Alberto Fuentes |
Marbella (Málaga) (EFE).- Major League Soccer (MLS), the first division of North American soccer, is becoming a factory for talent that lands in Europe, where more money is invested “in infrastructure and academy”, and that then they nurture the United States national team, an “exciting generation” that may find its peak in the next World Cup in 2026.
In an interview with Agencia EFE, the coach of FC Dallas and the central defender of the same club, the Spaniards Nico Estévez and José Antonio Martínez, predict a “promising” future and a constantly growing present for American soccer, which has been around for some time now. He began to abandon that topic of “being a league to retire.”
FC Dallas is in Marbella (Málaga) preparing for the new season and the Valencian coach, who has been immersed in soccer in the United States since 2014, defines the growth of MLS as “impressive”, although it needs “time”.
“The right steps are being taken. The regulations for signing players have been changed, the budgets, the clubs have taken a step forward in investing in infrastructure, both for grassroots football and ‘scouting’”, analyzes Estévez.
The Valencian coach of FC Dallas, from the first division of American soccer, Nico Estévez, together with his technical team, the assistant Javier Cabello and the physical trainer Miguel Villagrasa, leave the field after finishing a training session.EFE/Jorge Zapata
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One of the rules that have been changed, for example, is that now more can be invested in young players without having as much of an impact on the total salary of the squad.
“We see how many young players from leagues like Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador… come here and after a year or two are transferred to Europe”, such as Miguel Almirón (Newcastle), Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United) or Ricardo Pepi (FC Groningen).
This is corroborated by José Martínez, who argues that his club, FC Dallas, “takes players out of the quarry”, a different model from other clubs that prefer to “put in the millions” to sign with a checkbook: “I’ve been here for three years and you see clearly the development of the players”.
A matter of style… and money
Both Estévez and Martínez agree that the clubs are investing “much more money in the infrastructure, in developing the quarries” and they trust “a lot” in the method of Spain and Europe, because they understand that “the evolution of football comes from there for the tactic.
For the Valencian coach, the immediate future of the competition “is going to be a question of money, like everything else, and here there is money and they are not people who are going to waste it to do crazy things”.
Team owners have seen that “by investing in youth, they can have a return in the future.” For this reason, MLS clubs look more at young talent as an investment and that, in turn, raises the level of the league.
They also affect a change in the predominant style of play, since now they are committed to “different ways of playing as it was done before”: the MLS is, for José Antonio Martínez, a transitional football, without much mastery of the game, with “round trip” matches where there are many spaces and, therefore, there are many scoring chances.
Like the NBA or the NFL, the ‘soccer’ league (as they call football there) is a competition marked by the physical power of its players: “The American player loves to evolve physically: they are in the gym trying to run more, jump more, be better”, adds the central defender from Huelva.
The MLS is “no longer” a league to go to retire, a stereotype that began to be carved in the seventies, in the old North American Soccer League (NASL) with the arrival of stars of this sport such as Pelé, Beckenbauer, Cruyff or Chinaglia, who marched there to exhaust their last bullets in professional soccer.
Now, the extinct NASL is called MLS and it is a highly demanding competition: “I spoke with David Villa in his last year in the MLS and he told me: playing at the highest level in this league requires a great effort, I have to have a discipline, take care of myself… and I end up dead in matches”, recalls Estévez.
“Illusion for a generation to look to 2026”
Estévez was the second coach of the senior men’s team in 2019 and recalls that there was “a very important generational change” that has turned out “wonderfully”.
“Nobody” expected that this change would give so many positive results and that several players would make the leap to top European clubs, for this reason, the coach of the Texan team believes that it is “impossible” to predict what will happen for the next Cup of the World jointly organized by the United States, Mexico and Canada in 2026.
“They must continue to take the appropriate steps, you have to wait a bit to see players who are not there yet and appear”, but he is sure that they have a “promising” future.
If the age of the players who made the squad for the last World Cup in Qatar is analyzed, who added an average of 25.3 years, for the next World Cup event “they will arrive at their peak”, believes Estévez.
“There are high expectations and a lot of hope that they can change men’s soccer in the United States; there is a lot of hope placed” on the talent of a generation that can be a pioneer in success, as the women’s team already was and continues to be.