I love soccer. I can’t get enough of it. So this is always a bittersweet time of year. Domestic leagues are coming to an end. Cup competitions are finishing up. In fact, many of Europe’s top leagues had been settled for the past few weeks and lacked final-day drama. So in order to get my fix of intense, competitive league football, I turned my attention to Mexico and the Liga MX Liguilla playoffs.
And I fell in love.
"It's a very hard league to play in. It's very physical, there's a lot of running. So there is a lot of physical work and to me, in my mind, too little play."
Andrea Pirlo probably didn't have running wind sprints in mind when he planned on winding down his career in MLS, but that's what he got. Although NYCFC play on one of the smallest fields you'll ever see at the professional level, Pirlo still chases the game more than when he played in Italy. And, of course, he's 38 now, so he's likely feeling the burn a bit more.
After a rough start to the 2017 MLS season for both Giovani dos Santos and the LA Galaxy, the club are now unbeaten in their last four matches following Sunday’s 2-1 away win over Minnesota United — a run that has seen Dos Santos register three goals and an assist.
Bastian Schweinsteiger’s comments regarding MLS the other week were less a criticism of the league than a dash of honesty — the Chicago Fire, World Cup hopefuls though they may be, are not as good as Manchester United or Bayern Munich. Dax McCarty isn’t Paul Pogba, David Accam isn’t Arjen Robben and Nemanja Nikolic isn’t Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
When it comes to stadium plans, the first thing you'd think would be an absolute must would be the implementation of a parking area that adoring fans and staff can use to actually attend a match.
In the case of the proposed expansion MLS team in Miami, they decided to omit this extremely important aspect completely.
MLS has come under fire in the past for the gap between its stated goal of becoming an elite league and its current reality. Just last week, Chicago Fire midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger noted the stark difference between the quality of play in MLS and European leagues.
Andrea Pirlo was left out of the NYCFC lineup for the third straight week despite receiving a salary ($5.915 million) that’s greater than his entire club’s actual salary cap ($3.85m).
Bastian Schweinsteiger is having a tough time adjusting to how bad MLS soccer is. He doesn't come out and say it in so many words, but we know what he means. Speaking with German magazine Suddeutsche Zeitung, Schweinsteiger sounded off on his new league.
Via ESPNFC:
Two of Major League Soccer’s biggest clubs threw down last night in a clash featuring the most expensive roster in the league (Toronto FC) and the third most expensive (Orlando City). Those numbers are, in large part, due to the fact that the Eastern Conference sides boast the only two players that earn above $7 million per season — Toronto’s Sebastian Giovinco and Orlando’s Kaka. The two did not disappoint.