Maybe It's Me, But ...

[Nick Chavez]

I will gladly apologise for the "whore" comment but stand by everything else I've said.

The truth of the matter is that for the foreseeable future, the MLS will be 'the poor man's league'; yes everything you stated about the main sports is true, but they are so far ahead of soccer, that to catch them up let alone surpass them is a massive, massive ask. The moment we hear of a World Class player in his prime signing for an MLS team, then, and only then, will we know the MLS has finally arrived. The potential for income is immense though, I'll agree with that.

Now you see your passion for this club that has yet to play a game? Now imagine how big it will be when they do start playing, when they play derby games, when the press speak ill of them, when you are in the bar and you overhear someone dissing one of your players. That's who I am. You live and breathe your club, you defend it with your life, and you bleed its colours. Everyone else is the enemy. This is why I asked the original question. Not to querie anyone's passion.

Respect also works both ways, fella.

I accept your apology and appreciate it.

Nobody's doubts that MLS has a ways to go, but too many are ignoring just how far it's gone from almost collapsing entirely at the turn of the century, to thriving and expanding since, with numbers in all positive areas increasing every season. We're already signing back our best American stars (who are very popular here) in their prime and signing better players, and younger. This trend will only continue.

MLS will be one of the very top leagues in the world by around 2022, as the MLS Commissioner has projected and made his goal. When it becomes one of the very top leagues then, clearly, it is not at all unreasonable to surpass the top leagues in Europe, being in their number and their competition. This goal is completely reachable, though it will take at least 15-20 years to be #1, most likely. But that's what the future may very well hold.

World class players WILL arrive in their prime at MLS, probably much sooner than you expect, as the level of play improves and the salary is attractive enough. Mark my words, and I welcome you all to save and quote me on all of this. We do not have a soccer league in this country, investing all of this money and time, just to work up to mediocrity. We always want to be the best, and MLS is no exception.

I'm glad you admitted to the potential for income, which you must know, is almost everything in football nowadays. Chelsea, Manchester City, PSG for years could only dream of being Champion's League contenders, realistic Premeir League contenders. Now they have a lot of money, and can attract the best talent in the world, and are now finally up their with the traditionally big clubs, fighting for all honors. This can happen anywhere, and especially in the US, where the infrastructure is already there to take full advantage of this. All it takes is investment, and our top 1% are willing to invest when there's money to be made.

As far as respect, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Man City's supporters who have a reputation for being very passionate, vocal and loyal to their club in good times and bad. That is my favorite type of supporter. I imagine it must be extra sweet to really be able to compete toe-to-toe with United and the giants of EPL and Europe, and I congratulate you and your club in your new-found success and possiblities that have been afforded by the Sheik's investment. As our sister club, I look forward to learning more about Manchester City and seeing how MCFC and NYCFC can continue to mutually benefit each other in the future. Mutual respect and affection goes a long way in these matters, and the citizens of Manchester must realize that New York City will be nothing if not respected and taken seriously. That's the only option for this to work. And, of course, that will be reciprocated by NYCFC support.

As for dealing with people who might disrespect NYCFC, that's all I've been dealing with since I began writing about this club that "doesn't exist" since August of 2013. I'm the first columnist to solely cover this club in the world. I immediately saw the vision that CFG/The Yankees/MLS have put forward, and I am fully behind it. I see how this will turn out, while most only imagine reasons why it will fail. IF CFG and MLS are serious about making this a successful club in NYC, it certainly won't fail.

But, I've been dealing with attacks from Red Bull fans, Cosmos Fans, other MLS fans, Man City haters, etc for the last 8 months. That's not a problem for me. It's expected and it's a fight I'm willing to fight. What I don't expect is the disrespect to come from fans of our sister-club in Manchester. If I were you, I'd relay that message to your readership in Manchester proper. Mutual respect will allow CFG's global aims to flourish. But, we're always going to be New York City first, and we're always going to demand respect.

Good talk, and I'm glad you better understand where we're coming from now, Blue Wolf. Good luck in the rest of the season and the future, and may City Football reign in the coming decades.

 

[Nick Chavez]

Nick the reason I stated that NYCFC isn't going to be bigger, despite how large NYC is was because of the numbers already in front of us.
U.S. teams, U.S. sports are NOT world powers.
Look at our BIGGEST team, the Yankees, who play in NYC and they only have 7 Million likes on Facebook, a good part of that outside of the U.S. more then likely asian as well.
To think NYCFC will get anywhere near that in the near future is farfetched.
I want our club to succeed and I believe it will. However, I don't think it will be as big as you want it to be.
We'll see the same thing we see with most MLS clubs... a strong native support system. It wont be till much further down the road until you see other New Yorkers jumping the MLB/NFL/NHL train and hoping on the MLS one.

The biggest team, the Yankees, plays a sport that is only popular here, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama, Cuba and the Dominican Republic (mind you, these are all countries besides one or two where soccer is also increasing in popularity). Compared to the numbers on earth that consider soccer the number one sport, the number of these fans are truly dwarfed. It's actually very impressive that the Yankees are even close to some of the big soccer clubs considering this.

Now, if NYCFC can become one of the very big clubs in the world, and all that really is required for that is a lot of investment in stars here and the rest of MLS (And YES, as I said several times, the salary cap will raise dramatically till we're spending about as much as other big clubs around the world because that's what it will take for us to be competitive), and once NYCFC has some of the top stard in the world, it will be huge in NYC (think about the Cosmos, just signing 3-4 legends in the twilight of their career in the 70's, when nobody in the US was interested at all/played/knew anything about soccer, and how successful they were), and eventually the world, being such a famous city with such a great team.

We saw what happened with the Cosmos in a totally different America. Now, the game is at an all-time high of popularity, almost everyone has played it growing up (men and women alike), we can watch it on tv now, watch/talk about it on the internet, consume the media, we get visited by big clubs every summer, and we have our own, stable pro-league to take advantage of all of it.

The future is ours, people. Thi is not your father's America. World football's roots have firmly been planted, and the world's greatest sport's trajectory will only be going up as it is going now. NYCFC will be taking advantage of this more than any other American club in our market of 800 million+ people, and with the Sheik and the Yankee's unrivaled funding. Remember who said it first.

 

[BlueWolf]

Fair do's - one does love a good thread, and we got there in the end.

I still think you are a tad in la-la land in regards to strength of the MLS in the future but that can be for another discussion., although I did love this: "able to compete toe-to-toe with United and the giants of EPL and Europe". That was neat.

I still have a major problem with other PL fans supporting NYCFC whilst still supporting clubs other than MCFC, but that is my problem. It doesn't compute, but hey, what can I do?

As for Red Bull, they can't even play in the correct State, so they don't have a leg to stand on. I once said on Twitter that Manchester United and Red Bull New York were one and the same as neither played where they called their home.

My advice would be to chill and relax a little - a measured approach is always far better (and a lot more fun) than an attack. Bring facts to the table, bring stats, and truth, but also retain your humo(u)r - it served us well, so much so in fact that we continue to use it even today. One cannot beat down a man who finds the funny in everything.

 

[Nick Chavez]

Fair do's - one does love a good thread, and we got there in the end.

I still think you are a tad in la-la land in regards to strength of the MLS in the future but that can be for another discussion., although I did love this: "able to compete toe-to-toe with United and the giants of EPL and Europe". That was neat.

I still have a major problem with other PL fans supporting NYCFC whilst still supporting clubs other than MCFC, but that is my problem. It doesn't compute, but hey, what can I do?

As for Red Bull, they can't even play in the correct State, so they don't have a leg to stand on. I once said on Twitter that Manchester United and Red Bull New York were one and the same as neither played where they called their home.

My advice would be to chill and relax a little - a measured approach is always far better (and a lot more fun) than an attack. Bring facts to the table, bring stats, and truth, but also retain your humo(u)r - it served us well, so much so in fact that we continue to use it even today. One cannot beat down a man who finds the funny in everything.

haha, One cannot beat me down regardless, Blue Wolf.

Visionaries will always have near-sighted, pessimistic naysayers. Our Clubs' CEO Ferran Soriano made that much clear in his book "Goal" (starting on page 82). I think I've made myself clear enough about MLS's future. The future will show who was right. Again, just remember who called it.

One more time, having a problem with other PL supporters supporting New York City Football Club is pretty ridiculous considering the name of the club is New York City Football Club and they will play in New York City. We're going to stay loyal to New York, first and foremost, regardless of where the investment comes from, and in this case, from Abu Dhabi and New York Yankees. There's absolutely no conflict here, nor should there be. Anyone who does feel the conflict isn't thinking about it correctly. So, I advise you not to get your panties in a twist too much about it. Just be happy more fans are getting behind your sister club than not.

And I am quite chilled and relaxed, very secure in my position. I apologize if the force of my argument comes off differently.

 

[BlueWolf]

Imagine a day when NYCFC is immense. They are a World power. They break away from MCFC and become their own club.

You also, whilst living and breathing NYCFC, support Inter Milan. You don't only support them you live and breathe them like you do NYCFC. The two will never meet on a competitive scale, so it doesn't matter.

Whilst all this is happening throughout the years, someone comes in and sets up, lets say, New York United FC. They are now your enemy, you despise everything about them, they are the anti-you. But then they buy Inter Milan.

You understand where I am coming from now?

 

[Nick Chavez]

Not at all, to be honest. Not trying to be snarky, I just don't follow.

I'm not an Inter supporter (assuming you were speaking hypothetically, but just to be clear).

I am, however, a rabid Real Madrid supporter of over a decade. I've said this to many people and I stand by it: If Barcelona bankrolled/established/owned New York City FC (and this time it really would be the football club Barca owning it, since Barcelona is a self-sufficient club of many thousands of members (socios), like Real Madrid, that actually own/run their own team), I would still be a big NYCFC supporter.

Why? Because it's my most local club, a club that represents where I'm from and also plays there, and if Barca does well by me in owning the club, I'm happy. Now, if the club was called "Barcelona New York" and wore Barca's exact colors and had almost the same exact club crest (like Chivas USA basically) it would probably make things a lot more difficult.

But, NYCFC has a totally unique crest, a name that can't be anymore NYC (New York City FC), and only shares the sky blue colors of Man City (which aren't that distinctive as Barca's Blaugrana colors), which are shared by many different teams in the world. CFG so far has done right by us in these regards.

And P.S., it hasn't escaped me that some of the former architects of Barca's recent success, Soriano, Begiristain, Borrell have been/will be running NYCFC in many different ways. Hell, I even wrote an article about it: http://soccernewsday.com/usa/a/1773/why-kreis-is-learning-the-barca-way-

They had a great system, they chose wisely with Kreis, and they've shown my new local club great respect, so I'm very much at peace with it. They've provided us with a club to support, and a lot of reason to be very optimistic, so it doesn't matter where it came from. It's New York City's now. I hope that makes sense to you.

 

[Falastur]

BlueWolf, I think the issue is that the American cultural mindset is just different. To us, loyalty to "our" club and therefore hatred for its rivals trumps all. To Americans, support for your local area trumps all other considerations. I'm not trying to say that one is worse than the other, any more than you could argue that being born with a talent for music is better than being born with a talent for acting, or writing books. But as in that example, it's something you're born into, you can't persuade someone to change the viewpoint they've grown up believing in just by force of persuasion.

 

[BlueWolf]

Barca owe €500m in debt (give or take), banned from signing new players - great set up is that.

 

[Nick Chavez]

BlueWolf, I think the issue is that the American cultural mindset is just different. To us, loyalty to "our" club and therefore hatred for its rivals trumps all. To Americans, support for your local area trumps all other considerations. I'm not trying to say that one is worse than the other, any more than you could argue that being born with a talent for music is better than being born with a talent for acting, or writing books. But as in that example, it's something you're born into, you can't persuade someone to change the viewpoint they've grown up believing in just by force of persuasion.

The big difference is, in England (or other countries where football has been there for over 100 years), they've always had their local club, which trumps all, and maaaaybe they'll support another foreign side or another big domestic side if they support a small club (like Grimsby Town).

In the US, we didn't always have local soccer clubs, and certainly not "major league", pro soccer to follow. It wasn't on TV, stadiums weren't built, etc. That started to happened in the late 70's-early 80's then totally disappeared until 1996 when MLS started. And even then, there were a lot less teams than there are now, so many markets didn't have pro clubs. So, if you were a soccer fan or getting into it, most likely you chose a foreign club to support, and then, you'd either support an MLS side if you were into it, or if you even had a local team.

So, we soccer fans here usually had a foreign club as our 1st love in soccer for years, and now many of us are just now getting a local side to support. If having a local side to support is important to you, than you're going to support and celebrate that local team no matter who started it, all things being equal, while still supporting your foreign club. It's really that simple.

Barca owe €500m in debt (give or take), banned from signing new players - great set up is that.

hahaha, if you are referring to me liking their "system", I meant their system of football youth development/academy set up, which is "the City Way" for the most part, and is adopted by Man City and NYCFC. I can live with that since they have developed great talent for many years now, and have had great success with both Barca and Spain over the last decade especially. Bring that style, control in possession and success to NYCFC, and I'm a happy guy

As a business administration/sporting business decisions, they are often a club of complete numbskulls (Though Soriano seems like a very bright/wise leader, and they enjoyed success under him), with Real Madrid infinitely superior with Florentino Perez at the helm. Insulting FC Barcelona in any way is always welcome with me, so carry on. haha

 

[MyBoyVilla]

I don't know about everybody else, but I don't support NYCFC/MLS because it is or will be the best team/league in the world. I support it because it is my city's team.

I get where the progression of the thread has gone, but wonder is BlueWolf accepts and appreciates our answer to his question of why we support NYCFC if we dont support MCFC. Our answer is NOT because one day we will be a better team. It is because we support our city more than any adopted club overseas. Regardless of quality.

 

[MyBoyVilla]

Imagine a day when NYCFC is immense. They are a World power. They break away from MCFC and become their own club.

You also, whilst living and breathing NYCFC, support Inter Milan. You don't only support them you live and breathe them like you do NYCFC. The two will never meet on a competitive scale, so it doesn't matter.

Whilst all this is happening throughout the years, someone comes in and sets up, lets say, New York United FC. They are now your enemy, you despise everything about them, they are the anti-you. But then they buy Inter Milan.

You understand where I am coming from now?

Not at all. We would never support Inter as much as we do NYCFC. Our loyalties to NYCFC run much deeper. You can understand this. If you supported Inter, and then Man U bought them, that would not affect your support of Man City. It might or might not affect your support of Inter, depending on how much you hate United and how much you love Inter.

So for us, if our rival in MLS bought Inter, we may or may not be turned off from that club, but never from NYCFC. Certainly, in our scenario, when our rival from our foreign club buys NYCFC (assuming we are Man U fans), it will not affect our love for NYCFC. It will not affect our love for Man U either, because NYCFC fans do not have a rivalry with Man U. We will still hate MC, still Support Man U and NYCFC.It is really not a difficult concept you just have to look at it from our perspective in US instead of yours. NYCFC is our #1 no matter what.

 

[MyBoyVilla]

Also, I respect the fact that you apologized for your earlier comments, but you have to understand that you can in on the attack, and did not ask your question is respectful fashion. We responded in kind. The fact that the dialogue escalted is not on us. Continue to respect us and we will continue to respect you. But as a newcomer and a non-NYCFC fan (or at least not primarily) you have that responsibility to set the tone.

 

[NYCFC_Dan]

I do agree with BlueWolf as well regarding the main question asked in this thread.
Why support NYCFC if you're a United supporter?
Being born in Bosnia, former Yugoslavia, I have a deep passion for my country.
I actually support Croatia, the reason being our family was Croat (Roman Catholic) prior to the split so we always affiliate ourself with Croatia. A lot of my family even moved there after the split.
Now, during the World Cup, despite being a US citizen I root for Croatia above all.
If MCFC was to play NYCFC, even in a friendly, I'd put my City colors on as that's where my loyalty lies above all else.
Being a Real Madrid fan I'm sure you'd do the same.

If United were to take a club like the Rowdies here in Tampa where I live and create an MLS franchise with them I would not jump aboard that ship.

 

[MyBoyVilla]

The only answer I can give you is we are not United supporters in the sense you might be a City supporter. We will always value NYC over any foreign club that we do not attend games for, do not have a camraderie with other fans (inperson) and do not feel a locational connection to. We like them, we root for them, but we don't live and die for them, just like we don't for our La Liga or Bundesliga team.

Another factor may be that we are more loyal to NYC than you are to Tampa. That may be something unique to the culture of NYC and not Tampa, or maybe the fact that you weren't born there weakens your loyalties. Not so for us. If Spurs (my EPL club) bought an MLS club in a different city, I would not support it. NYC always comes first

I guess in a nutshell, you can say we did not pick NYCFC, it picked us. We were going to support our city's team, be it NYRB relocated and rebranded, or Cosmos, or NYCFC, or even Al Quedas team (ok maybe not that). Whether it run with or against our loyalties in Europe or any other country or any other sport.

We are NYC first and foremost. If you cannot experience that kind of loyalty to your city, I feel bad. I am lucky to have that and it guides me in my loyalties.

 

[BlueWolf]

I like this thread and glad it happened.

 

[NYCFCFan10]

Incidentally, to Nick Chavez, who raised the idea of billionaire owners of European teams getting involved in the MLS - this is why I don't think they would treat it seriously. US billionaires like the US system, I dare say, because teams are moderately restricted and don't make huge losses. You point to US billionaires in English football, but the simple fact is that they have a reputation in England for being unwilling to commit enough money to make a difference. Arsenal fans want Kroenke out and Ushmanov to take over because Kroenke refuses to invest. Similarly, the Villa fans want Randy Lerner to sell up now because he treats the club as something to provide him money, whereas the fans want him to be what provides the club with money. The opposite is the case for foreign investors in MLS. They come in with the viewpoint that the more you spend, the better you do. MLS doesn't work like that.

So the only possible solution here is for MLS to adapt to the customs of the rest of the world, or at least some of them. I don't, for example, believe that promotion/relegation is necessarily required. However, it would all be a hard sell. Most franchise owners will not like the idea of switching to a system where the person who invests most wins most, so it would take a massive, massive culture change. That's going to take decades to happen. I can't sugar coat it. It will take at least a generation.

3 - The problem with MLS right now is that it's isolated from most of the top teams of the world, who all play in Europe. Sure, there are famous clubs in SA, but they can't really match the fame of Barca, Chelsea or AC Milan, except perhaps to Hispanic populations, but MLS cannot become a top league based solely off its Spanish-descended population and ignoring the rest. Right now, your only options are friendlies and the Club World Cup. Simply put, neither of these are enough. You need regular games. The problem is, this requires at the least some kind of mixed Euro-NA Champions League or perhaps even a World Super League. Clearly, these are things which will not happen in even the mid-distance future. Now, those of you who have talked about the physical demands of the flying around the USA for MLS games should be able to see what the problem with this is, and why it would take quite a while before European teams were willing to agree to such a competition. Again, I don't think it's impossible, but we're talking about a culture change. Also, not to be harsh, but the European clubs simply won't consider it until MLS is a rising league which is threatening to match European leagues in prestige.



I want to restate. I do believe that this is realistic. I just think it will take ages. I'm thinking 30-50 years, but I'll freely admit to pulling those numbers out of my backside because they sound vaguely approximate.

I also want to point out that I don't believe that only one club can be king, and the other team can only ever have the status of feeder in the meantime. I believe that as NYCFC's reputation increases then the two will be equals, preferably working in harmony to help each other but perhaps even competing for signings etc. This is achievable in a much, much shorter timeframe. But if you want to know when you can expect NYCFC to become the bigger club and actually expect MCFC to pass it the promising players and so on, I think we're talking 1-2 generations.

Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United all have American owners. Moyes aside, who wasn'tthe fault of the owners, they've done pretty well and they haven't had to spend like Chelsea, City or Real Madrid. I'd also argue that even as City and Chelsea spend the EPL doesn't have a club as powerful as Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich (at least right now) and PSG's massive spending hasnt put them at that table either.

And yet, even though I think most everyoe would agree that England doesn't have a club in that absolute upper echelon, its still the most popular league in the world. Why is that? How can that be?

Well because England has ManC, ManU, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham and to a lesser extent Newcastle, Sunderland, Aston Villa, West Ham United. Or more simply, its the league with the mosy big clubs in it fighting it out so people dont really care if they have the most powerful team in Europe or not.

This is where MLS has the advantage. Whereas half the EPL comes from London and the rest of the teams come from cities people barely know exist, MLS will have LA behind NY. We'll have Chicago, Washington nd Miami beyond that. For rival cities we have monster cities like Dallas vs. Houston, Toronto vs. Montreal, NY vs. LA (metro population 22mil vs. 19 mil), Miami vs. Atlanta, Chicago vs. DC, Seattle vs. Portland...

These are a little more sexy than Southampton, Norwich City, Newcastle, or Everton ect

 

[Vito]

Nick the reason I stated that NYCFC isn't going to be bigger, despite how large NYC is was because of the numbers already in front of us.
U.S. teams, U.S. sports are NOT world powers.
Look at our BIGGEST team, the Yankees, who play in NYC and they only have 7 Million likes on Facebook, a good part of that outside of the U.S. more then likely asian as well.
To think NYCFC will get anywhere near that in the near future is farfetched.
I want our club to succeed and I believe it will. However, I don't think it will be as big as you want it to be.
We'll see the same thing we see with most MLS clubs... a strong native support system. It wont be till much further down the road until you see other New Yorkers jumping the MLB/NFL/NHL train and hoping on the MLS one.

I'm a Yankees fan and I've never liked them on Facebook. I really don't think likes on a social network makes you more or less popular

 

[MyBoyVilla]

I'm a Yankees fan and I've never liked them on Facebook. I really don't think likes on a social network makes you more or less popular

So all this time I spend obsessing over how many likes I get on an Instagram picture was a waste of time? It does not reflect my true popularity? Oh boy.

 

[Falastur]

Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United all have American owners. Moyes aside, who wasn'tthe fault of the owners, they've done pretty well and they haven't had to spend like Chelsea, City or Real Madrid. I'd also argue that even as City and Chelsea spend the EPL doesn't have a club as powerful as Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich (at least right now) and PSG's massive spending hasnt put them at that table either.

And yet, even though I think most everyoe would agree that England doesn't have a club in that absolute upper echelon, its still the most popular league in the world. Why is that? How can that be?

Well because England has ManC, ManU, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham and to a lesser extent Newcastle, Sunderland, Aston Villa, West Ham United. Or more simply, its the league with the mosy big clubs in it fighting it out so people dont really care if they have the most powerful team in Europe or not.

This is where MLS has the advantage. Whereas half the EPL comes from London and the rest of the teams come from cities people barely know exist, MLS will have LA behind NY. We'll have Chicago, Washington nd Miami beyond that. For rival cities we have monster cities like Dallas vs. Houston, Toronto vs. Montreal, NY vs. LA (metro population 22mil vs. 19 mil), Miami vs. Atlanta, Chicago vs. DC, Seattle vs. Portland...

These are a little more sexy than Southampton, Norwich City, Newcastle, or Everton ect

Disagree. Liverpool's owners have spent - not as much as City/Chelsea, but they've been spending around £50m a season recently, and the only reason that UEFA didn't investigate them for their massive financial losses was because they only investigate teams playing in Europe, which Liverpool haven't been this year. Arsenal have done well by the standards of most of the league, but they've gone a decade without a trophy, and just when they might win the FA Cup, they look like falling out of the Champions League. This will force them to invest more or suffer years of mediocrity, and I fear they might just accept the mediocrity instead of investing. As I already said, Arsenal's fans are calling for Kroenke's head precisely because he refuses to commit money to the project. He's seen as holding them back. As for United, well the only reason they've remained successful is because their huge operating profits have kept them afloat. God forbid they ever start to make losses because it could cause untold damage, especially with some seriously hefty loan refinancing to be done before 2017. It's not for no reason that the press are saying that they might refuse to enter the Europa League so that they can pack their calendar with friendlies next season, for which a PL club can typically earn several million pounds per game.

You're right about the attraction of the PL, although I'd argue that merely being competitive is not the whole story. I mean, Serie A has seen some real volatility in terms of its giants falling from grace recently. Up until PSG, Ligue 1 was similarly open to a number of clubs, at least since Olympique Marseille's dominance ended about 6-7 years ago. And yet they're not as big. As for the upper echelons, I think the only way you could argue that England doesn't have any top category teams is if you reserve the top category solely for Real and Barca, and let's be honest, the reason they are so attractive is that you can afford to do things like building a team of galacticos or grooming an entire team from your youth academy when 80% of the opposition are so poor that you can win half of your games by at least four goals, when the league rules allow you to negotiate individual £200m/year TV deals (which, incidentally, will no longer happen from 2016 so bye bye massive revenues) and when the Spanish government itself breaks the system to ensure that you have all the money you could ever need. Spain's top two are there but by the grace of a massively flawed national system which is being rectified. In 10 years they will still be the top two clubs, but they won't quite seem the world-dominating diamonds of the game, I suspect.

As for MLS, you're very right that you have some huge cities in the US, and they lend very well to making for packed stadia of die-hard fans. But the issue is capturing the imagination of the rest of the world. We don't really care how big your cities are, just as I'm sure you don't care about how big ours are. Sure, we know more of your cities than we know of yours but as we've previously debated, glorying in the reputation and character of a city is an American trait, not a European, or really rest-of-the-world type trait. You may have some exotic cities, but people outside the US won't really care. After all, who cares if Miami has 200 miles of pristine beaches if none of them appear on the TV screens during the games. People from outside the US aren't ever going to see those cities in person anyway, except perhaps once in their lives to make a pilgrimage to their favourite MLS club. It works the same with European clubs. Madrid, for example, is a complete hole. It's an over-industrialised city with no character. But Real are a glamour club. Similarly, Liverpool is really not an attractive city. Neither is Dortmund. But they attract world followings because of their teams, not because of their cities. The only way an MLS club will become a world power is through on-field performance.

 

[NYCFCFan10]