The NASL's expansion into Miami not only puts a dent into MLS' plans for a similar move, it shows NASL is a league ready to hold its own in the U.S. turf war with MLS.

A fight isn’t a fight until both sides throw a punch, and after years of seeing Major League Soccer dictate terms in the battle for pro soccer in United States, we have finally seen the North American Soccer League land a blow.

The NASL’s announcement of a new expansion team in Miami was perfect on so many levels. From the introduction of another strong ownership group for a growing league, to the placement of a team in a location where a natural rival in the league exists, to the international star power Paolo Maldini brings to the ownership group.

Oh, and then there was the very clear shot to the bow of the good ship MLS, which has been targeting MLS for expansion for years. Ever since he succeeded in landing an expansion team in New York City, MLS commissioner Don Garber’s new priority became Miami. With David Beckham leading the expansion efforts, Garber has given the Miami expansion push more attention, and more leeway, than any other market. Even with perfectly viable expansion options lining up, Garber has kept Miami close, hoping to help bring MLS back to a market it was forced to leave more than a dozen years ago.

The NASL move into Miami won’t necessarily end the MLS pursuit, but it definitely complicates things. MLS has been pushing hard for an ideal stadium locatio and has let local officials know the league would not approve a team without getting an ideal stadium deal. Getting Miami officials to agree to a prime location, as well as other potential subsidies, has proved to be extremely difficult, which shouldn’t really be a surprise considering the area is still smarting from the public stadium funding fiasco that is Marlins Park.

If MLS was trying to bluff in this high-stakes game of stadium poker, then the NASL’s move made a win for MLS that much tougher. The NASL Miami team made it clear in Wednesday’s announcement that it would be playing in an existing sports venue in the Miami area. In other words, a pro soccer team is ready to move into Miami, and not ask for a new stadium, just as MLS was trying to squeeze a premium stadium location out of the market.

You could just imagine the reaction in MLS headquarters to the NASL’s maneuver, which NASL commissioner Bill Peterson insisted had nothing to do with hurting MLS and everything to do with simply acting on the perfect combination of a promising market and strong ownership group. He even went so far as to welcome the challenge of an eventual MLS team in Miami.

“The marketplace is massive, so it stands up with other major metropolitan areas that have more than one team and in the rest of the world, you might find four or five teams here,” Peterson told SBI Soccer. “That actually could be a positive if they put a team here, and if not, we’re very happy with the Fort Lauderdale and Miami rivalry. The more the merrier.”

Peterson’s comment had just the right amount of bravado. It shows NASL has no fear of trying to directly compete against MLS in large markets. The New York Cosmos are already fighting that fight against the New York Red Bulls and NYCFC, while Peterson will be hoping the rich owners backing Miami FC and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers can go toe-to-toe with an MLS team eventually.

As much as MLS may not be happy with NASL’s move into Miami, the reality is competition is good for everybody. Having a strong and vibrant NASL will only serve to help keep MLS on its toes, and give markets and prospective owners who either can’t break into MLS or prefer the NASL structure another option aside from MLS. A strong NASL will also mean more opportunities for young Americans to play, and it will give players more options to choose from when trying to land the best deal possible.

In recent years, it hasn’t really looked like much of a competition, with key NASL teams leaving the lower divisions behind in search of MLS glory. Markets from Seattle to Portland, and most recently Minnesota, have agreed to join a rapidly expanding MLS, leaving you to wonder whether MLS would simply overwhelm NASL and push it aside as it continued to grow to even larger proportions.

Things are starting to feel a bit different with the NASL, which has welcomed a successful expansion team in Jacksonville and seen its exposure increase with the help of deal with ESPN to stream matches online. Attendance is up across the board in the blossoming league, and the league could push to as many as 14 teams by 2016, when Miami FC will kick things off.

Does the NASL’s move into Miami mean the league is actually ready to close the gap on MLS? Not quite, but what it does show is that the second-division league isn’t ready to go without a fight, and with each billionaire-backed team it launches, the NASL looks more and more like a league ready for the long haul and ready to start getting its share of punches in as it fights for its place in the American pro soccer landscape.