When both Landon Donovan and Christian Pulisic are saying it — two of the only proper footballers America has ever produced — you need to listen.
Major League Soccer isn’t doing enough to help develop young talent in this country.
Sure, we all want to see a higher quality game in MLS, and an influx of aging European stars and young South American talent provides an immediate stopgap, but at what cost? Well, you could say it was missing the World Cup.
An entire generation of players went missing during the last qualifying cycle, and what the likes of Donovan and Pulisic are telling us now doesn’t paint a rosy picture for the future: American talent is being sabotaged by its own domestic league.
While Germany’s Bundesliga has no issue with granting their kids a trial by fire — including Americans Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Josh Sargent — MLS continues to favor foreign exports and tried-and-trusted journeymen rather than an approach that could actually lead to success on the international stage for American soccer.
