Waters, Mexico! MLS found its missing link

LOS ANGELES – Never say never. I never thought to write this. Because I have always thought that those who claimed that the Major Soccer League (MLS) was already gnawing at the ankles of the eternal adolescent Liga MX, were a horde of opportunistic goons eager for one of those all-paid invitations that the American league eventually does. .

I still think the same of those upstart fools, but the MLS announced this Monday the great discovery of its missing link: a new league, which would be the equivalent of a Second Division.

True, there is the United Soccer League, but it is like an alternate competition. Not a bridge to MLS, but rather an island, or an appendage, thriving, yes, struggling, too, but at a disadvantage and in conflict with MLS.

And what is wonderful about a Second Division, you ask? It happens to be precisely the discovery of the missing link in the MLS, although only, and only if it truly fulfills the essence of the project.

Let’s review the Second Division of Mexico, which later became the Liga de Ascenso and today is a so-called pond called the Development League or Expansion League, and which has truly become a regression league.

Historically, the Second and Third Divisions of Mexico had been, in most cases, a den of criminals, who perpetrated all kinds of crimes, not only sports, but also fiscal and financial.

The stories you surely know. Examples abound of how, perfumed with money of very doubtful origin, all kinds of tricks were consumed.

1. Owners linked to drug trafficking.

two. Underground gambling.

3. Promoter-owned clubs.

Four. Collusions between representatives, coaches and managers.

5. Forgery of contracts.

6. Government support for money laundering.

7. Fossils of footballers who shared their salary with coaches or managers to be hired.

8. Pressure, threats or bribes to arbitration bodies.

9. Match arrangement.

These and other vices of the promotion divisions in Mexico were an open secret. The First Division knew it, and even veiled, its clubs were partners, accomplices or victims of all these maneuvers.

Fiscal and governmental pressures, and a strange sense of honor, led the Mexican Soccer Federation to try to clean up those rotten football sewers.

Certainly the current version of the Second Division in Mexico is already far from some of these practices. But he has not succeeded in removing them all, or completely. It is not easy to uproot what has been rooted forever.

Obviously, in this new MLS league, which still has no name and which will start in March 2022, this type of outrage and misdeeds will not fit. The US government’s own extreme surveillance spectrum pays special scrutiny to these types of businesses.

For example, just by running a Social Security number, all the backgrounds of each investor in the 20 teams in that new league will jump into the computers. There will be no surprises, and if there are any bad apples, they will be exposed in time. In addition, the MLS itself already does an investigation on the applicants.

On the other hand, MLS has seen the number of teams and the number of fans grow. In addition, the presence of soccer has increased: in 2018, 11.41 million people, aged six and over, were detected practicing this sport in the US, according to figures from the Statista company.

The above figures are only for soccer on open fields. In indoor soccer, in 2018, 5.23 million people, ages six and up, played soccer.

Over ten years (from 2009-2010 to 2018-2019), always according to Statista studies, the number of participants at the high school level increased by 67,238, from 391,839 to 459,077 male players at that educational level. At the secondary and primary levels, the percentage figures are even higher.

In addition, Statista presents a specific reference: the percentage increase between men and women in high school, in that same period, was higher among boys: approximately 15 percent growth, by about 10 percent among female soccer, which , it is already known, worldwide, it is the greatest power, despite the instability of its league.

If any statistic from the Statista company worries the MLS, it would be this: in a survey, during November 2020, 54 percent of the Hispanics interviewed said they had no interest in the American league. Obviously the remaining 46 percent of Latinos are not indifferent to the competition.

Seen like this, MLS found the missing link in that chain of soccer development. That urgent bridge, in a nation in which soccer begins to compete, not in budget, but in participation, attendance and viewership, with sports such as hockey, although always below American football, basketball and baseball.

In the Statista study, in a survey carried out during 2020, a year of almost worldwide paralysis in sports, 13 percent of those interviewed, between the ages of 18 and 29, claimed to be “an avid fan” of soccer, and 22% He said he was interested in this sport in some way.

Is this enough to worry Mexican soccer, especially its League and its national team? It is clear that MLS and USSoccer are trying to generate a development and transition plan in soccer, obviously free of criminal procedures, as was the case, and possibly, to a lesser extent, continues to occur in Mexican football.

Although the disappeared and very short-lived Mexican Football League is a sample button of all the sins that extinguished it, almost newborn, each time, it is necessary to recognize it, there is more attention and control to how some clubs operate in Mexico. Sure, there are a lot of skeletons in the closet.

In addition, while the arrival of poor quality foreign players continues to proliferate indiscriminately, the new MLS league will have very strict filters for those who are part of it, starting with age, so that it becomes a focus of growth. , without fossils that cause stagnation.

In favor of Mexico? His passion for soccer. His interpretation of football. The Mexican player, of origin, has faculties, skills, vivacity, picaresque, and the capacity for resistance of race, which contribute part of his competitiveness.

That technical and skillful ability to play soccer is not acquired overnight, but is learned over the years. The example is European football, which has gone from being, for decades, crude, rough, rustic, to consummate a global evolution of technical quality added to athletic ability.

Once, Jorge Vergara synthesized the failed, disastrous project of Chivas USA: “We want to detect the player with our essence, Mexican, Latino, but with the food, the organization and the culture of winning that exists in the United States.” True, in the end, although it sounded wonderful, everything was a resounding failure, but for other reasons.

With the large participation of migrant descendants, in a nation with such hetero-ethnicity as the United States, perhaps finally, with this new league, the United States consumes its project: to find a Maradona among so many Argentines living in the country. Or a Hugo SĆ”nchez among so many Mexicans. Or a MĆ”gico GonzĆ”lez among second or third generation Salvadorans. Or an Enzo FrancĆ©scoli among the descendants of Uruguayans. Or a Pibe Valderrama among Colombians. Or a TeĆ³filo Cubillas among the Peruvians.

Logically, if the project works, it will require at least six or seven years, to see fruits more clearly, with soccer players born and raised in the United States. But at least he took the first step, while in Mexico, that transitional bridge, the Expansion League, continues with many of the vices of its predecessor gangsters.

Aguas, Mexico? Yes, it is time for the FMF to worry. And that instead of hiding the garbage under the carpet, once and for all, throw it to your waste of toxic products. The problem is who would close that stinking drain.

But, while the MLS tries to do business developing soccer, the FMF and its clubs choose to do business, even if they prostitute soccer.