It wasn’t so long ago that even the prospect of Alphonso Davies’ 2018 would’ve seemed hopelessly optimistic at best. At worst, you could’ve called it a notch short of fantastical.
As it turns out, Davies’ sale from the Vancouver Whitecaps to Bayern Munich might end up meaning more for MLS as a whole than it does for Davies himself. And now that Davies’ MLS career is officially over—at least for now—we might’ve just entered an entirely new era of the MLS Homegrown player.
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PD. Post-Davies.
Before 2018, MLS Homegrown sales had been a speck of infinitesimal weight. By and large, European clubs preferred to simply poach the player directly from the academy source, before they were ever able to sign a pro contract. In other words, there was no sale. The player just left. Without a training compensation model in place in the U.S., the strategy was easy, it was free, and it was enticing for the player. Most notably, it’s how Weston McKennie went from FC Dallas U-18 player to Schalke starter within 18 months with zero dollars exchanging hands. It is one of many reasons young players who can afford the risk have jumped across the pond in ever greater numbers. There is little money or incentive to stay.
Matt Miazga’s sale from the New York Red Bulls to Chelsea for $5 million in early 2016 was the bellwether among the few. Miazga was not the first Homegrown sold, but he was the biggest, and certainly to the most prestigious buyer. Nearly three years later, Miazga is still part of Chelsea’s diasporic loan army, waiting with increasing futility to bust into the club’s first team.
In other words, MLS is still figuring out how to market and sell its kids to cash-flush European clubs. Which is where the market importance of Davies enters the picture.
Davies’ sale to Bayern Munich did not arrive in a vacuum. Bayern has been holistically encroaching on the U.S. market for the last several years in a way even the most zealous European clubs have not. They opened a well-heeled American HQ in New York City in 2016 and immediately put eyes on young American players. Just this past summer, the club took FC Dallas center back Chris Richards on loan to its U-19 squad. Weeks later, they brought Sporting KC’s Cameron Duke and LA Galaxy’s Ulysses Llanez on trial.
Even still, nobody could’ve realistically predicted what would happen next. On July 25, Bayern announced it was shelling out a stunning $13 million transfer fee for Davies. With the added incentives involved in the deal, it could rise to as much as $19 million.
That isn’t just the largest transfer fee ever paid for an MLS Homegrown. It’s the largest transfer fee ever paid for an MLS player. Period.
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To understand what this really means, it helps to understand how transfer valuations work. Think of player value as essentially tethered to four key metrics (there are more, but I think these are the most important as it relates to the final number at which clubs arrive): The age of the player, the strength of the league, the position of the player, and the brand value of the player.
Where MLS has been hurt most in international transfers, and especially among its Homegrowns, is in two areas specifically: perceived league strength and in total brand value. Chelsea fans outside MLS circles had to stretch to figure out who exactly Miazga was, but, more than anything, Miazga had to fight perception about his league background. But when Real Madrid onboarded 17-year-old Brazilian phenom Vinicius Junior in 2018, he had all four working in his favor. The Brazilian league, for all its many flaws, has a good reputation for producing skilled young players. With nearly four million Instagram followers, he player already has huge brand value. He’s young. And, as an attacking player who can strike clean free kicks, he’s at a high-value position. His transfer fee of $46 million reflected all four metrics.
Davies is the first Homegrown transfer in MLS history with the ability to break all four metric barriers. He is undoubtedly an MLS product. He may have joined the Whitecaps at the age of 14, but talk to his Whitecaps academy coaches—he was a raw, undeniably talented boy when he first arrived in Vancouver. He leaves four years later as a prodigiously talented young man, more refined in nearly every aspect of his game.
Here’s why @AlphonsoDavies earned the @FCBayernEN next year). pic.twitter.com/AempAFJQb5
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 4, 2018
He is young, of course, at just 17. And his brand value is untapped but potentially immense. With a breakout showing in Bavaria, Davies could potentially become one of the biggest non-hockey sports stars in Canada. And he has the entirety of the MLS machine at his back, willing him to succeed so it can collectively validate its nascent but growing academy system.
But the real game-changer is in Davies’ ability to shift, in whatever way a single person can, the view of MLS’s strength as a league.
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The single greatest barrier to MLS’s growth as a selling league is in its global perception. Before Davies, Jozy Altidore held the league outbound transfer record when he was sold from the New York Red Bulls to Villarreal in 2008 for $10 million. His time in Europe was largely a disaster. Michael Bradley was a success until he wasn’t, left for dead on the bench at Roma before returning to the league. Bradley Wright-Phillips, one of the most prolific scorers in MLS history, spent much of his club career before MLS playing in the English third tier.
These are tropes, of course. MLS is more than this. It’s increasingly a league filled with young South American talent, a growing number of Homegrowns, and better mid-tier talent fueled by Targeted Allocation Money, all admittedly new developments. But perception is king, and MLS is still losing globally as it relates to overall talent level in relation to much of the rest of the world.
This is why Davies’ transfer is so important. Or at least why it has the potential to be so important. It could not only help set a new benchmark for what MLS can produce, but also what its players can command on the global transfer market. MLS can’t claim Christian Pulisic. McKennie never played for FC Dallas. Miazga still has promise, but doesn’t have the positional cachet.
Davies is the most unique player the league has ever produced. He is now with one of the world’s five biggest clubs. According to Bayern coach Nico Kovac, Davies will immediately begin training with the first team, meaning the club understands the potential he has. And if Davies succeeds, MLS can set a new transfer fee basement. “You want one of our top young players?” the league can reasonably ask. “Alphonso Davies commanded $13 million. That’s where this negotiation starts.”
This is all contingent on Davies’ success. Should he fail to break through—which would be no shame, considering the long roster of Bayern’s world-class players who never did—then all this is quite moot. Davies will be shunted off to a series of successive loans, followed by a move to a significantly smaller club in Europe, followed by a slow fade to platoon status on the international level. Call it the Julian Green path.
But if Davies succeeds on the level of Pulisic, then MLS has an entirely new paradigm on its hands. It can legitimately say its academy coffers poured out an international star. It can command more money on the international transfer market. And it can claim a higher level of prestige as it seeks to continue growing its brand both here and abroad.
Whatever happens next, the Post-Davies era has begun.
(Photo: Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports)