With none of the three MLS teams making an impact at the CWC, what can the league do to improve global competitiveness?

Seattle Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer was pretty passive when asked about his team's chances in advance of the 2025 Club World Cup.

"If we could get a result, that would be unbelievable," he told GOAL at MLS media day.

That was six months ago. Three CWC group stage losses later, and not much has changed. Seattle were comprehensively beaten by two European sides, and played Brazilian Serie A outfit Botafogo close. But they were, by some distance, the worst team in group B. Schmetzer knew as much. Instead, he chose to take heart from the performances

"The guys showed that they could compete with some of the best teams in the world," he said.

That sentiment encapsulates the way MLS clubs have looked at this competition. Three clubs – Inter Miami, Seattle and LAFC – were involved in FIFA's shiny, glitzy new 32-team club tournament. They combined for just one win. Only Miami made it out of the group stage.

In two weeks, the competition effectively reinforced Major League Soccer's place in the global game – a league with enough pride to take heart from its performances, but nowhere near the level of the best in either Europe or South America.

Now it's up to the league to decide whether its content with taking the black eye of home soil disappointment, or do something that can change fortunes the next time the competition rolls around.

Getty Images SportThe results

The first 45 minutes weren't exactly promising. Egyptian side Al Ahly told GOAL that they would be "the surprise of the tournament" prior to the Club World Cup's opening fixture against Miami. And in the first half, they played like it.

Veteran goalkeeper Oscar Ustari was busy throughout the opening period, saving a penalty and bailing his defense out after a series of individual errors. Miami manager Javier Mascherano would admit that his team were perhaps a bit overwhelmed by the occasion.

"We knew we were up against a strong team…The nerves and anxiety played a trick on us in the first half," he said.

They settled for a scoreless draw. And that was almost as good as it got. Seattle showed moments of fight against a Botafogo side that was happy to retreat into a defensive setup, but never committed enough men forward early enough to stave off a 2-1 loss. LAFC were seen off by a Chelsea side that never got out of second gear, with general platitudes of a "good effort" and "spirited performance" doing little to mask the reality of a comprehensive 2-0 defeat.

The best moment came from Miami.

Porto were admittedly poor against the Herons, but Mascherano's side were disciplined and opportunistic. Two second-half goals in the span of seven minutes led Lionel Messi and Miami to the only MLS victory of the tournament. In reality, though, that performance was Messi plus 10 others, the legendary Argentine serving as architect-in-chief of Miami's first, and curling in a signature free kick for the second.

Seattle lost two more – falling to Atletico Madrid and PSG. LAFC drew with Flamengo and fell, 1-0, to an ES Tunis side that deserved far more than their group stage exit. And after Miami were easily handled by the Parisians, 4-0 in the knockouts, the MLS numbers made for grim reading: 10 games played, one win, three draws, six losses. No league with multiple teams in the competition fared worse.

AdvertisementGettyInevitable result?

Of course, there's an element of this all that felt inevitable. Schmetzer was right in his pre-tournament summation: MLS was overmatched. The Seattle boss has long been one of the best and wisest coaches in the league. His words were hardly a rousing soliloquy of inspiration, yet they were realistic and, ultimately, accurate.

Players, though, were more mixed in their estimates. LAFC duo Ryan Hollingshead and Jeremy Ebobisse expected that the club could make it out of the groups. MLS Commissioner Don Garber kept the good vibes going, albeit in slightly measured terms. He described the tournament as "a chance for us to showcase out competitiveness on the global stage."

Mascherano made it clear that, although Miami had failed to strengthen its roster before the tournament, he believed his side had a chance to at least compete. The sentiment both during and after rather conflicted with all of the optimism. Sergio Busquets, who rarely speaks to media postgame, gave a lengthy answer about why MLS needed to reevaluate the way it looks at the league if they are to succeed.

"Hopefully (changes) can happen in the near future," Busquets said. “There are clubs that are working on it, others that are struggling more. It’s difficult with a league that has so many teams and operates in a different way, through MLS, which I think we Europeans aren’t used to. So, hopefully, it’ll happen little by little."

AFPMoney, money, money

Much has been made of strict salary regulations in MLS. Spending is heavily capped by the league. Over the years, those rules have have aided in sustainable expansion and club valuations, to the point that an institution 30 years old is stable to more or less run on its own. That is no small achivement. But what it does do is limit MLS's influence on the global game.

PSG-Miami perfectly encapsulated that. Miami were outplayed by the Parisians. But they have also been outspent to a dramatic degree. Their salary is six percent of PSG's. They have spent $26 million on players across the last two years to PSG's $445M. In that light, a 4-0 hammering is, honestly, a pretty agreeable achievement.

It would perhaps be too simplistic to simply argue that the league needs to remove a salary cap altogether and allow richer owners to spend recklessly. That will lead to serious lack of parity, and perhaps also leave less-prudent owners in financial trouble (not to mention the implicit concern of seeing the league lose the financial hold it has on its teams). Others have suggested putting a floor in place, which, in theory, would encourage lower-spending clubs to invest more, while also increasing the cap.

"It's the Palmerias game that HAS to be the game that MLS looks at and assesses how to grow the product on the field," analyst and for MLS player Taylor Twellman posted on social media. "Miami wins that game with depth and that’s the exciting part for the league if they want to bridge that gap."

Put footballing capitalism to work, and something could happen. But minute changes cannot alter the bigger picture.

GettyBad for MLS, or just another day?

The question remains, then, as to what exactly MLS takes from all of this? Are poor results an inevitable failure, or an indictment on the league's financial rules and restrictions? Should they be embarrassed or just happy to be here? Ultimately, it depends on how you might measure success.

Certainly, football is about brand building. Messi, for example, signed with Miami to win games, yes. But for MLS, his arrival was as much as about selling pink shirts, tickets and raising the visibility of the league.

And perhaps that's the broader point. Only Brazil had more teams from its top flight playing in the CWC. The Premier League, La Liga and Serie A only have two apiece. If this is a question of raw representation, there's plenty of MLS to go around (with the caveat that LAFC were late to the party, only earning their spot via a play-in after Liga MX side Club Leon were expelled from the CWC for multi-club ownership violations).

If there's one thing that needs changing, though, it's perception. Not everyone around the world has watched MLS matches, and as such, the global criticism of the Herons' performance has been pretty glaring. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who famously played in MLS with the LA Galaxy, pulled no punches in his criticism.

"This isn't the Messi I know," he said. "If you put him in a real team, he'd go all-out. There are no coaches, no stars, not even players who understand how to move without the ball. If he were on a real team, any great team, you'd see the real lion."