“Essentially what we have is a window of approximately 72 to 96 hours that needs to be respected from a recovery perspective at a minimum,” Sullivan said. “Even if you ‘optimize’ this window with the best recovery strategies, players may still not be at 100%. If you place extra stresses (such as traveling across time zones) on players within this window, which can negatively affect sleep, then clearly this will negatively affect recovery even more.”
For the biggest clubs in the world, playing every three and a half days is commonplace. It’s manageable because the rosters aren’t as top-heavy as they are in MLS; players called upon to fill in for starters in need of a rest aren’t earning a tiny fraction of the salaries of the players they’re replacing.
Many matches and limited rosters do not make for exceptional soccer. The MLS midseason slog is real, and it’s only going to get more real if something isn’t done. Add to that the fact that success means more matches — in U.S. Open Cup, in Leagues Cup, in the Champions League — and the need for a solution becomes clear.
It’s not as if MLS has done nothing. In the past handful of years, the salary cap has gone up nearly 50% and mechanisms like targeted allocation money, the U-22 initiative and young DP designations were introduced. For the most ambitious teams, though, it’s not enough.
“Perhaps there can be more allocation money given to the teams that have success, that are built the right way,” Albright said, noting that monies go to clubs that miss the playoffs in an effort to help them get back on track.
Thorrington agrees: “With the increase in games and the load, it’s not as though we were given different ways in which we could increase our depth.”
There is, of course, a balance. To the extent that MLS has survived and thrived, it’s due to financial constraints. Throwing all the rules and regulations away and saying teams can spend, say, between $6 million and $30 million however they want would lead to other issues. For example: How does one recruit a player like Lionel Messi, who will make north of that number by himself? Then again, Inter Miami played four teenagers in a 2-2 draw against D.C. United last weekend, and that’s not a good solution, either.
The league is always a story of balance. It’s time for that balance to shift.
One thing is certain: The games aren’t stopping. The Leagues Cup is around the corner, the rest of the regular season and the playoffs are fast approaching, there’s Concacaf Champions League, and then next season, and the season after that, which sees the addition of the newly refurbished Club World Cup as well as the Gold Cup, and so on, and so on.
