As my playingfor90.com colleagues wrote about earlier, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard both retired from MLS. I am careful to note that retired from MLS does not mean that these two are done with soccer entirely and speculation is already churning about their next landing spot.
With these high-profile DPs (that for children growing up playing FIFA in the early 2000s will forever be linked as basically the same player on the English national team) leaving their respective clubs at the same time it got me thinking about the process of structuring an MLS roster.
Again, Sean Maslin in his piece on Stevie G touched briefly on the awkward chemistry and lineup problems that can result in these aging superstars coming into a team. I want to take a look at how MLS 3.0 or whatever point oh we are on is the best way to build a club. Obviously, the financial implications of signing a Lampard, Drogba, or Kaka will forever be there, but how should a club approach these signing and structure their team around the DPs?
To begin this discussion it is useful to look at who the four most successful clubs this season signed. In terms of the regular season, we have the two New York clubs from the East and FC Dallas along with the Colorado Rapids in the West.
Because the MLS uses a playoff system to ultimately crown their champion, it is a good idea to throw in the Montreal Impact, Toronto FC and Seattle the three semi-finalists along with Colorado. We’ll also throw L.A. in because MLS almost blatantly makes up rules to benefit them.
Using these eight clubs that have proven themselves to be the most successful in the present ever-shifting sand trap that MLS roster building can be, we’ll take a look at how DPs are incorporated into the clubs, or in some cases not.
The first thing that jumps off the page when beginning this process is that the best clubs all have multiple DPs on the roster. This may seem like an obvious point, but it hasn’t always been the case that the best teams have employed DPs. Real Salt Lake famously won the MLS Cup with a roster devoid of DPs and there have been multiple other cases of clubs spending money on lesser name DPs (not David Beckham) in the early years having success.
With that in mind, I’ll put our eight clubs into three categories based on their DP selections. First is young and functional, these guys are in their prime and are capable of impacting games in an extreme way. Second is old and functional and this means that the DP is probably past his prime but they still have the ability to week to week star. Lastly, the old and can’t play every week or and probably just as importantly, you need to build the system around what they can do because their skill set is limited.
Young and functional: Toronto, FC Dallas
Old and functional: Colorado, NY Red Bulls, LA Galaxy (mostly), Montreal (mostly), Seattle (mostly)
Old money grabs: NYCFC (mostly)
If I was to guess which way MLS is trending, or at least attempting to trend, it would be in the direction of the model that Toronto and FC Dallas have set up. Both of these clubs have brought in extremely good players that were either in their prime (as was the case for Toronto) or would be entering their prime soon (FC Dallas). Not only were these players going to be with their clubs for their peak years, they can all play in multiple systems and to some extent take different roles. Michael Bradley of Toronto could play as a holding midfielder, box-to-box or even in a pinch as a number 10. Giovinco can also be moved around from number 10 to a strikers role, or even more on the wing.
When your best players can take up multiple positions in MLS it can ease the tension that can be brought on when selecting a team. Depth in MLS continues to be an issue, although less so than in the past, so a replacement type level player brought in for an injured starter could be worse than just shifting guys around.
Toronto and Dallas are obviously different in their financial power, but both are developing a strong path for younger, complementary players to fill in the gaps as well. This is a strength of Dallas and their top MLS academy constantly turning out quality players.
The old and still mostly functional group is much more curious and probably how the MLS will keep their transfers for at least the next half decade. These are mid-level stars that fill the seats and still play at a high level (Timmy Howard for Colorado and Robbie Keane for LA are good examples).
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However, many of these clubs have one guy on their payroll who cause lineup problems and don’t do much more than fill seats. Stevie G is an example of this for LA and Drogba for Montreal. Granted these high profile stars do have many moments throughout the year that makes jaws drop, but they also prove to be huge headaches as well.
For the entire year, Drogba was bouncing between the starting 11, training around the country and generally causing headaches within the team. Gerrard has also been very good at times this season, but he also needs a very particular team built around him to succeed. Much like Andrea Pirlo at NYCFC, Gerrard isn’t able to do the running required of an MLS midfielder. That means only spry midfield players can be used, one of the reasons Nigel De Jong was sent packing this year.
Finally, we get to NYCFC who had two of their three DPs in this old and difficult category in Lampard and Pirlo. Luckily this season they had a manager who could handle the situation better along with a roster capable of complementing the styles, but the arithmetic needed to juggle two midfielders who can’t run consistently was a major challenge this season for the blue side of New York.
This brings me to how will DPs be handled in the future, specifically the players surely being brought in by LA and NYCFC as replacements.
There are some huge names that will be in the news and would certainly bring even more exposure to MLS, like Rooney, Fernando Torres, John Terry and others. Does MLS need these players still or can they move on toward the stars that can actually contribute week to week?
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I believe these two clubs who will surely be at the forefront of many roster building discussions going forward should make it a point to bring in their prime stars to MLS, much like Toronto did and LA has done in the past with Giovani dos Santos.
The MLS has grown to the point where a big name in the big markets aren’t necessary to sell tickets and to some extent get eye balls for TV. We have now entered an era that actual play on the field needs to be consistently improved and a guy like Wayne Rooney is not capable of doing that.
It will be fascinating to see the steps these two big clubs take in building their teams and also how newbies Atlanta and Minnesota handle their first big signings. Will they simply look to bring in a big name player or do they want something slightly more functional?