I'll start by importing from yesterday's gamethread an aside about managers for club vs country. Graffam asked some
good questions, got some good answers in that thread, and replied to
my answer with this:
Are they calling fouls over the headset? Is that a thing? Fox commentators (Landon?) just said that.
And again, super interesting and helpful for us neophytes. Your last paragraph was very intriguing around Berhalter. Probably not the right thread for this, but do you think that's a symptom or outcome of the US system vs. the rest of world? Again, from some of the comments (game thread I know...) but MLS appears to be the AAA (at best?) of soccer. Like, if you're a stud, you want to end up in EPL, if top talent, but not a stud, somewhere in Europe. Better than the rest of us...MLS? Unless you are closing out your career and getting one last pay day (Beckam, Messi?, etc).
Thanks!
So firstly, the main thing the center referee is doing with his headset is talking to his assistants about what they see, and also to the video assistant referee if there are any outstanding questions about a play that deserve further scrutiny. You may see a ref hold up play when there's a pause (the ball goes out of play) for the VAR to review something quickly, and then play will resume - they were checking if there was in fact a foul in the box, or maybe a card wasn't given that should be, or something. Only if a VAR thinks the center ref got something
obviously wrong, does he call over for the center ref to take a look himself (e.g. possible penalty kicks). The exception is factual questions such as offside: it's done with freeze-frame analysis in a central replay booth, and the
result of that analysis is communicated to the ref, who of course can't be expected to assess it in real time. So if there's a goal scored and there's a question about offside, the ref will indicate to the players that a review is ongoing and then will signal the result of a video review (by drawing a rectangular screen with his hands) and either awarding the goal (pointing at the center spot), or indicating the play was offside (hand raised straight in the air). But no, the center ref is calling fouls
himself, probably indicating them to his ref teammates (who fouled whom, for what offense), and maybe occasionally asking the input of his linesmen assistants. On the rare occasions that he's taking info rather than giving it, it's usually driven from a replay review.
As for Berhalter and "US system vs rest of world", the first thing I'll say is that every soccer fan (A) hates their national team coach and (B) thinks their FA (Football Association, national governing body for the sport and which runs the national teams) is corrupt and incompetent. So we can't necessarily judge by whether there's common criticism of USSF or Berhalter, because if you think USMNT Twitter is harsh on them, you should see what the Spanish say about RFEF, or the Argentines say about AFA, or (god help you) what African fans say about their FAs. FIFA's shittiness is merely a better-funded mirror of what underlying shittiness exists at all their member associations in each country. I would certainly say that the USSF is no worse than average, and is trying to develop the sport here in a very unusual context by world standards.
The USSF is dealing with a very hard legacy to manage around, specifically that when soccer was growing and spreading around the world in the early part of the 20th century, it got undermined here in the US by FIFA - it's a long story but basically FIFA was owned by Europeans and the US leagues were hiring away a bunch of European stars to play for their clubs and this made European clubs very angry because they wanted to keep their stars and underpay them. Spend 5 minutes and
read this summary, and it'll explain to you how we were basically developing a soccer culture along with the rest of the world, and then it got reduced to ashes in the 1930s from FIFA-instigated infighting and political agendas, and didn't recover here for nearly 60 years. Several attempts to restart a pro soccer league were miserable failures, and Lamar Hunt (of KC Chiefs fame) learned from those failures and figured out how to create MLS in a way that would prevent a recurrence of those failures. It almost failed too, after launching in 1995 it hit a rocky period around 2001-2002 where it was unclear whether the league would survive, but Phil Anschutz of AEG fame was persuaded by Bob Kraft (the same) and Hunt et al to double down and reinvest, to fund bringing stars (particularly beginning with Beckham in 2007), and the league survived, gained momentum, began expanding, and it became clear sometime in the early 2010s that it would end up a huge success.
That outcome was by no means preordained, and the people who started MLS (e.g. Sunil Gulati, longtime president of USSF) and who run it today (particularly Don Garber, its now longtime commissioner), are very defensive about the particular ways in which they were created that is
different than all the foreign leagues. The league is owned as a single entity, meaning the franchise owners just have shares in MLS as a whole, which grant them the right to operate various franchises; players are hired "by MLS", their contracts are with MLS, and they are
assigned to the various teams; the allocation of those players entering MLS to teams is the basis for a bunch of arcane rules (one US Soccer-focused podcast is called "Allocation Disorder" for a reason), as is the various league salary-cap structures and exceptions which are NBA-like in their Byzantine qualities. And most of all, MLS franchises are not subject to relegation and promotion the way they are in every other country; finishing last in the league just means you get a bit less revenue and your fans grumble a bit more, but everywhere else it means your team is kicked out of the league and another one promoted in its place, which can frankly destroy teams. MLS is unusual, but not unique, in having a spring-to-fall schedule (most other leagues, particularly the big ones in Europe, play August-to-May - but they don't have super popular gridiron football, hockey and basketball leagues to compete with as winter sports). Anyway the important thing to remember is that MLS is quirky and this has created tension with the Federation, or accusations by fans that the Federation is too concerned with the financial interests of MLS, and not enough with trying to develop the country as a soccer country. This accusation was more true for a while than it is today, in that USSF as of last year no longer ties its media rights to those of MLS through "Soccer United Marketing" aka SUM. MLS has advanced as a business concern, and soccer has advanced as a sport played by millions in this country and with a legitimate talent pipeline for future pro players, but neither arc has been easy and both still have a lot of bugs to work out.
Here's a good primer on the progress of youth soccer in this country.
With that as background, we can now answer your question. The "Big 5" European Leagues (the top divisions in England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France, usually in that order) are the
top levels of competition for the sport, with the EPL distinguishing itself from the rest financially, due to some wise business choices a few decades ago. Behind them are usually credited the top leagues of Portugal, the Netherlands, and then a bunch of others in oft-shifting and very arguable order, including the leagues of Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Belgium, Mexico, and so on. There is a pecking order, and top talents at lesser leagues / teams get bought by bigger teams in bigger leagues, particularly while they're young and still have upside to become better and be worth more when sold later on. MLS itself has gone from a farcical, semi-pro backwater at its founding, to a creditable (if less-skilled) pro league 20 or 15 years ago, to what is a rapidly ascending ranking today - #13 at KickAlgor above, #15 at
GFR. Once derided as a "Retirement league" where the league would pay a lot of money for over-the-hill European stars, those stars are now finding that it is actually a pretty high standard. Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain, a veteran of some of the best clubs in the world, has said that he thought he could come over and play (for Miami) "with a cigarette in his mouth", and learned that he was
very, very wrong. Gareth Bale, the longtime Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid star forward who was Wales' most-dangerous player for much of last Monday's World Cup match against the USA, came over to LAFC this summer directly from Real Madrid and... didn't even start, he was a sub off the bench for much of the latter half of 2022, because he wasn't "90 minutes fit" to the level required by MLS. These are anecdotes, but are indications of how much more competitive the league is today, and that it keeps taking people aback with its progress.
So MLS has become less and less of a joke over the last decade-plus. It's now a springboard where young promising talents that you'll see on the field for the USMNT (particularly including Tyler Adams, Brenden Aaronson and many others who aren't starting in Qatar) can develop, begin to shine, and then get bought by big teams in the Big 5. Such movement at an age young enough that someone could still become a truly world-class player used to be very rare - Clint Dempsey spent years in college, then 3 years in MLS, before moving to Fulham in 2006 at age 23; Brad Guzan likewise went to college and then did 4 years in MLS before moving to Aston Villa in 2008 (and didn't really become an every-game starter in the EPL until age 27). Adams moved to a Champions League-level club (Leipzig) in 2018 at age 18, Aaronson likewise to Salzburg in 2021 at 19, and after 4 and 1.5 years respectively they are both now shining in the EPL for Leeds. Having that level of attention and respect given to performance in a lower-tier national league, where its young stars get bought and then deliver for big European clubs, is something that has long existed for Brazil / Argentina, eastern Europe and north africa, and to a lesser extent southern Africa. It had to be earned the hard way for MLS, because a ton of anti-American bias has prevented Big 5 clubs and fans from taking US soccer players seriously. It is a major milestone to see that our youth development engine can crank out those kind of talents on an annual basis, and not just some freak exception like Pulisic who was able to move to Dortmund at age 16 due to holding a European passport.
You can't really view it through the lens of US-sport farm leagues, though. The purpose of the minor leagues in baseball is
just to develop talent; those teams don't really compete for anything. The leagues that are "selling leagues" who make talent development and sale part of their business model, are also trying to compete. FC Dallas takes the huge proceeds from their player sales and reinvests into both the team's development engine and the senior team, and tries to win (though in their particular case, they have proven better at developing talent than at winning in MLS). The same is true for those second-tier leagues in Europe and South America, or even for third-tier places that nevertheless get scouted. So they will sell a player, but only for an amount that lets them buy additional talent to improve the squad. Usually an equilibrium is reached, but for a while, MLS talent was very under-priced, you could acquire future Big 5-level players for only a couple million dollars, as opposed to having to pay several times that for (say) a young star in the Belgian league. Prices for young MLS talent are catching up to their quality level, but are still good value buys - Paxten Aaronson, for example, may have just gone for a steal to Frankfurt ($4M + add-ons), even if Ricardo Pepi was sold to Augsburg for well over a reasonable valuation for him last year ($20M) and Augsburg is likely to eventually take a loss on him, though not a write-off. Anyway, the analogy I'd use is NBA teams scouting EuroLeague basketball clubs for top young talent that is outside the NBA, or to a lesser extent, NPB teams posting baseball players up for auction to MLB. They're already professionals, performing for a paycheck, and the selling team just sees more value in the sale to a deeper-pocketed team than in retaining them.
Hope that helps.
