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MLS in Top 10 Strongest Leagues in the World According to OPTA

MLS Top 10 Strongest Leagues According to OPTA

Although MLS has been running for a long time and is undoubtedly the most successful soccer league the US has ever known, it hasn’t historically had much global recognition.

In fact, in many of the world’s biggest soccer nations, the average fan wouldn’t have even known that MLS exists. I hate to say it, but for English players, heading over to play in America could even have been seen as failing.

That all changed when David Beckham joined LA Galaxy, and although the league’s global reach dipped again after that, in recent years it has exploded. Major League Soccer now attracts some of the biggest names in the game, albeit at the end of their careers, and this has turned the world’s gaze more in America’s direction.

In turn, this has allowed the league to attract and retain more talent and become more competitive, to the point that it is now officially in the Top 10 strongest leagues in the world.

It jumped from 29th last time the list was drawn up, which is quite some climb, and arguably has a lot to do with the success of MLS teams in the Leagues Cup.

So let’s look into this a little more and think about what is happening here and why.

How Important are Opta League Rankings?

Opta LogoIf you don’t already know, Opta are a data and analytics company from England.

They collect every shred of conceivable data about every league, competition, game, and player, then use it to find patterns, draw conclusions, make predictions and so on. They are incredibly powerful in the world of sports, especially when it comes to sports betting.

It is they who have created the league rankings for all of the world’s soccer leagues, and decided that MLS deserve a spot in the Top 10. You can think of it in the same way that MLS use power rankings. It’s exactly the same thing, but for all leagues in the sport rather than all teams in the league.

This also means the list changes as players move around and teams do better or worse, so what is true today may not be true tomorrow. However, MLS breaking into the top 10 in for the first time is significant, especially with the World Cup in the near future, which is bound to further help the fortunes of MLS.

Here is the Top 10 leagues list in full:

  1. Premier League (ENG)
  2. LaLiga (ESP)
  3. Serie A (ITA)
  4. Bundesliga (GER)
  5. Ligue 1 (FRA)
  6. Belgian Pro League (BEL)
  7. Primeira Liga (POR)
  8. Superligaen (DEN)
  9. Brasileirao (BRA)
  10. Major League Soccer (USA)

The top 5 have been the English, Spanish, Italian, German and French leagues for as long as anyone can remember, and it’s unlikely to change. So those next 5 spots between 6th and 10th place are the most interesting, because they tell us a lot about the global story of soccer.

For example, the Swiss Super league and the Eredivisie both dropped out of the top 10 as the MLS broke through. This tells us that teams in these leagues have not been competing to as high a standard recently, and are not attracting the same high calibre of players.

The importance of this list depends on who you are and why you are looking at it to some degree. It has no direct impact on the clubs themselves, but it offers a reflection of the soccer landscape.

It’s probably most important for brand awareness, because each league is a brand, make no mistake about that. A league getting ‘promoted’ to the top ten strongest list makes headlines, which creates hype, and that brings business.

What About Liga MX and the Saudi Pro League?

MLS vs Liga MX and Saudi Pro League

The MLS’ closest rival in terms of leagues is Liga MX, from Mexico.

With the two countries’ proximity to each other and such a large number of Mexicans living in the US, it was almost inevitable that a rivalry would exist.

With club soccer rather than national soccer, the CONCACAF Champions Cup (or CONCACAF Champions League as it used to be known) is the best competition to use to examine this.

Top clubs from all over North America, Central America and the Caribbean take part in the competition, but clubs from Liga MX won it every year but one from 2007 to 2024. The only anomaly was the Seattle Sounders victory in 2021.

Yet, Liga MX are nowhere to be seen in the top 10 leagues, so what gives?

Remember, Opta look at all teams in each league to determine which league is the strongest. They use something called the Elo Rating System, which is far too complicated to go into here, but basically gives each team in the world a score. Working out the strongest leagues is therefore just a case of adding together all of these scores.

Liga MX is dominated by a smaller number of very good teams, whereas MLS is more competitive and the quality is spread more evenly across all teams in the league.

Look at this table:

MLS vs Liga MX

The top 20 list of teams from both leagues using the same metrics from Opta would contain 12 MLS teams and just 8 Liga MX teams.

So even though two teams from Liga MX have higher scores than any MLS team, when the leagues are looked at as a whole, MLS is stronger by Opta’s metrics.

It’s the same with the Saudi Pro League.

The Saudi League is the main rival of MLS when it comes to attracting star players who are nearing retirement. Both leagues have lots of money and are trying to grow their reputations globally, and with Ronaldo heading to Saudi and Messi heading to MLS, the ‘who is better‘ debate has spread from the players to the leagues themselves.

The Saudi league has attracted more star names, but they are only ranked the 26th strongest league in the world.

Here’s why:

MLS vs Saudi Pro League

Despite loads of huge name players heading over there for the pay cheque, they are all at a small number of clubs. There are 2 clubs in the Saudi Pro League that rank higher than any MLS team, but the rest of the league is weaker by comparison.