Don Garber wants you to stop thinking of MLS as the place careers go to die. After 27 years as commissioner, he's leaving with a very different argument — that the league is producing some of the best young talent on the planet, and that the rest of the world is starting to notice.
"I believe that we'll have among the most competitive leagues in the world," Garber said at Leaders Week London this week. That's a bold claim. It's also not entirely without evidence.
The Guardian list changes the conversation
When The Guardian published its ranking of the 60 best young talents in world football, five MLS players made the cut. That's fewer than the Premier League, sure — but it's more than the Bundesliga. That comparison alone would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Cavan Sullivan headlined the MLS contingent. The 17-year-old Philadelphia Union midfielder scored twice for the USMNT in Mauricio Pochettino's first four post-World Cup friendlies, all of which the U.S. won. Adri Mehmeti earned his first three caps in the same window. Real Salt Lake's Van Parker, Toronto FC's Jahmarie Nolan, and New York Red Bulls' Caleb Simmons also made the Guardian's list — three players whose value on the transfer market is only going to climb.
Sullivan is already signed to join Manchester City in January 2028, the deal locked in ahead of his 18th birthday next September. City's financial rule breaches cast some uncertainty over the move, but the contract exists. A teenager from MLS is heading to one of the two or three biggest clubs in the world. That's the story.
Messi, Kane, and what comes next
The other side of Garber's tenure has been the superstar veteran play — and nobody has delivered on that more completely than Lionel Messi. Inter Miami's franchise value has gone from $585 million in 2023 to $1.35 billion today. Messi's jersey ranks among the ten best-selling in world football. He then carried Argentina to the World Cup final this summer. At this point, doubting what he brings to MLS feels genuinely absurd.
"There isn't a person in the world that doesn't know about Major League Soccer and Inter Miami, and Leo Messi's wearing a pink jersey," Garber said. Hard to argue with that.
The post-Messi question is already forming. Garber floated Harry Kane — England's record scorer, currently at Bayern Munich — as the kind of signing that would continue MLS's upward trajectory. "I'd love for him to do that," he said. Whether Kane fancies a move stateside before he's done is another matter entirely, but the fact that MLS is even a realistic option in that conversation would have seemed far-fetched not long ago.
- Cavan Sullivan: 17 years old, two goals in four USMNT friendlies, Manchester City-bound in 2028
- Adri Mehmeti: first three senior caps earned in Pochettino's opening window
- Van Parker, Jahmarie Nolan, Caleb Simmons: all on The Guardian's global top-60 youth list
- Inter Miami valuation: up from $585m to $1.35bn since Messi's 2023 arrival
Garber departs to chair Soccer Forward, the U.S. Soccer Federation's investment program, timed to ride the wave of hosting the 2026 World Cup. The work he's leaving behind is genuinely more interesting than the league he inherited. Whether MLS becomes a top-five league in the world — or whether it keeps losing its best players to Europe the moment they hit their peak — that's the question the next commissioner inherits.
"What's Cavan Sullivan going to look like when he is 26?" Garber asked. The honest answer is: probably playing in a Champions League final, not in MLS. And that might actually be the point.
