Chimaera
same ol' Caps
MLS has meant a lot to the other teams in CONCACAF though. They send their players to develop here now. The unintended consequence of MLS may be that we've closed the gap in teams below us.
Call me a Euro snob, but I would much rather our guys play overseas. MLS is like 50% exhibition. Everyone makes the playoffs, you can draw through half the season. There's so many team that it's watered down comp.
MLS is not THE reason. It's a contributing factor though. They've spent billions on the damn league.
(Pay to play driving our youth set up is much more a reason IMO.)
Sure, it's allowed some of these sides to get development of their youth players who are living in the US, or who MLS sides see as cheap labor. But that's not the end all be all. They got beat by a team of a nation with the population of San Diego.
they're consistently under performing against sides with far less players who are professional. US Soccer spends more in a month than some of their countries spend in a year.
It's just not good enough. They're not playing together and it shows.