Take one look at the Gold Cup rosters and one thing is apparent: No league will showcase more players than MLS. The league has 32 players that occupy spots on 10 of the 12 teams’ rosters.
Gold Cup Preview: MLS Influence All Over Continental Tournament
MLS's influence on Gold Cup roster is spread throughout MLS as well. Just three MLS teams do not have any players on Gold Cup rosters.
The only other organization that even comes close to being this heavily represented is the English Football Association, which has 25 players on seven different teams. But even that needs some explanation. While MLS is an 18-team, closed league, those English players come from leagues at five different levels of the pyramid, and as low as the eighth division. In more of an apples-to-apples comparison, just 12 come from the top-flight English Premier League.
Even teams that primarily take players from their domestic league pale in comparison. Cuba only took domestic players, but their league didn’t send any non-Cubans to the competition. Guatemala sent 20 players from their domestic league, but just two who played elsewhere.
Discounting players that compete in their countries’ domestic leagues, MLS still sent 19 players. Aside from the EPL and MLS, no other top-division league sent more than France’s four non-domestic league players. Jamaica, in fact, has more MLS players (9) than even the United States (7) or Canada (6).
The Mexican Primera is widely considered to be the best league in CONCACAF, but they have players on just four different teams and 18 players overall. That total is tied for the fewest they’ve sent to the Gold Cup during MLS’s existence and is an 11-player decrease from 2009.
MLS may still have a way to go before catching Mexico in more meaningful metrics, but clearly the league is becoming a viable place for players around the region to make a living.
See More:
