FIFA Club World Cup Results Remind Us MLS Still Has Aways To Go

There are many lessons to be learned from the FIFA Club World Cup, many for FIFA and even some for American soccer.

The results for the three Major League Soccer teams were a reminder of how much U.S. men’s soccer is still behind the rest of the world at the club level.

Only one of the three MLS sides reached the knockout round, which exited the tournament via a 4-0 trouncing by UEFA Champions League winner Paris Saint-Germain at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Sunday, June 29.

Then again, at least Inter Miami CF can claim it reached the knockout round.

The other two domestic clubs did not and were not even close.

Los Angeles FC and Seattle Sounders exited the competition after three games, failing to win a match.

The threesome’s combined record was 1-6-3, seven goals for, 18 against. Inter Miami (1-1-2) recorded the lone victory, a 2-1 win over Porto in the group stage. LAFC (0-2-1) managed a 1-1 draw with Flamengo while Seattle (0-3-0) did not win a game while it was outscored, 7-2.

Inter Miami CF, including its aging superstar trio of Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, saved its worst for last in that defeat to PSG, which scored three of its goals in the waning minutes of the opening half.

First-half bloodbath

“The first half was kind of like a bloodbath,” Inter Miami CF head coach Javier Mascherano said.

To be fair, PSG has made many a team look bad, some in this competition (the 4-0 demolition of Atletico Madrid in its tournament opener) and in others (its 5-0 trouncing of Inter Milan in the UEFA Champions League final last month.). However, against more elite competition, Messi and company sometimes could look ordinary. Or perhaps we expect too much of a 38-year-old superstar and thirtysomething friends.

Mascherano also did say, “But I am very proud of my team and what we have accomplished.”

He added: “We want to leverage this entire experience. We talked about this yesterday: We need to leverage this for more domestic competitions, more standard competitions where the expectations are different.”

There is little doubt that MLS, which is celebrating its 30th season this year, has made some great strides. In 2002, it teetered on extinction, dropping from a dozen to 10 teams as a pair of Florida clubs, the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion crashed out of the league.

Great growth

Under the leadership of commissioner Don Garber, MLS has rebounded into a bustling 30-team league. It has grown from coast to coast and has spectacular soccer-specific stadiums that can be the envy of the world.

The league’s owners have done an exceptional job, spending billions in building the infrastructure, including state-of-the-art training grounds.

In 2024, MLS became the second-best attended league in the world, attracting 12.1 million fans, only behind England’s Premier League (14.6M).

The league’s next giant step is multi-fold:

* Continue to produce more Americans who can play at the biggest clubs in Europe or South America and of course, for the U.S. Men’s National Team.

* And then enticing some of the world’s best players to perform in the league while they are in their prime. Prime years for soccer players can vary, but for attacking players, midfielders and forwards, that is usually between the ages of 25-31.

The challenges ahead

Both challenges are much easier said than done.

It takes years to develop domestic players. There is no magic wand.

Compared to what the USMNT had some 40 years ago, it is night and day. In 1990, the team snapped a 40-year World Cup drought and has qualified for the global extravaganza eight out of nine times.

The Americans are big fish in the small pond of Concacaf. They are expected to do well, if not win regional titles. It is when it plays in competitions outside of the confederation where the challenges truly begin. Sometimes the U.S. squad soars, other times it doesn’t and disappoints from great fan expectations.

There is a professional soccer boom in the states, as there seemingly are countless lower leagues to develop players. There are two first division women’s soccer leagues, and another one on its way from the United Soccer League for men after the World Cup.

This U.S. has hosted three World Cups – two on the women’s side (1999 and 2003) and one for the men (1994), with a second less than a year away.

In many international sports, we have become accustomed to evolution rather than revolution. Unfortunately, things don’t always happen that rapidly.

The big question is whether MLS will become a league that can welcome and afford some of the world’s greatest players in their prime.

Having the great Messi, coming off Argentina winning that elusive World Cup championship in 2022, certainly was a coup. He is 38 and his career hourglass has more sand at the bottom part than in the upper level.

Who will replace him at the league’s talisman? And will it be a younger player?

Repeating history?

When it was unveiled at the 1994 World Cup draw in December 1993, MLS said that wanted to avoid becoming an old folk’s home league. It did not want to copy what the North American Soccer League did two generations ago. While it has added many young promising players from various countries from Europe, South America and Central America in recent years, the best-known high-profile names in their 30’s have performed in the league. The list includes David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney, David Villa, Robbie Keane and Carlos Vela, to name a few.

On the flip side, many of those young rising stars in MLS, American and foreign, have been transferred to clubs, east and south, for millions of dollars.

That is an important part of the league’s progression. Their transfers bring in money, which allows team to purchase the contracts and sign other players. That includes promising youngsters and some established veterans, for example, such as New York Red Bulls 33-year-old captain and Swedish international midfielder Emil Forsberg.

Attracting the best

But how does the league attract someone in soccer’s stratosphere, say of the caliber of several European superstars? That would be French international Kylian Mbappé, a 26-year-old striker who fills the net for Real Madrid, or Norway’s Erling Haaland, a 24-year-old power forward who has been so lethal for Manchester City.

They are a longshot in 2025, but those players and others would raise the level of club teams.

Translated: It will likely mean many of the league’s billionaire owners might have to reach into their deep pockets to pay for players in their orbit or ones that are close to their high profiles.

That would be a huge ask today, but it will need to happen, sooner or later, especially if the league wants to climb the ladder of international soccer and avoid winning only once in 10 matches at future FIFA Club World Cups.