MLS Bubble Bursts: Nancy Sacking Exposes American Soccer Delusions
Celtic's sacking of Nancy brutally exposes the void in MLS hype as U.S. fans' "bigger and better" bubble bursts spectacularly when they step beyond their sheltered backyard into world football.
Major League Soccer’s reaction to Wilfried Nancy’s sacking by Celtic has been as laughable to read as Nancy claiming he saw ‘good stuff’ in the six defeats of his 33 day reign. This was not just about Nancy as a coach; it was a stress test of a whole culture built on the idea that American sport is automatically superior, automatically bigger, automatically better than what anyone else has to offer. The louder corners of MLS fandom and U.S. soccer media rushed to paint Celtic as some backward, provincial outfit hiring one of the greats of the MLS that was destined for glory. How the penny dropped for the Celtic hierarchy - I did tell everyone at the time that the guy was a fraud - and the blinkered MLS fans.
What the ‘Fight and Win’ brigade failed to understand is that the world is a bigger place outside of their little MLS world, that we aren’t as blinkered as they are. If a club of Celtic’s stature in World Football needs a lecture in ambition from any league - its not going to be from the MLS where they measure their own importance based on vibes, hashtags and attendance infographics.
Simply put, Nancy was exposed for what he truly is a fraud masquerading and parading as some football visionary, when he was nothing more than the football equivalent of a hooker [with fridge magnets and a whiteboard] pretending to be a supermodel.
The same people that denigrated the Scottish League and Celtic are the same people who will tell you with a straight face that the Super Bowl is the “biggest event on the planet” somehow forgetting that multiple other sporting occasions – from the World Cup final to the Olympics – pull in vastly larger global TV audiences, dwarfing the NFL’s carefully packaged domestic spectacle - which is more about the TV ads and half time show than the actual sport itself. Their baseball champions are crowned in a “World Series” with no actual world club competition in sight. And when MLS sides finally have to step out of their little league and into the CONCACAF to face Mexican clubs, the record is brutal: Liga MX teams have dominated their MLS counterparts time and again. Is that why they are building the wall?
That is why the Fight and Win brigade look so brittle the moment anyone bursts the bubble that they live in. They bark about disrespect from European football fans, but when the numbers and trophies are laid out, their respect case disintegrates faster than a Wilfried Nancy defensive line. The league’s current relevance to global media rests almost entirely on one man, Lionel Messi. Since his arrival, average attendances have jumped by close to 20%, global streaming of MLS matches has doubled in his early games, sponsorship money has surged, and the world’s press finally turned up in Miami to watch him win more silverware. Strip Messi out of that picture and MLS reverts to what it has always been in the global hierarchy: a backwater competition occasionally noticed when it exports the odd player, not a serious powerhouse in the sport.
Yes, America may be hosting this summer’s World Cup and Scotland fans will be in attendance in their tens of thousands. And yet, the integrity of the sport is secondary in the States as FIFA’s Gianni Infantino has spent years courting U.S. power and money, publicly embracing Donald Trump as if that alone will drag the world’s game into some glorious new era. It is a pantomime of mutual flattery and soft‑focus “legacy” rhetoric that suits everyone at the top and fools nobody beyond the bubble. And that is the central irony of the MLS reaction to Nancy’s exit: a league and a fanbase desperate to be taken seriously on the world stage, yet every time they collide with the reality of global football, they only reinforce how small their self‑styled “big time” really is.
So when ‘one of the defining managers of the last half-decade in the MLS’ fails in the Scottish Premiership you have to question the quality of the MLS - a league that FIFA rank as seventh in world football. Clearly showing that the ranking system is just as corrupt as Infantino and Trump are. Scottish football fans are renowned across the world for their dedication, passion and support of their teams. What are MLS/Amercian soccer fans renowned for?
So while Nancy ultimately returns to his comfort bubble in the MLS at some point, Celtic fans welcome back a true football manager in the guise of Martin O’Neill until the end of the season and one who knows what it takes to win games rather than one coming from a league where just participating means you get a trophy.
As one Crew blogger stated ahead of the Frenchman’s managerial appointment at Celtic, “There will never be another manager like Wilfried Nancy”. Thank god for that.
Bang on the dime again, Andy.
The MLS is a glorified amateur league for washed up superstars like Messi and Beckham e tal, and wannabe footballer mercenaries from around the globe, a pretend footballing league, which is more like a pageantry of family day outings to watch all the razzamatazz, glitter and tinsel, for something which masquerades as a footballing experience, with rewards and prizes for all who participate. Those footballing mercenaries go there to make a quick buck in the twilight of their careers, just like many of them are now getting drawn to the rich laden Saudi Arabia Al-Ahli, in their pro league, can't say I blame them, because most of them have families, and need the dough to support them. But thank God for the Celtic fans, that the chanty wrastlers Wilfried Nancy, Ampadu, and their sidekicks have departed, it's cost the buffoons in the Celtic Board £3M to pay these footballing frauds off, and don't forget it was the snake oil salesman Paul Tisdale who started this whole shebang off. Time for an Andy Muirhead special expose on the insidious role of Tisdale next ? In this disastrous Scottish/British footballing exercise, which will be used for decades by football historians and buffs, as a test case/precedent of how a great club like Glasgow Celtic self sabotaged themselves, their club and their own long suffering fans. ?