When I was “making excuses” after Sporting Kansas City lost to Minnesota United on Thursday night I brought up the point that Sporting were without Alan Pulido and Felipe Gutierrez (and a fully fit Gadi Kinda). I threw out a couple examples of what that would have meant for Minnesota or the Seattle Sounders, but it got me thinking about other teams and what that would mean to them.
Major League Soccer is structured in such a way that a team can’t be completely “loaded” with stars unless they’ve done an exceptional job of getting a lot of value in the lower parts of their roster.