In MLS, $9 Million Could Get You Gonzalo Higuain And Rodolfo Pizarro — Or An Entire All-Star Team

If you’re interested in how MLS rosters are built and — more to the point — what they should cost, you should read last week’s column from MLSsoccer.com’s Joseph Lowery.

In his weekly dispatch, Lowery takes a statistical approach to naming an early-season Best XI, based on the growing number of statistical metrics used to measure the sport.

Some of the results are more surprising than others. But what is most interesting is what is left unsaid, and what he likely couldn’t address on the official league website: what each player costs their respective clubs.

Player compensation in Major League Soccer less transparent than other major North American sports leagues and some other well-followed soccer leagues around the globe. So the comparisons that follow below are admittedly based on imperfect and old data. Some players on Lowery’s list have already publicly agreed to new deals that included raises for the 2022 season, although the exact salary figures aren’t available.

Even so, it’s hard to ignore the inherent financial value within the squad below. Here’s the lineup by position along with their guaranteed compensation from 2021, according to figures made public last September by the MLS Players Union.

Joseph Lowery’s Analytics MLS Best XI

• GK – Dayne St. Clair (MIN): $99,520.
• CB – Alex Callens (NYC): $764,000
• CB – Auston Trusty (COL): $431,250
• RB – Julian Gressel (DC): $760,781
• LB – Pedro Santos (CLB): $864,560
• CDM – Mark Delgado: (LA) $581,250
• CDM – Adalberto Carrasquilla (HOU): $469,132
• CAM – Luciano Acosta (CIN): $2,222,854
• LW – Djordje Mihailovic (MTL): $651,857
• RW – Talles Magno (NYC): $1,198,000
• FW – Jesus Ferreira (DAL): $550,000

Total cost, 2021 guaranteed compensation: $8,593,204.

And if the squad value of around $8.6 million in total is hard to ignore, so is the plight of some clubs who have spent just as much (or more) and received a lot less for their money.

Inter Miami’s Early Mistakes

The most glaring recent example has its roots in Inter Miami’s first expansion season, when the club’s personnel operations were led by since-departed (and currently suspended) former technical director Paul McDonogh.

Miami are saddled with roster sanctions for this season and next because McDonogh’s regime was found to violate MLS roster guidelines during their expansion 2020 season. The two most expensive players on Miami’s 2021 roster — forward Gonzalo Higuain and attacking midfielder Rodolfo Pizarro — cost more than the entirety of Lowery’s current Best XI did last season, just over $9.1 million in guaranteed compensation.

To the credit of current sporting director Chris Henderson and manager Phil Neville, the Herons are doing their best to move on. Henderson successfully loaned out Pizarro to CF Monterrey in Liga MX for this season. Higuain remains on the roster, but Neville has taken the brave step of relegating him to the bench as young Ecuadorian Leonardo Campana blossoms before collective MLS eyes in the center forward role.

Finding Value Isn’t A New Concept

On the other hand, mistakes of Miami and other clubs before them (see the early days of FC Cincinnati, Minnesota United FC, New York City FC, etc.) also underscore that spending smart in MLS remains a lot more important than spending big.

A look at last year’s official MLS Best XI brings this home. Even while naming a roster that was more skewed toward attacking talent than one that would realistically start a match, that group of 11 players cost only $13.1 million.

Not a single player on the Best XI was in the top 10 highest earners in the league. (New England’s Carles Gil, the 2021 MLS MVP winner, was 11th.) Three players made below the league average salary of about $420,000, including Canadian international Tajon Buchanan who made just $120,000 last season before a much more lucrative transfer to Belgian giants Club Brugge this offseason.

Tough Sledding For Domestic Players

If there’s a major MLS flaw this data unearths, it’s the compensation domestically developed players receive relative to their foreign counterparts. In this case, we don’t necessarily mean players who would represent the United States or Canada in international competition, but those who became pros after developing in MLS academies or the U.S. collegiate system (or sometimes both).

In Lowery’s more affordable, analytics-based Bext XI of early 2022, the four most expensive players are imports, and six of the remaining seven are domestically developed. The trend is just as pronounced in the league’s Best XI from last year, where the four domestically developed players are among the six least-compensated in the group.

Major League Soccer has pivoted to embracing itself as a selling league to the higher levels of the European game in recent years. But a move abroad isn’t the best move for every domestic player, even if it might make sense from a competitive standpoint. A structure that makes moving abroad the only sensible financial decision for domestic players — when the same isn’t true for imported talent — isn’t acceptable.