by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Apr 2, 2015

By Paul Kennedy













Bill Peterson

Haji Wright

Set to begin its fifth season on Saturday, the North American Soccer League has a lot going for it.Minnesota United FC was strong enough to beat off a challenge from the NFL Vikings and win approval from MLS as its Minnesota entrant set to begin play in 2018.Indy Eleven sold out every home game for its first season in the NASL, while the Ottawa Fury broke a modern NASL single-game attendance record (14,593) for its first game at TD Place in 2014.For Saturday's home opener against FC Edmonton, the expansion Jacksonville Armada FC has set its sights on breaking Ottawa's single-game attendance record and could top the record of the old NASL Tea Men (17,128). Armada FC is the 11th team in the NASL, which began with eight teams in 2011 when the league launched following the breakup of the old USL First Division.NASL commissionersays the NASL has more interest from ownership groups and cities than it has ever had at one time, adding the league has not even "scratched the surface" among the hundreds of the potential cities for pro soccer in the United States and Canada. But the fact remains, the NASL hasn't announced a new team since July 2013 when Jacksonville and Oklahoma City -- which never entered the league -- were approved. Peterson says the goal is to expand to 20 teams, but he says there isn't any deadline for expansion."I have no doubt we're going to have more teams playing next year than we do this year," he said on a conference call with media on Wednesday, "and when those are ready we'll make the announcements. But we're going to avoid having any timelines that we can't control."If Peterson sounds like a man who's cautious because he's been burned, it's because he has. The NASL has been quite successful with the teams that have gotten off the ground -- the San Antonio Scorpions, another team with MLS ambitions, entered in 2012 and the New York Cosmos joined for the second half of the 2013 season -- but the league lost a turf war to the USL between rival ownership groups in Oklahoma City and efforts to launch a team in Northern Virginia -- it even had a name, Virginia Cavalry FC -- halted."We are trying to be a little cautious and take our time," he said before listing the West Coast, Midwest and Canada as potential markets for expansion.Despite all its positives, the NASL is a league with an identity crisis. It strives to play at the highest level possible but it is the Division 2 league in the American soccer pyramid, below MLS at Division I. Peterson is strongly in favor of an open structure that would allow teams to move up (and down) the pyramid, saying it's the only way for the United States to become a global power.But as much as Peterson denies it, the NASL is viewed as a league trying to be what MLS with its single-entity structure isn't. Early in his hour-long conference call with the media, Peterson said, "We don't sit around trying to figure out how we do things differently or better." And minutes later, he said of the NASL model, "We don't sit around and concern ourselves whether it is better or worse than MLS's."The NASL model? The major difference between the leagues concerns free agency for players entering the league and moving between teams within the league -- total free agency in the NASL vs. restricted free agency agreed to in MLS's new collective barging agreement. Peterson trumpeted the signing of U.S. under-17 national team forwardby the Cosmos as evidence that the NASL is becoming a destination league for young players."This is a statement about how we are structured as a league," he said, "and that structure is very similar to leagues around the world, where players are truly free agents. For a young player like Haji and others, they can come into this league and know they've just entered the global soccer economy and that they're in control of their destiny. The length of their contract and the terms of their contract, they are all basically agreed to by that agent and that player, and they can set the course they want to set."Peterson is right about players like Wright coming into the NASL. If he wanted to have played in MLS, Wright's only choice would have been the team holding his Homegrown rights, the LA Galaxy. But in the NASL, he could have bargained with every team. He could have bargained terms with the Cosmos -- length of contract, option years -- that he might not have been able to do within the parameters of MLS's salary structure and CBA agreement. But the only way players like Wright control their own destiny better in the NASL than MLS once they've signed is that they can move freely within the league. MLS players at the end of their contracts are just as free to move abroad as those in the NASL.Peterson says the ability of NASL clubs to sign and develop young players from the United States or Canada or even other foreigner countries will be "a big selling point" as they look to increase their market value for sale on the international transfer market or move back on the free agent market. But only now is the NASL examining what development model to take. "We don't have a formal program," said Peterson. "We're still searching for the best practices."Until now, clubs have been free to do what they want on the youth side -- another of the aspects of how the league differentiates itself from MLS -- but only two clubs, Carolina and San Antonio, have programs in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy."We need to develop players through our own academies," said Peterson, who added that an in-house youth program could be tied to a reserve league.