Cup infamy. The idea was simple. All Diana had to do was...
Run down the field flanked by hundreds of people dressed as giant sperm.
Kick a ball directly at the goal.
The goalkeeper would spring Gazelle like out of its way.
The ball would go in.
And the ‘ferocity’ of the shot would split the goalposts in 2.
What I learned that day was that complexity can lie within the simplest of tasks. Diana started off great. She jogged past the sperm, singing her heart out and got to the penalty spot. Once there, she naturally steadied herself for the big moment.
Now look, I know. Even the best players in the world have missed penalties. Indeed, the great Roberto Baggio would go on to miss one at the final of this very World Cup to hand Brazil the trophy. But Roberto wasn’t 5 yards out with a pre-arranged agreement that the goalkeeper would dive where the ball wasn’t.
It all started to go wrong on the run up when Diana took what felt like 17 ‘Bruno Fernandes style’ pauses before kicking the ball. You could tell her head wasn’t in it. Maybe the occasion was too much. Maybe it was the fact Oprah was there. Or maybe, just maybe, it was a stupid fucking idea that never should have seen the light of day. We’ll never know.
What we do know is her shot went wide. Very wide. The keeper still dived and the goals still split. But the world pissed its collective pants laughing. And as Diana continued to sing about ‘coming out’ the rest of us were begging her to go the fuck back in.
That moment symbolized what us cynics had long thought of America’s grasp on football: They hadn’t a fucking clue. And for us Irish at USA ‘94, the incompetence of this wannabe football nation came to a head under the sweltering Orlando sun when the scheduling geniuses had us kicking off at 12:30pm in 105 degree heat (43 degrees celsius) against a country with a famously temperate climate…Mexico!
Steve Staunton Trying Not To Burn Alive Before Kick-Off vs Mexico.
In stark contrast to their Central American brothers and sisters, the Irish fans that had made the trek across the Atlantic from the overcast shores of the Emerald Isle had only ever seen the sun in holiday brochures and repeats of Miami Vice. Sure there were rumours it had appeared once in Kinsale back in 1988 but that’s all they were. Rumors. We weren’t prepared as a people for what Florida had waiting for us. To this day, fans recall with a nervous twitch a “blinding light beaming down from the sky” with a heat so intense “it’d boil the bollox off ya!” And despite the passing years, many still suffer through Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Orlando had become Ireland’s Vietnam. And we had the sunburn to prove it.
Such was the heat that afternoon one of Ireland’s defenders, Steve Staunton - a man so pale he’s translucent - had to wear a baseball cap right up until the opening whistle for fear his ginger hair would catch fire and he’d burn to death before kick-off.
But we can’t blame America for the heat. We can, however, blame them for one of the most outrageous incidents in World Cup history. At 2 nil down and into the second half, one of the American officials - a man who’d look more at home at the DMV rather than the sideline of a hugely significant World Cup match - refused to let John Aldridge on the pitch after we had substituted 2 of our players off! That’s right, Tommy Coyne and the Ginger Ninja, Steve Staunton had come off but for some unknown reason, only Jason McAteer was allowed on! That DMV fucker had us playing with 10 men in Sahara like conditions against a team whose players were basically born on the sun. Eventually common sense prevailed but not before Aldridge, with the weight of an entire nation behind him, had to be restrained for fear of he’d knock the gobshite into next week.
We managed to pull a goal back. A beautiful header scored by none other than John Aldridge! But it wasn’t enough. Mexico, the prick from the DMV and our solar systems largest star had beaten us 2 v 1. Ireland were out of the World Cup.
THE NEXT BIG THING
USA ‘94 was touted as the event that would launch America onto football’s world stage and with it, a league fit to represent the self proclaimed ‘worlds greatest nation.’ It didn’t pan out that way. Certainly not in the immediate aftermath. It would be 2 years before MLS came to be. And even then, with only 10 teams. It took another 4 years for any Europeans of note to make the leap across the pond. Hrsto Stoichkov’s time at Barcelona had come to an end and so he took a leap of faith and signed for Oprah’s beloved Chicago Fire. And later in 2000, Lothar Matthaus, the 1990 World Cup Winning captain of then West Germany, joined MetroStars. Whoever the fuck they were.
The Original 10 Team MLS.
But despite these signings the fact of the matter was, no one gave MLS the time of day. In fairness, they didn’t do themselves any favors. Matches would be played on NFL pitches. The commentators used Baseball and American Football terminology. And the chants. Sweet Jesus, the chants. “YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR MOUTH! THIS IS ATLANTA! WE’RE GONNA STOMP YOU OUT!” Cool! Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic “YOU’RE NOT SINGIN’ ANYMORE!” got bastardised into “YOU’RE NOT SINGING OVER THERE!” And who can forget the all time classic, “I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN!”
Look, I know everyone was trying their best. And what I genuinely love about Americans is that it’s never less than 110%. If they’re going to chant, well dammit, they’re gonna do it with a full heart and on their own goddamn terms. And putting aside the cynical tears of laughter, you have to admire that.
BECKS TO THE FUTURE
The recent David Beckham documentary on Netflix was quite revealing. And the details of how bad the league was when he joined were quite an eye-opener…unless you had Landon Donovan sized blinkers strapped on. Becks’ move to MLS was a shock at the time. He was only 31 years old and playing for Real Madrid. What the hell was he thinking? Well, dollar signs. He saw what other European based players didn’t: the potential of the league. The fact he had in his contract that he could buy an MLS expansion team for the price of a Dwight Yorke showed remarkable foresight for a guy who once said,
“My parents have been there for me, ever since I was about seven.”
That $25 million turned out to be pennies because by the time his Inter Miami officially came to be in 2018, the standard expansion fee for a new MLS club had soared into the $150 to $300 million range. And Beckham’s gamble all those years ago is now widely considered one of the greatest business deals in sports history.
A Pivotal Moment in MLS History.
The significance of his move to MLS was massive. When he joined LA Galaxy (not in LA, by the way. But a city called Carson!), Beckham brought something the league had craved since its inception: Worldwide attention. It was the springboard MLS desperately needed in setting a pathway to the legitimacy the league had lacked up until that point. Over the ensuing years it led to household names like Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane following in Beckham’s pioneering footsteps. Fast forward to today and we have arguably the greatest player that’s ever played the game playing MLS - Denis Bouanga! Lionel Messi is donning the pink and black of ‘Bargain Basement’ Inter Miami. Son Heung-Min is terrorizing opposition defences for LAFC while elevating the clubs fandom to a whole new level courtesy of the insanely devout Korean population in Los Angeles and beyond. And German legend Thomas Muller is adapting to ‘Turf Life’ surrounded by magnificent mountains for the Whitecaps of Vancouver. And that’s just to name a few.
So here’s my tuppence worth regarding MLS in 2025. There are 2 reasons Irish football fans (and others) are getting it wrong about this league. And I know this because I was one of them up until aorund 930pm on June 29th of this year…
They think the standard of MLS is still what it was when David Beckham joined. It’s absolutely not. And…
They’re comparing it to the Premier League. Which you just cannot do.
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR
Now, if you are someone who draws comparisons between MLS and the Premier League, let me put some things into perspective. The lowest salary in the Premier League this season is around $241,000 a year. In MLS, the base wage is $80,622. The reason for this difference? MLS has a salary cap. Something I didn’t know up until I started following the league. And, in fairness, it explains a lot!
The salary cap means each team has the same budget to pay their squad of 20 players. Yes, you can have some players earning more than others, but for every team, the accumulated salary must not go over $5.95 million for the year!
Now, outside of this budget, there is money made available to pay higher salaries for ‘superstar’ players (Son, Messi, Muller etc.) of which you are limited to 3 per team. They are known as DPs or Designate Players. This rule was brought in when Beckham joined the Galaxy. The reason for all of this is to keep the league competitive and to stop the richest teams buying all the best players. Sound familiar, Europe?
So what does that mean? Well, shock-horror, money generally attracts the best players. And when it comes to salaries, even the worst of the best in the Premier League are earning 3 times more than their MLS counterparts. So we here in these United States are left with, well, not the best. But that’s okay. These guys are still professional athletes. And very good at kicking a ball! What has changed over the years is the level of professionalism. How clubs are run. How teams train. The stadiums that have been, and are being, built specifically for football. And most importantly…the commentary! Shoutout to Max Bretos and Ireland’s own Kevin Egan!
But the thing I’ve fallen in love with most, and the real beauty of MLS, doesn’t lie in the finesse of a long, cross-field pass, or a Cruyff turn into space, or a left footed curler into the top corner. It’s in the chaos of any given match. You see, when you have the level of disparity between a Son Heung-Min lining up against a Justen Glad or a Sergio Oregel up against a Marco Reus, you are playing with a fantastical, chaotic fire that burns bright and is hugely entertaining. And isn’t that why we watch the game? To be entertained. So I say to the doubters, to Premier League worshipers, to football snobs around the world…
Embrace the chaos. Celebrate the sublime. And revel in the mayhem.
The 30 Team MLS Line-Up Today.
Because MLS has it all. Gone are the days of incompetent DMV employees masquerading as World Cup officials, of penalties being ‘run-ups’ from the halfway line, and of Alexi fucking Lalas’ headband. Yes, I have mocked them all. Joyously! But when I look back on that fateful Summers day in Chicago, I can’t help but think that Diana Ross’ shambolic penalty put in motion a chain reaction that has led us to where we are today: An MLS that is hugely competitive, highly entertaining and very much worth giving the time of day to.
Because at the end of the day, MLS isn’t shit.
My name is Karl Harpur. And I’m a reformed football snob.