Anyone who’s spent any time around the youth World Cup scene knows Nigeria. Whether for the African nation’s unrelenting stream of U17 titles (it owns five of them, and three of the last five) or for rampant reports of age fraud, Nigeria’s an impossibly large figure on the international YNT scene.

The U.S. was treated to yet another dose of it in 2015 in its U17 World Cup opener in Chile. Nigeria crushed the U.S. 2-0 with a swashbuckling style the Americans had no answer for. Isaac Success, the team’s best player that tournament, recently signed a record deal for Watford. It’s worth remembering American wonderkid Christian Pulisic was on the field that day. The Americans finished last in their group. Nigeria won the tournament.

Nigerian youth national teams would seem to be prime raiding grounds for stable MLS clubs. The Nigerian Premier League has repeatedly batted away accusations of systemic corruption (take a look at the symmetry in the latest NPL table and tell me what you see), and players good enough (like most sub-elite world leagues) constantly have an eye toward stepping stone leagues. And since most of Europe’s Big Five are rarely willing to trust form via the NPL, the country’s best almost invariably need an intermediary league to prove their bonafides first.

In July, the Nigerian U23 team did a brief tour of the U.S. Southeast, downing the Charleston Battery 1-0 at one point in what seemed certain to be a glorified scouting opportunity for U.S. clubs. The partnership between the two nations makes sense, especially considering the amount of young talent filtering through Nigeria’s soccer sieves and MLS’s need to scour lesser-known nations for skilled talent on the cheap.

And yet it would seem MLS is still fighting upstream when it comes to perception.

Ifeanyi Matthew, 19, had already been an emergent star in Nigeria when he was named a first choice pick for coach Manu Garba’s U20 World Cup side in 2015. But Matthew suffered an injury in Nigeria’s first match against Brazil that knocked him out of the tournament and kept the shield up for much of the world’s scouts. The injury delayed a move for the creative attacker who can slot in wide or in the middle, but it didn’t scuttle one. A year later, Matthew clinched a move to Norwegian top flight club Lillestrom.

In eight Tippeligaen matches since joining in July, Matthew has two goals and three assists in fewer than 600 minutes on the field. He also garnered 260 minutes for the Nigerian senior team in this year’s African Nations Championship and got a call-up (but didn’t play) for 2018 World Cup qualifying.

Matthew is good. He’s the kind of player MLS could use, both to bolster its image abroad and facilitate youth. And MLS has apparently noticed. This from his agent, Atta Aneke.

“Already there has been interest from the MLS, but best he uses next season to attract bigger clubs. We should not jump at the first offer,” he said. “MLS, not right step for a young player like him. “He has been noticed. He hasn’t played too many games, but next season he will, obviously he is one player a lot more clubs will take note of.”

There’s a significant chance the impetus of this report is merely agent-fed bluster where it comes to Matthew’s level. Agents are often known to throw bobbers without bait into the stream and see if they get a nip from a bigger fish than they expected. It’s not like it’s never been done before, and the majority of that article reads like a fed recitation of a resume for prospective clubs.

More than anything, it’s the prevailing perception I’m after here.

But Matthew is quality, and it’s not a stretch to imagine MLS clubs have expressed interest, and the perception that MLS is not the right step for a “young player like him” is a damaging thing indeed. And we know from other reports it wasn’t said in a vacuum. Because ideally MLS would be known internationally as the exact type of league for a “young player like him.”

Of course, MLS is every bit as good, if not demonstrably better, than the Norwegian league in which Matthew now resides (perhaps Mix Diskerud’s flourishing in one and floundering in the other is proof positive?), but it still carries the residue of a retirement league label it is trying feverishly to wash off in the international space. And it isn’t an entirely unwarranted one for a few reasons. What do Nigerian players and their agents know of the Homegrown label, incomplete as it is, anyway? Or of Oscar Pareja or Matt Miazga? MLS is still woefully underfed when it comes to giving its young players minutes, but if it can’t sway foreign agents that it’s an appreciable step up from Norway, there’s a lot of work to be done in convincing young internationals (and namely their ever-angling agents) the league is better than advertised.

Perception is reality in areas where the league’s reputation is concerned outside of direct interaction. And in that capacity there’s still work to be done.