With its broadening contracts, ever-glitzier signings, and unfettered expansion, the crucible of future growth in American and Canadian soccer is not in MLS. And while it’s generally true that progress for MLS augurs progress for soccer in North America, it’s still not where the real work will be happening in the coming years and decades.



To get to the real molten core of soccer growth in the U.S. and Canada, you have to go deeper into the soil. To the USL.



Praising a top tier league without acknowledging how those players arrived in that top tier league is the sort of myopia that leads to unsustainable development. It would be like a homeowner inheriting a garden in full bloom, enjoying the fruits of that garden in flowering season, and assuming it would continue to flower season over season without any attention paid to the soil. MLS is the bloom the world sees. The USL, in its ideal future state, will become the fertilizer.



Since debuting in...