``The league, American players are just getting so much better,'' DC United coach Ray Hudson said. ``You watch a game from last season, and you watch a game from the first year of the league, it's night and day. It's so much more energetic and skillful.''
Setting the scene
It'll be easier to keep track of who plays where this season. Six of the 10 teams kept their key players intact, a strong show of stability compared to last year, when Miami and Tampa Bay were dissolved and their rosters dispersed throughout the league. In addition, six coaches have now been with their teams three years or longer.
There was some movement. Chicago, unloading from salary cap strain for the second straight offseason, sent Josh Wolff to Kansas City.
The biggest trade involved the two teams that didn't make the playoffs -- United and the MetroStars -- with Eddie Pope and Jaime Moreno going to the Meadowlands to join new coach Bob Bradley.
Overall for MLS, any fears that last year's contraction would start an unstoppable downward spiral have subsided for now, especially given the tremendous boost the sport got from the World Cup. Commissioner Don Garber has said the league cut its losses in half last year.
The future, however, remains an unpredictable as a penalty shootout.
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