Veteran Crimson Bulls defender Tim Parker questioned the course of the MLS and its push towards bringing in expertise from abroad.
In an interview with amNewYork, the Lengthy Island native and St. John’s alum referred to as it “unfortunate that the American player has lost some value” in Main League Soccer in his view.
It’s no secret that MLS has made a push to attempt to transfer as much as the extent of among the different high leagues world wide as a vacation spot for the game’s finest expertise, and the arrival of world famous person Lionel Messi has amplified the hope that extra large identify expertise will come to the US.
And whereas MLS groups are growing extra expertise by their academy packages, it’s changing into extra frequent for these gamers to make use of MLS as a stepping stone to succeed in European leagues.
“I understand it from a business perspective of the owners and the clubs, and bringing in guys that are young and then offloading them to Europe, or whatever the next step may be for those players,” Parker stated. “But at the same time, I think the American guys really do care about this league, me being one of them. I’ve been here my entire career, and I value everything it has. It does hurt to see sometimes that maybe we don’t get — I don’t want to say the respect we deserve — but I think the American guys want to play here. We don’t want to have to go anywhere else, so hopefully, they keep us around a little bit longer.”
Each native MLS golf equipment noticed two homegrown stars loaned out or offered to European groups.
Crimson Bulls defender and U.S. Males’s Nationwide Crew member John Tolkin was offered to Holstein Kiel of the Bundesliga and New York Metropolis FC midfielder James Sands was loaned to St. Pauli, which additionally performs in Germany’s high home league.
Parker’s feedback got here amid a stunning offseason, wherein the defender struggled to discover a new residence for 2025 after he was traded late within the season by St. Louis Metropolis SC to New England after which didn’t obtain a lot curiosity in free company.
The 32-year-old informed amNewYork that his agent needed to ultimately begin calling groups to see if there was any curiosity in signing Parker.
“I just thought it’d be a different process. I thought there would be a little more of a recruiting process. Not necessarily of us having to reach out to as many teams. I thought it would be a little more reciprocated,” he stated.
Parker is a veteran of the league and performed from 2018 to 2020 with the Crimson Bulls.
He had been named to Main League Soccer’s Finest XI in 2023, which is a designation that acknowledges the league’s finest gamers at every place.
