*something witty about tectonic plates shifting*

Late Tuesday afternoon Jonah Freedman broke the news that the San Jose Earthquakes would be back in MLS next season. Don Garber confirmed it at Wednesday's State of the League address in Denver ahead of tonight's All-Star game against Celtic. This is tremendous news for the folks out there, whom I know a few that were left in the wake of AEG's move to Houston. I couldn't be happier for them and soccer fans in the Bay Area in general.

My take on it? Well, if they are going to go nomadic for the first season or two they'll need to do a lot of marketing (and market research), choose appropriate venues and do an amazing job of mobilizing their fanbase. Of course, the first season will be gratis with room for mistakes, error, bad signings and low attendances. Anything beyond that, performance-wise, has to be considered some sort of victory... and no, I don't mean the USL1 team (more on them to come in this week's impending uslfans.com piece). Either way, I think Lew Wolff and co. saw the writing on the wall and wanted to bring the team in sooner rather than later for any number of reasons. I would imagine those to include thoughts about getting in on the Beckham craze that should last well into his first full MLS season in 2008 and the idea that, with the team in existence, it would be easier to go to marketing partners and city councils to get their cooperation on a stadium. I still believe in SJ and couldn't be happier for those fans and the folks involved with SSV to get their team back.

US tournament stuff

I'll probably continuously roll this post and re-edit as I gather my thoughts on the US performances at Copa America and the U-20 World Cup. Suffice to say, one gets no glowing reviews for the performances and another gets no happy appraisals of the coaching staff. I'll let you guys figure out each one for the time being. That said, yes, I am still a bit pissed with the results and I hope the people involved are as well.

An Exercise in Inanity?

This week I ran across the latest bit by "the Limey" over on CNN/SI and one of his readers posed an interesting question, one which I've asked myself from time to time when trying on new teams in Championship Manager or FIFA: "which leagues... are the leading 10 in the world?"

Well, it's a tough call to make but I figured I would give it a shot anyway because... well, just because so here you are, my top 10 league sin the world.

1. England

2. Spain

3. Italy

4. Germany

5. Holland

6. France

7. Brazil

8. Argentina

9. Mexico

10. USA

Close but not quite: Colombia, Scotland, Turkey, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Russia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Ukraine, Croatia, Uruguay, Paraguay

Let’s face it, the US national team would have its difficulties with the national sides from those who missed the cut and win maybe just half the time but if you look at these league from top to bottom, none have the parity of MLS. You can’t just rate a Grasshoppers, Basel, Rangers, Celtic, Lokomotiv, Dynamo, Olympiakos, Rosenborg, etc. You have to look at the entirety of the leagues for ranking purposes. Essentially the same clubs qualify for the European Champions League year after year with little hope for the teams beneath them. Meanwhile, in MLS it’s become increasingly rare to see repeat champions and we have seen, in our brief 11 going on 12 years, terrible teams improve to put together a nice 3 year or so run of respectability before someone else rises up and goes on a tear. At the same time, the increasing revenue and rising profile of MLS give it just that much of an edge over the Euro leagues that have to compete with the Big 4 (see #1-4 on the list) in terms of television deals and media exposure and that’s before we start talking about how quickly their best players are plucked from their leagues to head to the Big 4.

The solid infrastructure and increasing presence of Latin and South American players in MLS shade things slightly in favor of the American league over the better second tier South American leagues, but only just. There is some incredible talent in Colombia, Uruguay, and Paraguay but it often is quickly raided and farmed out by Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico with the rare exception of a player heading directly to Europe. MLS is even beginning to farm talent in the region as well which points to a possibility that as more of the experienced (and influential) hands from South America come here and recognize the attributes of the league it could and likely will help to attract more players.

Keep in mind, as well, that MLS is only 12 years old. To show this much growth in this short of a time is truly an amazing thing. Take a walk down memory lane if you can't quite grasp it. Back in 1989 the US National Team needed the most awkward miracle shot in our history just to qualify for the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Did I mention that the game was against Trinidad and Tobago? Read that again, folks, we were lucky to win at Port au Prince not because we played a poor game or didn't play up to our talent but because they were a better team than we were. These days if we escape T&T with a close win it's largely thought to be due to that age old sports idea of "playing down to the opposition" and on that day it could be argued that the Soca Warriors played down to our level. And remember, Mexico were disqualified from the qualifying process providing even less of an obstacle for the US team. I'm really not even going to debate this.

That appearance at the 1990 World Cup, depending on who you believe, essentially granted us the hosting rights to 1994. In 1994, we had some pro talent but not a whole lot and we played Bora-ball, which was essentially "go into a shell and pray to counterattack". That team had it's moments and probably showed the first real glimpses of what was to come. Even still, in 1997, it took a combination of a miraculous 0-0 draw at the Azteca and an ensuing loss by Costa Rica to guarantee the Americans passage to France. Granted, the US finished in second in that qualifying phase by finishing strong winning 3-0 against Canada and 3-2 against El Salvador. Even in 2000-2001 things got dicey during qualifying but the actual performance in Asia made many forget all that. The last time around was more like a walk in the park compared to that.

What I'm getting at here, is that the United States has gone from "lucky to be a blip" on soccer's radar to a recognized up and comer on the World's stage. This didn't just happen because everyone else turned to crap around us and if you look at the exponential gains since 1996 I think it's readily apparent that we are getting there. We're getting there even faster than some would think or believe, just compare the landscape of the league in year 1 to year 12:

# of stadiums specifically built for MLS teams
1996: 0
2007: 6

television contract
1996: MLS paid for airtime
2007: multiple channels now pay MLS for programming

top players
1996: Jorge Campos, Carlos Valderrama, Marco Etcheverry
2007: Josimer Altidore, Landon Donovan, Juan Pablo Angel... Becks doesn't count, yet

What's the most striking thing about the above to you? For me, it's the fact that now more than ever MLS is being lead by it's American players. Every season since 1996 has essentially been geared towards developing American talent and now that there's a process and stable system in place the League has once again looked to bring in quality foreign signings except this time they're able to bring in star players who might not still light up the EPL but have plenty of firepower left and, some might argue, are of a slightly better pedigree than MLS' first class of foreign stars.

So, what I'm saying is that, sure you can make your arguments about the leagues just below the cut list but facts are facts and MLS is coming on stronger than many more traditional commentators would like to admit. A lot of people don't like to buy into hokey gimmicks and slogans but in hindsight I think MLS got it right with the "New Soccer Nation" thing. We still haven't fully realized that vision but we'll get there.

PS Incidentally, if you want to argue spots 5-8 I don't care because it's an easy case to make to boost Argentina or Brazil (or both) above Holland and France but at the same time, those two leagues can hold their own with the Big 4. Either way, potato or potato.