Nowadays you hear former MLS stars and other assorted old-timers talking up how good today’s players have it. The league might have its share of flaws, but MLS has come a long way from the 90’s era of cavernous stadiums, football lines and widespread uncertainty. (A visual of Michael Parkhurst munching on quinoa inside Atlanta United’s space-age training ground comes to mind)
Backtrack a few decades however, and you would find talented soccer players who toiled in America’s earlier leagues only for the newly-launched Major League Soccer to hand these guys a professional experience they could only have dreamed of.