Josh Warren Hanover, N.H. What are your thoughts on the new, more lax foreigner rules in MLS? Clubs like San Jose for example seem to have eight foreigners, or perhaps for a less jingoistic term — players who cannot play for the USA — on their books (Khodadad Azizi, Ronald Cerritos, Abdul Thompson Conteh, Wojtek Krakowiak, Travis Mulraine, Adrian Narine, Mauricio Solis, Mauricio Wright). The obvious argument is that these players will improve the quality of play, thus benefiting the MLS as a whole and those Americans in it. Do you agree with this rationale? Are Americans with potential losing their roster spots to players who can skirt the foreigner restrictions? What about players like Robert Warzycha, Carlos Valderrama and Mo Johnston not counting as foreigner players? Mike Woitalla: You have certainly used a good example with the San Jose Earthquakes. But we really cannot consider Wojtek Krakowiak a foreign player. He immigrated here with his family as a boy and played high school, club and college soccer in the USA. He didn’t come just to play pro soccer. The last time I talked to him he said that he would be eligible to play for the U.S. national team. His Polish youth national team duty, he said, was not in an official competition. And it’s tough to debate green-card holders — like Abdul Thompson Conteh — because that’s a legal matter. MLS cannot put a limit on green-card holders. And I don’t think they’re a problem, because their acquisition of a green card, which isn’t that easy to get nowadays, shows they’ve made a commitment to this country and its soccer. (As opposed to the type of players we saw in NASL , who played here a few months, grabbed some dough and went home.) That leaves us with the four-foreign player limit, and the loophole that allows young foreign players not to count against this limit. But the league has set a limit on of 12 young foreigners, league-wide. So I’d say that it’s far too early to sound the alarm bells. Even considering the green-card possibilities, the salary cap prevents the league from importing foreigners in such a mass that they’d displace Americans. (Remember two years ago, when the limit was five foreigners, and about half the teams didn’t field that many?) Even if a team wanted to stock itself with foreigners — let’s say it could circumvent MLS’s restrictions somehow — financial restrictions would protect the American players. That’s because MLS Americans wouldn’t be competing against highly paid foreigners. They would be trying to protect their jobs from guys (besides the four “marquee” foreigners) willing to make less than $100,000 a year. American players should certainly be capable of that. If they weren’t better than five-figure foreigners, would you pay to see them? The other benefit of the “young foreigner” exception — in addition to the one you mentioned (improving quality of play) — is that MLS can make money off these guys if they become stars. And it would be hard to begrudge the league for seeing profit opportunities. More importantly, young foreigners may be the best way to lure good talent to the USA in this inflated player market. The time to worry would be when the league gets rich enough to buy high-priced foreigners and we stop seeing young Americans on the field. So far, I’d say the league’s commitment to young Americans has been commendable. We’ll see if that continues. Finally, I must say that this year’s San Jose roster looks the most intriguing that I’ve seen in five years. For a run down on MLS’ specific foreigner regulations, see the Soccer America’s MLS Preview (March 20 issue). For an in-depth look at this year’s foreign player signings, see the March 27 issue and articles by Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney. (If you have a question for a Soccer America Magazine editor, click “Q&A with SA Editors” in the left column of the home page under “Interactive.”)