James Sands to start his first MLS game with NYCFC

It’s widely known to American’s and those outside of the U.S. that soccer is not the most popular sport here by a great margin. Most of the sports market is controlled by either the NFL (American Football), NBA (Basketball) or MLB (Baseball).

The MLS has been known mostly as a “retirement league” since many superb players from top European leagues have been known to end their career here. Beckham was one of the first world class players to find his way into the MLS and he’s only a few years away before the first season of his new MLS expansion team, Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami play. The most recent world class player to find his way to the MLS is Zlatan Ibrahimovic. At 36 years old, his best days are definitely behind him, hence the MLS being known as a retirement league for star players.

There’s a lot of things many of us don’t like about the MLS. I could spend all day talking about why a relegation & promotion system should be put into place but I’ll save that for another day. Today I want to talk about a homegrown MLS player getting ready for his first professional start.

A huge congratulations to NYCFC defender James Sands on his first ever MLS start at just 18 years old. As an American that’s very passionate about soccer/futbol, it makes me incredibly happy that our MLS academy’s are finally starting to grow homegrown players with a direct route into the first team. Establishing great academies to support the next generation of U.S. soccer is the only way to become better as a country and make sure we never fail to qualify for the World Cup again. No more embarrassing defeats to the likes of Trinidad & Tobago please, we should be able to beat them 10/10 times.

There’s a lot of optimism over the U.S. Men's National Team heading into the future. At the moment, we have a lot of extremely promising youth coming either through U.S. academies or abroad. Players like Pulisic, Weah, Adams, McKennie and Yedlin among many other American players come to mind. We can only hope to see more breakout players coming through the ranks.

Once again, I hope the best of luck to Sands on his first MLS appearance and that he fights for his spot in our young Men’s National Team.