Landon Donovan and David Beckham chose to spend their off-season in Europe. But today’s crop of stars are preferring to rest and recuperate before a hugely demanding season of play

Somewhere, perhaps in the garage of a LA Riot Squad member, lies a collection of rolled up banners. They were once used to confront David Beckham over his first loan spell at AC Milan, where he spent the 2009 and 2010 MLS off-seasons. “Go Home, Fraud,” one demanded. “Hey Becks, Here Before You, Here after You, Here Despite You,” another read. Beckham came good for the LA Galaxy eventually, but for a time he was the embodiment of North American soccer’s frustrations over winter loan deals.

The former England captain certainly wasn’t alone in his propensity for an off-season loan. Landon Donovan, Robbie Keane and Thierry Henry all made a habit of spending some months on a Premier League exchange between 2009 and 2012, when MLS didn’t quite command the full attention of its biggest stars. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to be there; it’s just they wanted to be somewhere else more.

Something has changed, though. The days of the winter loan – the kind the LA Riot Squad objected so vociferously to – may well be numbered, going on the basis of the past two years. Liam Ridgewell is MLS’s only Designated Player to be spending the off-season on loan in 2016, with the division’s great and good instead choosing to rest and recover ahead of the new campaign.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean that MLS is suddenly being taken more seriously, or that the standard of play is better regarded. The lure of the Premier League and the European game in general remains strong, as demonstrated by Matt Miazga’s move to Chelsea just last week. The recent stemming of MLS’s winter loan epidemic is down to a greater understanding of the division’s rigours.

The notion that MLS presents an easy challenge is one of soccer’s biggest falsities. The truth is very different, as so many have discovered. The standard of play might not be in line with the best Europe can offer, but the physical demands of the league are greater than anything else in the game. If MLS is a retirement home, then it must be the kind that specialises in endurance training.

While an away day in England might entail an infuriating hour of nose-to-tail traffic on the M6, with only a stop-off at a grubby Welcome Break service station for relief, it is more of a trek in MLS. Only in the Pacific north-west, or on the east coast, do MLS fixtures command any kind of away following, given the distances in question. Such travelling between fixtures makes MLS the most physically taxing division in world soccer, and the league’s biggest names are finally factoring that into their off-season plans.

“It’s a different challenge,” explained Didier Drogba when comparing the demands of English soccer against that of MLS. “People think it’s easy to play there. Believe me, it’s more difficult than playing in the Premier League because of the travel. You can stay at an airport for three or four hours if you miss your flight, so that is really what is levelling the game. There are not a lot of away wins because when the teams arrive they are tired.”

Indeed, the Montreal Impact striker consistently ruled out a loan return to the Premier League – or anywhere else for that matter. Of course, Drogba had his head turned by an offer to join Guus Hiddink as part of the coaching staff at Chelsea, but there was never a question of whether he would leave Stade Saputo on loan. And the Ivorian’s stance is reflective of a wider trend across the league.

Steven Gerrard was linked with a return to Liverpool just a matter of months after leaving Anfield, and has spent some time training at the club of late. But no loan deal was struck, sparing the midfielder from the kind of ire Beckham faced. Andrea Pirlo and David Villa have also resisted the temptation of a European encore, with the Italian in particular insistent on staying put in MLS, despite very public interest from Internazionale. “Lots of clubs have enquired about me,” he confessed, “but I have a contract with New York City FC and I want to respect it.”

MLS’s brightest stars are right to be mindful of the division’s physical demands, and the impact that can have on even the most weather-beaten of players. Perhaps more than ever – with the expansion of the league into Orlando and Cascadia – away schedules are affecting more than just the count of frequent flyer miles.

Nine of the 10 teams with the shortest regular season travel itineraries in MLS last year play in the Eastern Conference, with Supporters’ Shield winners the New York Red Bulls clocking up the fewest miles over the campaign – 13,383. The Columbus Crew – Eastern Conference runners-up and MLS Cup finalists – tallied up the second fewest away miles for 2015 – 13,794. In contrast, only two of the five teams with the longest travel schedules made the play-offs (the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Seattle Sounders). There is a clear correlation between distance travelled and points accrued.

Compare such miles with that travelled by English top-flight teams, and the true physicality of North American soccer becomes apparent. Swansea City were the Premier League’s greatest travellers last season, but even they only tallied 4,129 miles over the course of the campaign. Aston Villa clocked up the fewest miles over the 2014/15 season, travelling just 2,117 miles to 19 fixtures. To provide some perspective, Orlando City’s shortest trip of the 2015 MLS campaign was the 735 mile jaunt to face DC United.

Of course, MLS’s lop-sided fixture list – designed to mitigate the travelling done by each team – has to be factored into any mile-by-mile assessment, but the physical commitments asked of its players is in no doubt. The demise of the winter loan deal is the clearest indication yet that such demands are now being better understood.

All the while, the LA Riot Squad’s banners collect dust.