Major League Soccer was created in 1993, was hyped during the1994 World Cup, and started play in 1996. It was a glorious introduction to the game, considering the results of that USA-hosted World Cup. In those early years, only a handful of American kids could even get a sniff of a European trial without paying thousands of dollars for travel and thousands more for spots on the right teams. Most of those stories ended with a college scholarship. Major League Soccer was going to offer a generation of hopeful soccer professions a local option. The question was, for players and fans, what kind of option would MLS be in the global soccer market?
MLS: Second-generation fans illustrate blossoming league
