MLS vs. the World

One of the biggest headline-worthy articles for an American soccer player is where he is playing overseas. Even if it's as small as something as a trial or someone overheard a club might be interested, it'll get written about form every angle. The problem is there isn't a really good grasp on what countries have quality leagues or not. In an attempt to solve this problem, I took the top 1000 clubs from the World Football Club Ratings. I sorted them by country and tallied up the results.

Pos.Country.TtlPoints / # of teams in the top 1000.(Numbers from April 13th)

1. Spain - 40871 / 26
2. France - 40854 / 27
3. Brazil - 40826 / 27
4. England - 40797 / 26
5. Argentina - 40440 / 27
6. Italy - 37328 / 24
7. Germany - 33119 / 21
8. Chile - 29691 / 21
9. Portugal - 29079 / 20
10. Colombia - 28080 / 20
11. Russia - 27492 / 19
12. Mexico - 27401 / 19
13. Netherlands - 26813 / 18
14. Turkey - 25958 / 18
15. Peru - 23822 / 17
16. Czech Republic - 23057 / 16
17. Belgium - 22916 / 16
18. Uruguay - 22776 / 16
19. Greece - 22736 / 16
20. Japan - 22620 / 16
21. Paraguay - 22475 / 16
22. Nigeria - 22021 / 16
23. Ukraine - 21704 / 15
24. Ecuador - 19713 / 14
25. Norway - 19520 / 14
26. Algeria - 19306 / 14
27. Romania - 18468 / 13
28. Iran - 18329 / 13
29. Poland - 18137 / 13
30. Morocco - 17822 / 13
31. Korea Republic - 17279 / 12
32. Bulgaria - 17223 / 12
33. Sweden - 16954 / 12
34. United States - 16578 / 12
35. Cameroon - 16569 / 12
36. Cyprus - 15711 / 11
37. Zimbabwe - 15545 / 11
38. South Africa - 15493 / 11
39. Israel - 15461 / 11
40. Denmark - 15069 / 11
41. Saudi Arabia - 14373 / 10
42. Serbia - 14253 / 10
43. Egypt - 14188 / 10
44. Hungary - 13976 / 10
45. Belarus - 13928 / 10
46. China PR - 13791 / 10
47. Ghana - 13606 / 10
48. Wales - 13055 / 9
49. Switzerland - 12871 / 9
50. Scotland - 12850 / 9
51. Ireland Republic - 12813 / 9
52. Thailand - 12753 / 9
53. Croatia - 12661 / 9
54. Finland - 12540 / 9
55. Bolivia - 12424 / 9
56. Moldova - 11718 / 8
57. Congo DR - 11418 / 8
58. Slovenia - 11355 / 8
59. Tunisia - 11288 / 8
60. Austria - 11262 / 8
61. Angola - 11242 / 8
62. Costa Rica - 11193 / 8
63. Ivory Coast - 11147 / 8
64. Trinidad and Tobago - 11129 / 8
65. Venezuela - 11050 / 8
66. Kazakhstan - 10366 / 7
67. Azerbaijan - 10094 / 7
68. India - 9965 / 7
69. Slovakia - 9828 / 7
70. Guatemala - 9684 / 7
71. Qatar - 8804 / 6
72. Indonesia - 8360 / 6
73. Honduras - 8269 / 6
74. Estonia - 7828 / 5
75. Puerto Rico - 7232 / 5
76. Mali - 7185 / 5
77. United Arab Emirates - 7050 / 5
78. El Salvador - 6943 / 5
79. Panama - 6932 / 5
80. Australia - 6885 / 5
81. Bosnia-Herzegovina - 6771 / 5
82. Montenegro - 5522 / 4
83. Uzbekistan - 4538 / 3
84. Sudan - 4468 / 3
85. New Zealand - 4360 / 3
86. Papua New Guinea - 4116 / 3
87. Libya - 1367 / 1
88. Fiji - 1348 / 1
89. Canada - 1319 / 1 - (Toronto FC)

I think the top five are fairly interchangeable as far as the "Best League in the World" title goes. You may have noticed that multiple countries have more teams represented than their first league holds. This is taking into account some of their second league teams. (The highest American team is Los Angeles Galaxy, who sit at 208th, in case you were wondering.) I would say the top 26 countries or so have better domestic club football than the States do. After that it's too close to say who is better than who as one/two middle class teams isn't enough to show dominance.

This next list is the number of American players in the given country. These numbers take into account the lower leagues, which are not represented in the previous list.

102 Germany
91 Mexico
41 England
10 Denmark**
10 Australia**
9 Norway
8 Sweden
7 Netherlands
7 Belgium
7 Scotland**
5 Portugal
4 France
4 Israel**
3 Argentina
3 Italy
3 Greece
3 Poland
3 Switzerland**
1 Spain
1 Chile
1 Czech Republic
1 Bulgaria
1 Zimbabwe
1 Egypt
1 Wales
1 Ireland Republic
1 Tajikstan
1 Croatia
1 Bolivia
1 Venezuela
1 India
1 Guatemala
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina

** - Country with a weaker league than the US

The biggest eyesore is the absence of American players in the top five leagues. While there are 41 in England (although a rough estimate of 90% of those players are not in the 26 English teams listed above), there are only eight players in the other four leagues. Although Germany and Mexico hold prestigious leagues in their own right, if we're looking for our players to find tougher competition than the MLS, the answer isn't multiple leagues. As far as English leagues go, the MLS would sit mid-to-bottom-table in the Npower Football League Champion. West Ham would be a step up while Doncaster would be on par with an average MLS team.