8.6.14
ASN Morning Read: Major League Soccer Expands
Before tonight's MLS All-Star Game (9:30, ESPN2), catch up on everything you need to know about everything, or perhaps just five things you could learn about the world of U.S. soccer.
BY
Noah Davis
Posted
August 06, 2014
8:19 AM
Graham Parker thinks the MLS All-Star Game is just the best: "The thing is, I love All-Star week for what it is rather than what it lacks. That could be the same unduly optimistic me talking that gets inappropriately excited about seeing vanishing spray show up at the World Cup, but it's true. More leagues should have such a week. And that's the first key point: It is a week. The game itself is the centerpiece, and it's perfectly valid to question the competitive value of said game, even if that questioning quickly becomes an annually redundant exercise."
Would you like to know where Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley, and a host of other MLS All-Stars think the next expansion city should be? Of course you would. And no, the answer is not Nacogdoches. Um, wait, actually it is.
The future of MLS's success in a nutshell, from Paul Kennedy: Location means one thing for MLS these days: downtown. Orlando came out of nowhere to grab an expansion team in large part because of its downtown location for a soccer stadium, next to the Church Street entertainment district and sports arena. Abbott says a compelling part of Orlando's presentation was its potential to create "an unbelievable game-day experience." But moving into urban areas isn't easy. The politics of getting a stadium deal are a lot tougher, and the availability of land is limited. Progress on MLS stadium projects in Miami, Washington and New York is slow. David Beckham's group tried and failed to secure land deals at two locations that Abbott said would have each been "tremendous." He expressed optimism for the Washington soccer stadium plans even if the opposition of members of the D.C. city council has been quite public. And Abbott had nothing new to report on New York City FC's efforts to find a permanent home. "Each one is complicated," he said. "But the prize is worth the price if we can solve it."
How do you solve a problem like youth development?
Yeah, we had never heard of Ramon Martin del Campo either. And there's a reason: Last spring, Martin del Campo was just another college soccer player with big-time dreams and a puncher’s chance to make them come true, an unheralded senior at a mid-major school who was going to need some luck just to get an invite to Major League Soccer's annual pre-draft combine. Now, thanks to an amazing summer with the San Jose Earthquakes U-23 team in the amateur Premier Development League (PDL), he’s in the mix for the U.S. Under-23 national team.
Richard McEnery/isiphotos.com
