The scope of soccer at the adult level continues to expand in Washington state. Our growing scene features clubs in most of the national leagues, including MLS, USL’s PDL, PASL, WPSL, W-League and the new NWSL. We’ve also got an entry in the otherwise all-Canadian PCSL.

What’s left outdoors? Only the NASL (men’s pro division two), USL Pro (men’s pro division three) and the NPSL (amateur league similar to the PDL but less developmentally-focused) are without Washington-based sides.

That could change as early as this year, if reports from the USL meetings are accurate.

Jason Davis of NASN broke the idea:

The details as understood are:

1. If an MLS city has a USL PRO team nearby, MLS will provide 5 players and pay their salary.

2. If there’s no USL PRO team, the MLS reserve side will become a new, permanent team in USL PRO.

3. All USL PRO teams will have an MLS affiliate.

It’s unclear at this point how far along the proposal is, though separate sources have confirmed that discussions are ongoing.

Sounders Reserves to USL Pro?

There are no ‘nearby’ USL Pro sides for the Sounders, Timbers and Whitecaps to adopt. Will they join in what would be a suddenly large 3rd division?

Initial responses to the idea from soccer followers are positive:

The existing reserve system has been a point of concern for many of the technical staff in the league, particularly when compared to the robust reserve systems in countries like Germany and Spain. As an example: MLS teams were restricted to just 10 Reserve matches last year. The Sporting KC technical staff opted to schedule six reserve matches before May 15, meaning reserves had only four opportunities to play a Reserve Match in the last five-and-a-half months of the season.

Merging the Reserve League with a lower-tier league like USL PRO offers an existing structure for MLS reserves to play more games while providing USL PRO the marketing boost of regularly scheduled games featuring tomorrow’s stars.

The Sporting News ran this feature today:

“My understanding is there are some talks, and they’re very positive talks,” Rochester Rhinos president Pat Ercoli told WYSL-AM this week. “We were told that there’s something that will be in place for this next season, and obviously it’ll be expanded upon in the future. … Hopefully within several weeks, we’ll be able to make that announcement.”

The man who runs one of American minor-league soccer’s most accomplished clubs hinted that there’s been a holdup in releasing the USL Pro schedule because of the talks with MLS. It is understood that one provisional schedule pits each USL Pro club against a pair of MLS reserve teams in 2013.

“There’s some exciting stuff coming down the line within several weeks here that will encompass our schedule,” Ercoli said.

Meaningful Matches

The biggest gain for Major League Soccer clubs and Sounders FC would be the additional meaningful matches in which to develop, train and evaluate players…all in a national league that they don’t have to operate themselves. For local fans it would mean yet another brand of soccer in yet another national league coming to the state of Washington.