"'It's a matter of time,' Dempsey said while preparing for tonight's game against D.C. United. 'If the right situation comes along, I'll go, or I'll wait it out. This is the biggest thing in my life, the thing I have always dreamed of doing. There is no way in the world I am staying in the MLS, or coming back later in my career.'"
All in all, the Globe piece amounts to handing Dempsey some rope with which to hang himself. Let's just say he better hope Europe pans out because he's looking at the A-League if it doesn't. But that also underlines, to some extent, the risks the league runs in standing in a good player's way. The risk, as Dell'Appa notes, is that they may wake up one morning in 2010 to discover that the better players would rather go to Europe directly than risk getting stuck stewing while MLS holds out for more dough. The point is less that MLS should always cave, than they need to work to find the balance.
The ESPN piece expands on that question a bit more, but it's main thrust deals in the big questions: to export or import? Can MLS import? And so on. In the end, Dell'Appa clearly leans toward export:
"The MLS is not in a position to import talent. But it could start exporting it more often. These exports could produce revenue, but the loss of players would have to be offset with a more productive developmental and scouting system. There are likely to be more Noonans and Twellmans somewhere in the St. Louis area. But is there another Dempsey in East Texas or a Joseph in Brooklyn? I would wager the $3 million-plus in transfer fees those players could bring in, that there is."
Sure this would make us something more like Brazil or Argentina than England or Spain. But is that so bad? Seven World Cups between the former says we could do worse. But the real rub comes in the first sentence: MLS simply can't afford to import top talent. If you can't win, you may as well adapt, right?
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