The answer is simple!

The level of play in the USL (as an alternative league) is closer to that of the MLS, than many (in the USSF and MLS) would like to admit to.

= Prelude =

In the 2008-09 CCL, the two classified USL teams showed heart and desire to succeed, while most of the MLS teams looked uninterested and took for granted their perceived superiority and got blown away by “so called” (inside of their bubble) lesser teams.

Many in the United States and Canada (and the world) cheered and watched as the USL’s Montreal Impact and Puerto Rico Islanders became quaterfinalists and semifinalists, taking on and advancing through the tournament defeating some Central American and Mexican favorites.

Eventually the USL cinderella teams fell to the Mexican greats: Montreal collapsed in front of Santos Laguna in the quarterfinals; and the Islanders went down via penalty kicks to Cruz Azul in the semifinals.

The USL cinderellas didn’t drop their guard until they had slayed giants like: Liga Alajuelence (Costa Rica), Municipal (Guatemala), Marathon (Honduras), Tauro FC (Panama) and CD Olimpia (Honduras).

Other notable feats by the USL teams included big home wins against Mexicans Santos Laguna (3-1 in PR & 2-0 in Montreal) and Cruz Azul (2-0 in PR in front of a 12,751 Puertorican record crowd).

The USL actually enjoyed the largest home crowd to a single CCL game in the entire 2008-09 tournament: 55,000+ fans at Montreal’s Olympic stadium in the Impact’s 2-0 quaterfinal win over Santos Laguna.

In big contrast, 3 of the 4 MLS teams in the tournament fared horribly. In the preliminary round the New England Revolution was humiliated 1-6 (aggregate) by Trinidad’s Joe Public; while Chivas USA fell 1-3 (aggregate) to Panama’s Tauro FC.

To add insult to injury, these two MLS slayers were themselves slayed by the USL teams: the Islanders had a 4-3 (aggregate) over Tauro FC; and Montreal had a 6-1 (aggregate) over Joe Public. Neither Tauro FC or Joe Public came out alive of the Group Stages. Both USL teams did!

Two MLS teams were pre-classified to the CCL Groups Stage. One of them, DC United failed to win a single game (1 draw & 5 losses) in what was called the Group of Death.

The MLS may argue that DC United was placed in the toughest group with Mexico’s Cruz Azul, Costa Rica’s Saprissa and Honduras Marathon. But that theory goes down the drain with the USL Puerto Rico Islanders wasting Marathon 3-1 (aggregate) in the quarterfinals; and tying Cruz Azul 3-3 after 120 minutes only to fall to the Mexicans in penalty kicks.

Only the MLS Houston Dynamo was able to save face for the league, surviving the Group Stage, before falling to the eventual CCL Champion Mexico’s Atlante in the quarterfinals.

The USL teams last year not only enjoyed a great cinderella run, but also the luck that had they met, it would have been in the CCL Championship match. The Islanders and Montreal were drawn on different brackets in the finals and therefore couln’t face eachother until the end.

One would imagine that the success of the North American based USL would have made the USSF and MLS proud, but such couldn’t be the case. The MLS is recognized by the USSF as the 1st division of soccer in the U.S.A. The success of the USL (another American league) was just an embarrasement to the MLS who got mocked all over the CONCACAF region for their awful level of international play when compared to the “inferior” (inside the USSF/MLS bubble) USL.

The problem (from the USSF and MLS perspective) is that the USL success and world gained recognition thanks to the CCL tournament was achieved by two teams that were not “U.S.A.” teams. The Puerto Rico Islanders classified to the CCL via the Caribbean Football Union’s Championship; and the Montreal Impact via the Nutilite Canadian Championship.

Two non-American teams showed how close the USL level is to the MLS at the international level (where it actually really counts!).

The CCL participation destiny of these two USL teams could not be negatively influenced by the USSF or the MLS. These two USL teams didn’t need to compete in a big (40+ teams) and difficult tournament (the U.S. Open Cup) for just ONE spot to the CCL!!!

Meanwhile, thanks to the USSF, the MLS with its proven inferior international quality gets to embarrass itself with three free undeserved CCL spots.

What could the USSF/MLS do to prevent such an embarrassment in the 2000-10 CCL tournament?

If the MLS couldn’t show off their USL counterparts on the field, then get rid of the USL teams off the field!

Have the USL teams drawn against each other in the CCL preliminary round!

At least one of the two USL teams wouldn’t make it to the Group Stages.

But sometimes the best-laid plans go awry…

[Part 2 - The Conspiracy! to be continued...]

The most important result (to this blog anyway) was the Islanders 1-0 away win over the MLS’ers Toronto FC.

The ‘underdog’ (¿?) Islanders were sub-estimated by the ’superior’ (¿?) MLS opponent, and the latter paid the price.

The Islanders now take a 1-0 lead home to Juan Ramón Loubriel stadium in Bayamon, where special arrangements are been made to bury the ‘beer throwing hooligan‘ TFC among other more prominent and classier Central American adversaries. A win or a tie will see the Islanders through to the group stage.

The two other MLS teams fared a little bit better, but also failed to get positive results in the Preliminary round.

In Trinidad, New York came back from a 1-0 deficit with two goals to take the lead, only to surrender a 72nd minute equalizer and allow W. Connection to rally and draw 2-2 with the Red Bulls.

The other MLS team, 2-time CCL wannabee DC United had to come back to salvage a 1-1 home draw with El Salvador’s Firpo.

Week #1 USL/MLS Summary: USL 1-0-0 & MLS 0-2-1 [W-T-L]

The 3rd Caribbean team, San Juan Jabloteh fell 2-0 San Francisco FC courtesy of an early minute 5′ and a late min 84′ Panamanian goals.

Week #1 CFU Summary: Islanders win, W. Connection tie, San Juan Jabloteh loss

In the rest of the Preliminary Round action, other home winners were: Mexico’s Pachuca 3-0 over Guatemala’s Jalapa; Liberia from Costa Rica 3-0 over Honduras’ Real España ; and Olympia also from Honduras 2-1 over Arabe Unido from Panama.

The only other away win besides the Islanders’, was the 6-2 trouncing Mexican Cruz Azul gave to Costa Rica’s Herediano.

The JRL has this nickname due to the amazing success that the Islanders had in 2008 in the first stage of the first ever CONCACAF Champions League, where champion after champion from the C.A. region kept falling one after the other to the feet of the island’s humble USL soccer team.

The first C.A. champion to fall to the Islanders was Costa Rica’s 2-time CONCACAF Champion’s Cup winner Liga Alajuelence (2-1) in the preliminary stage. Then in the group stage came Panama’s 5-time champion Tauro FC by the same score (2-1); and the current Mexican champion Santos Laguna (3-1) from Northern Central America…

The last burial at JRL last year was Guatemala’s 5-time champion Municipal by a 0-1 score in the Islanders’ 2008 home closer. Hold on! You may wonder… The Islanders didn’t win that game. True, Municipal was the only C.A. team to actually get a positive result against the Islanders at JRL. But how positive was that result? Not good enough. As faith had it at the time, Municipal needed to score at least 2-away goals in Puerto Rico to stay alive in Group D action; so with that 1-0 win, the Guatemalans got eliminated by the Islanders from the tournament. Municipal is the only team to get their hopes buried at JRL with a win.

2009 started with the visit of the CD Marathon powerhouse. The reigning Honduran champion, and winner of the “Group of Death“, came for the 1st-leg of the Champions League Quarterfinals to celebrate in the “Enchanted Island”. But on this trip for the Hondurans, Borinquen was not “Enchanted” at all! Marathon, by all means the favourite to finish off the Islanders Cinderella run, was extinguished 2-1 by the Puerto Ricans; making the Hondurans to become the latest C.A. champion to fall at JRL.

Five C.A. ghosts (including a Mexican) haunt the halls of JRL. Who’s ghost will join them next…

Things have never been worse for the MLS. The “Major” label next to “League Soccer” just doesn’t do justice to the quality of the league. Last year in the CONCACAF Champions League the MLS fared misserably. The New England Revolution and Chivas USA both fell on the road to lesser teams (from an MLS perspective) from Trinidad & Tobago and Panama. Both MLS teams were eventually put out of their missery and knocked out of the tournament.

Meanwhile, perhaps quietly within the MLS news world, both USL-1 teams in the same tournament, the Puerto Rico Islanders and the Montreal Impact, fared better and moved on to the next round. It didn’t go unoticed in some MLS circles though that the Islanders accomplished in their first try a feat no MLS side has in eight tries: get a result on Costa Rican soil and defeat a Costa Rican team to advance in a CONCACAF competition.

In the group stage, more of the same was the motive: USL Triumphs, MLS Fails. DC United got eliminated with only 1 (one) point in the standings in the group stage, while Houston Dynamo saved face for the league, and became the only MLS team (out of 4) to survive the group stage. Both USL-1 sides advanced to the quarterfinal phase.

But all that was last year, and perhaps MLS fans found out about those news through means other than the MLS itself.

2009 comes in, the MLS and the USL are both in preseason, and as a matter of fact both leagues are playing scrimmage games between them. Except that MLS fans may not really know what was really happening down in Bradenton (Florida), at least from the MLS media perspective.

The Puerto Rico Islanders played three games last week against three MLS sides. The Chicago Fire, the MLS Sub-Champion New York Red Bulls and the MLS Champion Columbus Crew.

News about the Chicago 1-0 win over the Islanders were on the MLS site (Chicago won on a penalty goal). But where are the news of how well the Champ and Sub-Champ fared against the Islanders?

The MLS controlled media (without freedom of press) withheld those results, like a dictator prevents his people to find out the truth about his government. Not only that, those games disappeared from the MLS schedules. On a particular MLS webpage it shows the preseason calendar of the week in progress, as well as the results for the MLS so far.

Whoever is looking at those MLS preseason results so far, would think that the MLS is almost undefeated in the preseason (except for the D.C. United 1 Vejle Boldklub 4 result). This table doesn’t show the MLS Sub-Champs Red Bulls failure to defeat the Islanders (0-0 draw), nor the humiliating 2-0 loss of the MLS Champs Columbus Crew in hands of the Islanders.

Now, do not think that the MLS just doesn’t publish their negative results against their rival USL-1 league. The table doesn’t show either the 1-0 loss of the Red Bulls to the Under-17 USA team in this year’s pre-season. Actually we don’t even know what other news is the MLS controlled media keeping from the MLS people.

The dictatorship in Russia fell, in Cuba is falling and in North Korea it will fall. So will in the MLS one day.

The table does show that the MLS DC United will play a friendly with the Puerto Rico Islanders this weekend on the 21st. We will keep you apraised as to the result, as the MLS media might not.