Thanks for pointing the thread out, furball! I missed it yesterday. Also, your animated gif is the longest one I've ever seen, yet quite humorous!
thx for the support, dowding. I'm that weird American that actually takes soccer seriously (sorry, but an american saying "footy" is just wrong! It's like me saying "kit" or "boot"
wait, I do say those from time to time...)
Ok, explaining MLS...
First thing you need to know about MLS is that the league itself owns all the contracts of all the players. It's not like Europe where the individual teams handle all aspects of player contracts. The teams here pick the players (in a variety of ways) and the monetary issues are handled by the league. Each team also has a salary cap that they can spend on players. This cap exists because, again, MLS owns all the contracts and they know what they can "afford to spend" on player salaries while not losing too much money. That's where your manager game is coming up with the weekly salary thing. Also, that's why if you ever see talk about real life transfers between other leagues and MLS the negotations take place between MLS and the individual team in the other league. Recent example is McBride playing on loan for Everton. Everton paid MLS (not Columbus) for McBride's services. Everton inquired about a full transfer, but MLS' price for McBride was more than Everton wanted to pay for a 30+ year old striker.
Yes, MLS has ties now. However, it's after 10 minutes of "golden goal" time. The points system works like other leagues. 3 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss (regardless if in regulation or overtime.)
The link Mickey posted explains the senior internationals, transitional internationals and the other player classifications. This shouldn't be a surprise to Euro fans. I believe most European leagues used to limit the amount of foreigners dressed on their teams. In fact I believe they still do, however, with the European Union and the blurring of nationalities in relation to business I believe all Euro citizens don't count against the limit of foreigners. I do know it used to exist, because Americans weren't highly sought after players, and they ended up not being dressed for most games. This was in Germany for sure awhile back, it might not be the case anymore. *shrugs* Regardless, the point for this was that the majority of the players in MLS were to be American citizens. A couple of years ago, due to American business laws, green card holders no longer counted against the senior international limit. An example off the top of my head last year was Carlos Valderrama. He obviously is Columbian and not a dual citizen, yet he did not count against Colorado's senior international limit. Anyways, like I said the point here to have mostly Americans on the field during games (and as stated, other leagues used to do this as well.) I guess they don't want the Real Madrid syndrome where a lot of the starters aren't Spanish (or Man U where a lot of 'em aren't English.) Also, I was really to young to know about our NASL years ago, but I think that had a lot of foreigners, and they wanted to avoid that again. They do realize we need some foreigners, so that's why each team can have 3 senior internationals. It's really helped out the US National Team because we're finding more players and giving them some decent competition (tho obviously they get much better playing in Europe.)
I think that explains the major differences in MLS. Oh, and the silly substitution rule. They have the 3 subs like everywhere else, but we can also sub the keeper in addition to the 3 subs. What this means is if you burn up your 3 subs and a field player gets hurt, you can have your current keeper swap positions with him, and then have your reserve keeper come on for the new, yet injured, keeper. Funny thing is this happened the past week. Josh Wolff pulled a hamstring (as usual) for Kansas City after all 3 positional subs were used. The keeper, Tony Meola (yeah, you Euros might know of him, he was our keeper back in the 90 and 94 world cups, and our 3rd keeper in the 98 and 02 cups) ran off to get a field players shirt, and the reserve keeper came on the field. KC still lost the game and Meola contributed nothing up front, but at least they had 11 on the field. I think the rule sucks, and they should just have 3 subs, and not a keeper sub in addition to it.
ALSO, we have "playoffs" to determine the champion of MLS. The teams play however many games there are in the season and the top 8 teams make the playoffs (yeah, only 2 teams don't get to participate.) Then it's some weird best 2 out of 3 format until you have two teams left, then it's a one game championship. (kinda like final round of Champ's League play but instead of the home/away format, it's home/away/"home if necessary" format! I'll explain this further if you want.)
Any more questions about our silly league?
Yeah, I think the rules are weird, but sometimes the games are pretty entertaining. The quality of play continues to improve, and I'd say the better MLS teams could compete for promotion in say the English First Division, but would definitely be relegated in any top flight of the big 4 (England, Spain, Germany and Italy.)
As for my MLS allegiance? lol, I don't have one. I supported Tampa, but they were disbanded when MLS went from 12 teams back to 10. I just watch who's ever on and pick a team to pull for.
As for foreign allegiance?
Newcastle United all the way! I picked them solely because when I started really following the English game (meaning when we finally started getting a game of the week to watch) they were sponsored by Newcastle Brown Ale, which is my favorite beer!
I have two "kits," a 1996 short sleeve and the 1999 long sleeve (last one with the Brown Ale sponsor.)
