OF COURSE, THE BIG loony news cycle hadn’t fully completed its loop until American soccer’s poet laureate Mix Diskerud chimed in.

Reporters say I am close to... What does that mean... What did they come close to... Since I was in Brazil...

— Mix Diskerud (@MixDiskerud) January 8, 2015

The Norwegian-American midfielder, who is a free agent and has been linked to clubs far and wide, presumably posted his cryptic tweet in response to a Goal.com report that he was close to joining New York City FC. He also seemed to be taking a swipe at all the other speculation about where he would next be employed. (And possibly retaliating for the inquiries the press has made into his father’s alleged loan-sharking

And so ended 24 hours in which it came to light that Steven Gerrard would be the most high-profile player to sign in Major League Soccer since Thierry Henry; the New York Red Bulls would inexplicably dump manager Mike Petke for Jesse Marsch; Frank Lampard was not now and at no point in the past actually under contract with NYCFC; and the league dropped its 2015 regular season schedule. Lampard may or may not be signed now, it's very hard to keep the tweets and posts and retweets straight.

But the far more significant tidings—more significant still than Gerrard’s arrival and the Lampard saga’s latest lamentable chapter—were that Diskerud, Sacha Kljestan, and Jozy Altidore could be returning stateside.

The New York Red Bulls, it was said, were after Altidore and Kljestan, although ESPN later reported that Altidore was too pricey for the team that drafted and blooded him. He had apparently also drawn interest from Toronto FC—which the club confirmed—and the Portland Timbers, whose owner had alluded to a major move for a national teamer.

It seems plausible, then, that all three will return to—or in Diskerud’s case, make his debut in—Major League Soccer, given their present club situations. (Altidore is out of favor at Sunderland and Kljestan has seen his playing time wane at Anderlecht.)

That’s the real news here.

Because it had looked, for a time, like MLS was slipping back into its bad old habit of collecting galacticos on the wrong side of 30. With Thierry Henry retired, Tim Cahill seemingly on the way out, and even Landon Donovan gone, there was an opportunity to continue to remake its image as a league where U.S. national team players were happy to stick around—or return to in their primes—and young talent from the rest of the Western hemisphere was eager to develop.

But when NYCFC signed David Villa and, well, did/didn't/did again sign Lampard, it seemed like a regression to the old mean that has justifiably affixed MLS with the dreaded “retirement league” label. Gerrard’s addition to that mix only seemed to confirm that for all the progress made when Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, and so many other major American signings were brought back, the blueprint was still essentially the same—and unfit for its time.

Should Kljestan, Altidore, and Diskerud all actually sign with MLS, a balance would be reestablished. After all, signing old stars and squeezing the last drops of faded glory out of them is fine, so long as there is substance to your league as well. With even more of the national team playing at home, the league’s credibility is lifted up another notch.

There is real and considerable irony here. U.S. national team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann has spent his three-and-a-half years in charge proselytizing about the virtues of playing in Europe, of pursuing the highest levels, of the merits of hardship over comfort. Yet by regularly calling in MLSers, he sent the opposite message. Wittingly or not, Klinsmann delivered the tremor that set off the tidal wave of Americans washing back up on their own shores.

In the end though, perhaps this mass migration to MLS serves everybody better—Klinsmann included. Rather than play sporadically in Europe, U.S. national teamers will play all the time in a league that is better for their presence—and that of the imported semi-retirees, who can impart some wisdom from their youth.

Ultimately, what will really help the United States national team reach a higher level is a domestic league that’s as strong as it can be.

This is Leander Schaerlaeckens' first piece for American Soccer Now. Follow him on Twitter.