The wait is about to end and Major League Soccer is close to giving the starting signal to start the 2021 season in American football, which will start on April 16 with more and more international reflectors, as a total of 77 nationalities will be present in the new MLS campaign, where Argentina will be the nationality with the greatest presence on and off the pitch, since a total of 45 Argentine footballers and 3 coaches They will be looking for the MLS Cup starting this Friday.
During the 26th edition in the history of the North American league, there will be a presence of footballers from the five continents of the world And as has happened in recent years, the presence of young Latin American prospects is growing more and more, due to the fact that it has ceased to be seen as a “retirement league”, to be an exporter of talent to European football.
The league of the United States and Canada has become an authentic Argentine branch, because after the local nationalities, Argentina is the country with the most representatives for the 2021 season, in a legion that became bigger during the offseason, thanks to Atlanta United, which added elements such as Lisandro López, Santiago Sosa or Alan Franco, on the court and Gabriel Heinze as new coach, while Hernán Lozada will arrive on the bench of DC United.
True to its custom, Atlanta United is the team with the most Argentine footballers with a total of 6, since López, Franco, Sosa and Franco Ibarra joined Marcelino Moreno and Ezequiel Barco to be the most Argentine club in MLS alongside Inter Miami, It will also have 6 Argentine players, among whom nothing more and nothing less than Gonzalo Higuaín stands out, who will seek consolidation in his second season. For its part, Matías Almeyda completes the list of the aforementioned Heinze and Losada, like the strategists with Argentine nationality who will be present in 2021.
The nationalities with the most representatives
After Argentina, Brazil is the second country with the most representatives for MLS 2021, with a total of 25 players, among which the arrival of Brenner to FC Cincinnati stands out, which became the third most expensive signing in the history of the league, at a cost of 13 million dollars, which the American team paid to Sao Paulo to get the services of the footballer of just 21 years of age.
Mexico with 20, Colombia with the same number and Venezuela with 17, complete the TOP-5 of the nationalities with the most players for the campaign that will begin next Tuesday and that will surpass its two predecessors, because by 2020 there were 75 different nationalities and a year ago there were 73.
These are the countries that contribute the most players in the 2021 season:
– Argentina: 45
– Brazil 25
– Mexico: 20
– Colombia: 20
– Venezuela 17
– England: 14
– France: 12
– Costa Rica: 12
– Ghana: 10
– Spain: 9
Uncommon Nationalities in MLS
The MLS opens its doors to soccer players from all over the world and it is increasingly recurrent to find players with an ‘unusual’ nationality for soccer on this side of the world as countries like Madagascar, Iraq, Estonia or Luxembourg, will have representation in the new campaign of a league that takes firm steps to enter the world elite.