WILKINS: As Toronto FC stumbles, are we seeing the end of the aging European star era in MLS?
Last January, Toronto FC signed Lorenzo Insigne, and all was good.
Sure, it was an audacious signing, even by TFC standards: The Italian international had just won the European Championship and would be earning more than the entire wage bill for most MLS clubs, and he'd be joining a league where the growing consensus was trending toward the idea that the commercial and competitive return-on-investment (ROI) for older European stars just wasn't worth it anymore.
But TFC went all in, adding Federico Bernardeschi shortly thereafter, with president Bill Manning declaring: "We have a lot of ambition at our club, and we're really looking over these next four, five years for Lorenzo to be a foundational piece.
"We'll make sure that we put good players around him and I think we have the right coach that – the best is in front of us right now."
17 months later? Those words are ringing hollow.
TFC's elimination from the 2023 Canadian Championship at the hands of CF Montreal means that short of a monumental turnaround in MLS, the highest-paid player in league history will not feature in the Concacaf Champions League until 2025 at the absolute earliest ... at 33. He has already missed the playoffs once, and a berth in 2023 looks far from assured. There is no nice way of saying it: This has the makings of being a total disaster.
But the case of Insigne and Bernardeschi also poses an interesting question: Is it even possible to win with marquee players in MLS anymore?
What makes a marquee player, anyway?
There's no hard and fast definition of a marquee player in the MLS context, but some common characteristics include having played in a top European league and attained fame and success on the continental and international stage. These stars are no longer playing at the peak of their powers (unless you're Zlatan Ibrahimovic), and make a ton of money for jumping across the pond.
For a time, this sort of player was a dominant force in MLS. The LA Galaxy, inspirers of the Designated player rule, won 3 MLS cups and 2 MLS Supporters' Shields between 2007 and 2014 by building their team around Landon Donovan, Robbie Keane and, of course, David Beckham. Thriftier teams did still break through occasionally but the Galaxy and their cadre of stars dominated the late 2000s and early 2010s.
From 2015 onwards, MLS was increasingly dominated by teams that had DPs for whom MLS was only the next chapter of their career, rather than the final one. However, even players who were still relatively useful in Europe at the time of their transfers weren't able to lead their teams to glory. Star signings like Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Andrea Pirlo, David Villa, Kaka, Didier Drogba, Thierry Henry and Wayne Rooney all fizzled out without silverware to their names. Later, the likes of Zlatan, Gonzalo Higuain and Bastien Schweinsteiger not only failed to lead their teams to the promised land, but only managed to take part in four playoff games between them.
Teams built around this type of signing have rarely been successful ... except, ironically, for Toronto.
More than any other team, Toronto FC's triumvirate of Sebastian Giovinco, Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley proved it was possible for players still in their prime (if not at their apex) coming from big European Leagues to be extremely effective and successful. So successful, in fact, that Toronto has opted to try and replicate that approach five years on.
There is a central contradiction to the issue of marquee players that must be resolved. Most of these older, more prestigious players are still performing quite well as individuals. It's just that these positive individual performances are not leading to team success. Consider the table below – it shows a selection of big-name DPs from 2017 to the present who played in attacking positions. It also shows their non-penalty goals and assists per 90 minutes across their MLS career, the percentage of available minutes they played in their MLS careers, and the number of playoff games they participated in.
As you can see, most of these players were involved in a lot of MLS goals. But very few of them have won any major silverware or even managed a deep playoff run. Why is that? Well, here are a few factors I think may contribute to that. None of these factors individually can be said to fully explain why teams with marquee players have not been successful on their own but when taken all together they form a clear picture.
What makes a successful star player?
The best type of ability is availability.
Signing a star player is great. Watching them thrive is even better. But just as a season is won over the course of a year, so too are matches won (and lost) in key moments.
And, unfortunately, many of these players struggled to stay healthy and fit enough for those moments during their time in MLS.
This is no surprise. MLS may not be up to the tactical or technical level of the top European leagues but it is very physically taxing. It features cross-continental flights, extreme hot and cold, and astroturf. As such, the players above managed to be on the field for, on average, 65% of the available minutes in their time in MLS. That’s not terrible, per se, but it is a little challenging to build a squad around a player that won't be available one-third of the time.
But, even if marquee players are on the field, problems can persist. When you are spending seven or even eight figures on a player, there is naturally pressure to play to their strengths. Sometimes that limits what the team can accomplish, even if that one individual player is very successful. We saw a very high-profile example of this during Cristiano Ronaldo's most recent stint at Manchester United. Even though Ronaldo scored a lot of goals, United floundered – in no small part because Ronaldo was not able to get around the pitch as well as he used to.
Similarly, there are some perverse squad-building incentives when you have an older marquee player. There is pressure to win now, at all costs. Every player suffers age-based decline at some point, even if they are declining from a very high point. So if everything is built around a player over the age of 30, your window to do something with them is very slim.
MLS Luxury XI: Highest paid players at each position.
— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) May 16, 2023
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In Toronto’s case, this has been particularly notable. They have frequently jettisoned useful young players to raise funds for veterans who were supposed to help them win now. It didn't help that the Reds mostly did a bad job of bringing in players that actually would help them win now, and did a poor job of managing the salary cap. The result of Toronto’s short-termism is a squad that looks like it may struggle to challenge for silverware in the immediate sense – mainly, because the team got much older, and injuries compounded as a result. This team will also be very difficult to re-tool in the coming years, as those acquired assets are depreciating in trade value.
Can they still succeed? Sure. But whether this supporting cast can step up or not, the fact remains the same: There's an immediacy to everything, and it's adding pressure everywhere.
Then there's the fact that the gap between MLS and the top 5 European leagues is not nearly as big as it used to be. Something else that stands out about the group outlined above is that, although they were very good, none of them – save, perhaps Ibrahimovic and Carlos Vela – were breaking the league. So in addition to carrying the risks inherent to older players like the higher chance of injury and age-based decline, there really is no guarantee that marquee players will provide a uniquely positive impact.
So, all things being equal, you might as well go for a younger player with a lower score on the name recognition index but who will be cheaper, more durable, and can maybe even be sold for a profit down the line. Less prestigious players can still have a negative impact. There can still be a pull to play to their strengths at all costs and keep them happy. That pull is not nearly as strong when a player is making $2 million compared to one who is making $15 million. Sure, those younger DPs could also get injured and derail a squad built around them, but they are a lot less likely to get injured than an older player.
The risk is simply lower if you sign a top prospect out of Argentina, or if you snag a player in their prime who was managing to have a positive impact even though his team got relegated from one of the big-5 leagues.
And much of success in soccer is assessing risks, taking calculated ones, and hoping for the payoff.
Should MLS teams scrap the very idea?
Let's return to the central question of this article: Is it still possible to win silverware in MLS with marquee players?
Well, there is one very recent example that might suggest the answer is yes. Los Angeles FC won the 2022 MLS Cup and Supporters Shield with a squad that featured Carlos Vela, Giorgio Chiellini and Gareth Bale, all of whom fall squarely under the 'marquee player' definition if ever there were any.
But there is a clear difference between how LAFC built their squad and how Toronto FC has built theirs, too. In the case of LAFC, the marquee players were added to put an already good squad over the top, not to be the cornerstone of a team around whom everything else would be built. This is a key distinguishment, and is likely the secret to any success in this space.
Chiellini is far from a nailed-on starter; he plays carefully managed minutes, and there's suitable replacements in the backline when he needs rest. While Vela is a nailed-on starter when fit, if he does find himself absent, the strength of LAFC’s squad means it isn't catastrophic; they just plug in Kwadwo Opoku or Stipe Biuk in the interim and keep on trucking. As for a player like Gareth Bale in 2022, his role was not to spearhead the team's charge to victory; it was to come on for the last 20 minutes and snag a goal by tapping into his game-changing ability, without incurring the risk of burnout.
And... that worked. Magnificently, actually.
The style and systems of play are far more important. Everyone has bought in. There's a clear vision for how to attack, how to defend, and what each players' role is on the team. So, sure, while Vela is better at his designated role than Opoku or Biuk, his replacements come in with a clear understanding of what they need to do to try and match that level.
Compare this to Toronto FC, who slapped their two marquee players on top of a squad that was putting up one of the worst seasons in MLS history in terms of underlying numbers, and then faced so much player turnover that new faces are still being added to the squad each month, and you have the recipe for the biggest issue of all: No clear playing identity. No clearly-defined roles. No clear systems of play.
When Insigne is injured, there is nobody to fall back on. This is not necessarily an inherent fault of marquee players, but Toronto's poor squad building and cap management have played a major role. It is extremely noteworthy that in American Soccer Analysis’ recently released MLS Analytics survey, several people working in MLS front offices rated Toronto as having one of the league's most advanced analytics departments. However, not a single person rated them as utilising their analytics department the most. This wasn't hard to discern from the outside either. There's little chance some boffin kicked down Bob Bradley's door and slapped a complicated math equation on his desk that showed bringing in the current-day versions of Adama Diomande and Victor Vazquez was the right moves to make. Their recruitment strategy is heavily based on pre-existing relationships and is therefore very limited in its scope. Perhaps if Toronto utilised the knowledge at its disposal better things would be different. Maybe they would have their version of Jose Cifuentes, Diego Palacios, Chicho Arango, etc..
But, again, it's all about risk.
When you know someone, even if they have faults, you know what they can bring and what they can't. And while the payoff for advanced scouting can be much greater than bringing on aged players already on the decline, Toronto FC doesn't have the luxury of time to find out.
At the end of the day, if the strongest argument you can muster for marquee players is that they are fine as long as your squad is strong enough that you don't need them, frankly, you don't have much of a leg to stand on. Squads built around marquee players have rarely been successful in this league, are often prone to injury and in most cases don't provide anything that could not be provided by somebody younger, cheaper and more available.
The absolute best-case scenario in recent years has been for marquee players to play a supporting role in an already strong squad. These players will probably continue to be signed, but until MLS grows to the point that it can compete for global stars when they are still in their prime? It's a doubt whether you'll see another team top the league with a name-brand squad.
