How do you rate the MLS All-Star game?
DC hosts the 2023 MLS All-Star game tonight. Jesus Ferreira will play. Does anyone care much?
I like Major League Soccer. It’s my preferred league.
Sure, I don’t mind catching some Bundesliga, Premier, Championship, Serie A, and other competitions when they pop up on my feed, but my primary entry point to soccer has been domestic. Maybe it’s because I am a patriotic softy, and I wanted to see the US develop the incredible talent it has domestically before competing on the world’s stage.
MLS has its quirks, and those quirks can be mystifying to outsiders. I don’t necessarily like the quirks. I don’t like knowing what TAM, GAM, DPs, homegrowns, and salary cap rules and how they prevent (or give permission) to a team to not sign quality players. At the same time, I can recognize that the difference between the worst team in MLS and the best isn’t as massive as the top of the Premier League and a recently promoted side. Parity is good.
The All-Star game sits in that realm of quirks that this league has. We want to sound and feel American, I guess, adding a meaningless game against a European team in warmup mode. In the early days of my MLS watching, I kind of wanted to see how MLS stacked up against seasoned veterans, but it’s a poor comparison when one team is trying to get fit and the other team has never played together. How does a win or loss prove anything?
Tonight, the All-Stars face off against Arsenal. Jesus Ferreira will play some minutes. That interests me to a degree, but I’d rather he rest up to inject some life into his own team. Otherwise, why watch a game that doesn’t matter?
Major League Soccer is changing, so these quirks they have may need to change to. Will anyone miss the All-Star game when it is gone? How about the SuperDraft? Is it a good thing for MLS to look more like other soccer leagues, or should we keep some quirks to seem like a different beast?
I don’t know.
But I love this league regardless.
Will you be watching the All-Star game? Would you rather see it gone?
Just please, Jesus, don’t get hurt.