“Scared money don’t make money,” former U.S. men’s national team midfielder Benny Feilhaber proclaimed to a half-dozen people on a Zoom call last year.
Years removed from his days tearing up opposing defenses for Sporting Kansas City, Feilhaber now serves as the manager of the club’s reserve team. SKC II play in MLS Next Pro, an MLS affiliate league launched in 2022 that operates in the third-division of the U.S.’s misshapen soccer pyramid.
In addition to using Next Pro to provide minutes for young players who aren’t quite ready for first-team action, MLS has used it as a testing ground for a number of different rules and competition formats. The off-field treatment rule introduced by MLS earlier this year that Lionel Messi took issue with? That rule was trialed in Next Pro first. The timed substitution rule that requires players being substituted to exit the field within 10 seconds? Next Pro did that one first, too.
Still, the most entertaining piece of MLS Next Pro is one that its parent league is yet to copy. It’s the pick-your-playoff-opponent format.
