It was exactly on this day, a quarter of a century ago, that Major League Soccer’s first game was played.  For the league’s first game 25 years ago on Monday, the San Jose Clash hosted at the Spartan Stadium D.C. United in front of a crowd of 31,000 excited soccer fans.

The MLS Road to Soccer Greatness

Like the rest of soccer in the US, the road of sport’s top-flight league in the country wasn’t an easy, straight-forward trajectory to the success and popularity soccer has in the rest of the world, but like most other things in America, and in sports in particular – persistence, determination and hard work are always rewarded.

And Major League Soccer is on its path to greatness, and slowly but surely becoming one of the biggest and most followed sports in America, as well as America itself set to become one of the world’s biggest and strongest soccer nations.

But like the rest of the world, Major League Soccer is now suspended all matches to protect player, staff and fan safety amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  So although a brief start to the 2020 season in early March, we did really get any traction this season, with most teams managing just two games into the season when everything came to a stop.

The shutdown came at a time where things could have gotten super exciting.  Two expansion teams, Nashville SC and Inter Miami CF kicked off their MLS inaugural season, bringing the MLS club count to 26 across Eastern and Western conferences.  David Beckham’s Inter Miami was preparing for its first home match when the lights were switched off on the MLS season.

Will the MLS Still Have a 2020 Season?

Sporting Kansas City coach Peter Vermes still thinks that Major League Soccer can have a full season this year, but whether that can happen or not is an open guess that anyone can take.  “I think one of the saving graces that we have is that last year we shaved off a month of our season” said Vermes.  “So I actually think that it’s feasible, I believe that we’ll get through this and have our season.”

Many sources inside the MLS already told the Associated Press that for now the aim is still to play a full season with 34 games, with fans in full attendance in the stands.  But with every day that goes by with things not only getting better but even worse (like the U.S. government’s extension of social distancing to the end of April), a full MLS season looks more and more like wishful thinking and less and less like a feasible scenario.

For now Major League Soccer is officially on hold until May 10.  But this seems to be unrealistic with every day that goes by.  One option would be the return to the MLS old schedule that runs until December.  Another is to take out non-league games (like Cup Competitions with Liga MX teams for example).

So we are all hoping that soon enough this pandemic will be a distant memory, and again stadiums will be filled with soccer fans that came to see their beloved MLS teams playing the beautiful game.  Until then however, let’s make use of all that indoor time we have on our hands to look back at the 25 years that brought MLS to where it is now.

MLS Faced Challenges Before

This will not be the first time that Major League Soccer had to weather storms.  In its first 5 years of operation, the league lost $250 million.  Even with the 1998 expansion, with Miami Fusion and Chicago Fire bringing the MLS to 12 teams, the league was in deep trouble.

In 2002 Miami Fusion, and another Florida club Tampa Bay Mutiny went under, and the league went down to 10 clubs again.  Only three owners remained in the league, with Phil Anschutz, a billionaire from Colorado owning no less than 6 teams!

The standing MLS Commissioner Don Garber, who took office in 1999 was a key figure in putting the league back on track.  MLS President Mark Abbott said: “In 2002, we started to implement a strategy…the men’s national team went through Quarterfinals of the World Cup (in South Korea), that helped bring a lot of optimism about the future of soccer in the United States.”

The MLS expanded again in 2005 with the addition of Real Salt Lake and Chivas USA.  And in 2007 world soccer star David Beckham joined the LA Galaxy, marking the beginning of the era of world-soccer celebrity designated players joining the league.

The day Beckham’s Inter Miami was supposed to host his former club LA Galaxy in the club’s temporary Fort Lauderdale stadium, he came with his family to the stadium to show support.

The second 2020 MLS expansion team has a difficult time of its own, where Tennessee saw tornados striking a week before Nashville’s last game, losing 1-0 to Portland.  MLS veteran and Nashville midfielder Dax McCarty took to social media: “Lots to process for all of us in the past few weeks.  For me, sport always unifies in difficult times but we are entering unchartered territory.”

For now the MLS isn’t planning any layoffs, but many staff are taking temporary pay cuts.  Garber, Abbott and Deputy Commissioner Gary Stevenson cut their pay by 25%.

Current Portland Timber’s coach Giovanni Savarese was one of the league’s players in its inaugural season.  He praised the leaders of Major League Soccer for how they are handling these difficult times: “the ownership groups have been phenomenal in the way they have been reacting to try and make sure they are proactive.”

Peter Vermes, the longest-standing coach in Major League Soccer, and also one of the players in the MLS inaugural season, thinks the MLS is in a good place to get the momentum going again: “I believe that our sport will, not only survive this, but I think it will grow and continue to flourish.”