Photo: Earl Gardner
There is one, and only one answer to the question of what the best film of all time is.
That answer is, of course, obvious to all of us. However, it’s not because the film is overtly well written, funny, dramatic, or any of the other handful of typical qualities that make a movie good. It’s because of all the movies ever shot, none leave you in a better mood at their conclusion than Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
If you’re at all familiar with the film (of course, how could you not be?) you know that the plot revolves around protagonist Ferris Bueller attempting to eschew the impending stressors of life after graduation by playing hooky in Chicago for a full afternoon on one of his last days of high school. The entire mood of the film is set early on by a singular quote, in one of Ferris’ first 4th-wall-breaking monologues.
“Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
But what does Ferris Bueller know about soccer?
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer finds itself in a position quite similar to that of Ferris.
The carefree aura of adolescence is soon to transition into the uncertainty of adulthood. The real world awaits outside of the comforts of home, and the cruel questions of reality must be answered by the league.
- How and when will the league break into the upper echelons of top division football?
- What magic formula of GAM, TAM, and DPs will result in a league that’s truly elite?
- Most importantly, how will a league from the United States, a country that can’t even get the name of the sport correct, gain the respect of the leather soccer, sorry, footballing world?
These and a million other questions about the future of the league dominate the American soccer discourse. In light of the soon-to-be glory of the future, the present be damned.
Why focus on the meager state of the game today when the future is conversely and tantalizingly exciting and terrifying? Because to fixate on the future is to blindly and ignorantly rush past the present.
Live for today
Where gleaming into the crystal ball of American soccer may be mesmerizingly seductive, it seems now that too many pundits, reporters, and fans alike would rather salivate at what could be than enjoy what is. Those who find themselves enraptured by the talks of Messi to MLS, promotion and relegation, and a world free of salary caps are failing to heed Ferris Bueller’s warning.
They’re missing life.
Across all of sport, especially soccer, fans of almost all established leagues retain an infinite nostalgia for the past. What must it have been like to sit at Highbury to watch the Invincibles? Before that, how lucky were those who stood in the original Anfield Kop, pioneering the singing we associate so holistically with soccer now?
Even the recent past develops an instant air of sentimentality.
Would those who pine over the melodramatic romance of Wrexham FC not long to watch the club in person prior to their buyout? Would the harrowed stands of the Racecourse ground not beckon the amorous fans of football’s past?
Why then, if so many fans are desperate to relieve what was, do the masses seem so entirely fixated on looking forward?
Major League Soccer may not yet hold the history and lustful romanticism of leagues like the Premier League or Seri A, but nor did those leagues themselves when they were starting out. Indeed the dark times of hooliganism threatened the idea that football could ever be romanticized in England, despite what is now considered an intrinsically romantic past.
Where NFL fans are required to dig deep into archival footage to remember their humble origins, fans of Major League Soccer must only buy a ticket to their nearest game. Those same MLS fans need to take their eyes off the field and look around at their fellow fans to witness the same beginnings of obsession, loyalty, and lifelong fandom that so many fans of other leagues would kill to witness. While the NFL may be a sporting behemoth so successful it will likely never be usurped in domestic popularity, it must also face the fact that it’s become largely inaccessible to the average fan. Ticket prices keep fans away, athletes are treated more as assets than humans, and fans belong more to a faction than a community.
Not so in Major League Soccer.
Cozy stadiums maxing out in the mid-20-thousands keep the game intimate and accessible. Low ticket prices encourage attendance. Supporters groups of neighbors and friends retain authenticity and locality. Friends are easily found and recognized in a stadium that may not yet be world class, but is indeed home. While so many may be eager to see stadiums increase in size, the product on the field improve, and the league finally viewed as world class, what the league is now should not only be appreciated, but cherished.
Realistically, Major League Soccer is on track to be a top five league globally in the next 15 to 20 years. There’s been exponential growth in the last ten years as stars like Pulisic and Aaronson make a name for U.S. players, clubs like LAFC and Atlanta United have gotten major global attention due to their success, and local popularity, and even the Union’s own academy has captured the attention of the wider soccer world. All of that combined with the continued expansion of the league, the hosting of the 2026 World Cup, and the continued meteoric rise in soccer’s popularity domestically makes Major League Soccers success a “when”, not an “if”.
It’s so tantalizingly close the fixation on the future makes perfect sense.
Twenty years is a lifetime
But realistically what does twenty years look like?
In twenty years those born in 1996, when the league started, will be 46, roughly halfway through their lives. Those in their 40’s now will be 80-plus. Entire generations will be born and pass on. Those so hungry for the future of the league may be too old to fully understand it, and those fans of the league under 25 won’t know a world without Atlanta United, a team that now feels in its infancy.
It’s painfully melodramatic, and yet, it’s true.
The way Ferris Bueller lives his life is admittedly unrealistic.
To begin with, there’s absolutely no way he could pass as the “Sausage King of Chicago.” However, the advice he gives at the beginning of the film is indeed sound.
Life does move fast.
Since the Union joined MLS in 2010, the league has almost doubled, adding 13 teams. The U.S. has played in three World Cups since then, despite missing an entire cycle. PPL park is now Subaru Park, and is now thirteen years old.
Life does move fast.
Take the time to stop and enjoy it. Enjoy the low ticket costs, enjoy the inexplicably shin-height plastic chairs of The River End, enjoy the bickering on twitter where everyone seemingly knows everyone else, enjoy the fact that in twenty years, this league is going to be unrecognizable, as is almost everything else around you, after all, life moves pretty fast…
This article misses the point about futball altogether, the paragon to a quote from the film is a stretch and sophomorish to say the least.
To me the point is that the good old USA is yielding to global forces, after all didn’t american football try to expand beyond our shores and failed. The economics of sports
are evolving toward participation where the word Messi is instantly recognized. How many people know Brady outside USA. Please address the issue in a realistic and global setting. Nevertheless i enjoyed the article.
That’s sort of the point though: The US exports stars all the time – but not necessarily in sports that wear helmets over their heads. Michael Jordan was a global icon, but it took 7-8 decades of global professional basketball before Dirk Nowitzki was too. There will be an American global soccer icon, but we’re decades away from it if the lengths of time are the same.
Yes, for those of us who are fans of MLS and/or our local team, we stop to appreciate the good times we have. As someone who grew up playing the sport in the late 80s and early 90s, when almost no trace of the game could be found on television outside of the World Cup, what we have now is pretty miraculous by comparison.
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And yet, despite that growth, many football fans bemoan the fact that our sport is still a niche game here on these shores. And it’s one that now has to compete with much better products overseas that are now on almost every corner of television both live and streaming. Fans of the game here can pretty easily watch the Prem, Champion’s League, Bundesliga, La Liga and Liga MX without much effort.
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I think the best way the game can catch on here is something the Union have been good at lately — turning local kids into future European and international stars. We love rooting for local talent. MLS and USL should be able to turn that into local interest. The big question is: Will MLS be able to take advantage of that and build the league without getting too distracted by moneymaking sideshows like the League’s Cup and ‘World-Cup-style playoff tournaments?’ I hope so… but I have my doubts.
Appreciate the sentiment, Pete and there is some truth to it.
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Truth also is— by and large Union have become poachers of talent not developers of talent. We will see local kids tapering off quite a bit soon enough.
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Hell of the original 40 2006’s which kicked off pre-academy, I believe 2 were on the field for Generation Adidas.
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This is even more the case for the champions at U17.
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Union will poach a kid at 16 and claim he’s a homegrown and they developed him… nuance says differently.
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They recruit the athletes. They recruit the January and February birthdays largely… the athletes, and turn them into running machines who play soccer.
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*2009’s
Maybe just maybe the money making sideshows are what pays for things like academies that produce talent that goes to Florida and competes against more historic team academies? In fifteen years they went from starting a team from scratch, practicing in a park to producing talent and competing for trophies up and down the organization. Pick a top league and tell me they didn’t have a money making scheme. The Champions League was basically started in 93 to make more money and that’s what pro sports is all about.
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Maybe Leagues Cup and World Cup style playoff tournaments are bad ideas but for the next ten years they’re pretty locked in with Apple and beating a threshold on subscriptions gives them more revenue to hire more coaches and attract more kids to the Academy, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Besides CONCACAF and CONMEBOL will be starting another tournament in 2024 with two clubs from both Confederations qualifying from their respective tournaments… Is that a money grab or the beginning of this hemispheres 1993 versions of Champions League? The reason I think so many think soccer is a niche sport on these shores is because it’s a minor League compared to Europe. Give it more revenue and maybe a bigger more competitive Champions League, you’ll gain a lot more fans.
I’m not against making money. By all means, maximize those revenues. But make sure the sideshows don’t take away from the main attraction — the domestic league. You don’t need the Leagues Cup to fund youth academies. Those are being built just by running a solid team and building the way the Union has these last 10 years.
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Leagues Cup is really just MLS and Liga MX cutting CONCACAF out of the equation (revenues) in the “continental” competition league. I don’t think anyone will shed a tear for the confederation. My concern is that it’s a distraction. WHo knows? I could be wrong.
Leagues Cup is a Concacaf sanctioned tournament. There are CCL spots on the line in the tourney.
They also have a Caribbean & Central American Cup that qualifies teams. Yes they are building academies but that doesn’t mean they can’t be bigger and better. Let’s be real across the league there is plenty of Work to do for youth development for other teams.
Didn’t realize leagues cup had that sort of sanction. Guess I was wrong there. Agree there’s room to grow youth academies. But I’m still not convinced we need a new competition when more could be done with both CCL and the Open Cup.
The Success of MLS is often a story completely overlooked by the “mainstream” of the US Sports and even International Media. This is a country where the sports culture is built around sports that were invented over here and the domestic leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB) are unquestionably the world’s highest form of that competition. All champions in those leagues are referred to as World Champions. The minor leagues in those sports receive little exposure and are nothing more than mostly quaint local attractions.
MLS is operating in that country, with a product that is third or second tier on the world stage (thats another debate). Yet, it is filling stadiums at an attendance rate on par with the arena sports and some baseball teams. It is selling TV subscriptions in a landscape where superior soccer product is on free television regularly. It has helped create an academy system that is actually creating a talent pool that can compete on a global stage. It is pretty damn remarkable when you think about it.
The academies are a really good point. Imagine if the Eagles or Sixers could monopolize young Philly talent with an academy, then sign that homegrown talent outside a draft system for minimum contracts?
Imagine if in the future every MLS & USL team had an academy like the Union with a high school and no territory rules anymore.