By Tony Edwards - San Jose, CA (Feb 10, 2015) US Soccer Players - In the last ten days or so, the expansion Jacksonville Armada drew more than 13,000 to a preseason game against the Philadelphia Union and beat the MLS team. Minnesota United announced a preseason tour of Brazil. Indy Eleven released renderings for an 18,000-seat stadium in downtown Indianapolis. On the other hand, there’s Ft Lauderdale.

Jacksonville beat the Union 3-1 in a result that should have surprised no one, but is still a nice feel-good story. Jacksonville played a direct, pressing game, according to reports, and when you’ve got almost 14,000 people cheering you on, it’s easy to get ramped up. In the end, it means nothing more than a nice preseason result, but it’s a good way for the Armada to build credibility. It’s also easier to sell tickets to a first game and MLS competition than it will be against FC Edmonton, say.

Minnesota United announced they were going to Brazil for preseason training this year, following last season’s trip to England. In an interview on NASL.com, Minnesota owner Bill McGuire soft-pedaled the benefits of trips such as these, citing training, team bonding, and “…letting people know we are real, the league is real, and we are competent. We’re a legitimate club and a legitimate league and that becomes evident among other coaches, players, and agents around these countries.”

The unspoken text being, of course, that McGuire is pursuing an MLS franchise for Minnesota. The spoken text, even to a league website, seemed to focus an awful lot on phrases that still suggest start-up mode, such as “the league is real…competent…legitimate.”

Maybe that’s a message the new Fort Lauderdale ownership might want to take to heart. Yes, we’re still about two months away from opening weekend in the NASL, but it’s taken a while for Fort Lauderdale’s ownership to bed in. From the Guardian a few weeks back:

“The Strikers were runners-up in the NASL last season, losing to the San Antonio Scorpions in the championship game, but that team has been largely dismantled by the new owners. Despite the relatively successful season, Austrian coach Gunter Kronsteiner was let go, after he says he was presented with a new deal that involved a two-thirds salary cut.”

A few days after that appeared, the Strikers hired Marcelo Neveleff as head coach Touting his experience leading Bolivian team Wilstermann “to an appearance in the 2011 Copa Libertadores.”

Just because we haven’t heard of Neveleff doesn’t mean he won’t do a great job. It’s maybe more telling, however, that the ownership group that is setting out to make the Strikers the favorite “American team in Brazil” has around a dozen players listed on their website roster.

If you’re looking for reasons why McGuire didn’t promise the moon and the stars, look no further than the situation in Fort Lauderdale, which seems to be repeating every mistake in the American soccer business textbook. Overpromise. Overhype an international player who might not actually be playing. Talk about a stadium without any kind of a solid plan.

You can choose whatever narrative you want from the NASL this season. Focus on the issues in Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, the lack of any teams west of San Antonio, and the fact that Minnesota’s ownership is pursuing promotion. Or you can look at the improving quality of play, growth in places such as Indianapolis and Jacksonville, and paint a different picture.

It’s not new territory for an American professional soccer league, and it’s a familiar dichotomy. Since MLS expansion began to include an odd American version of financial promotion, taking lower division clubs into the league through that expansion process, the scope changed. Teams enter the lower divisions designed with MLS in mind. Others are trying to make a go of it as lower division clubs. Still others have intercontinental ambitions.

Atop all of this is the message the NASL sends as an across the board to MLS. They’re not about being the second division. They’re about being a competitive soccer league in North America. What that ends up meaning is a work in progress, but we can already spot the seams. How the NASL itself manages clubs potentially at odds with a shared vision is a question for several seasons, not just this one.

Tony Edwards is a soccer writer from the Bay Area.

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