If you could choose any club in MLS to model yours after, which would you choose and why?
For you and I, dear reader, that question is a fun hypothetical. But for people in charge of running MLS teams, especially the league’s newest franchises, it’s a real debate. With three teams having joined MLS in the last five years, MLS is still very much evolving. There’s plenty of note-copying going around, which should come as no surprise in a league that’s just three decades old.
Ask Charlotte FC’s chief soccer officer Zoran Krneta what club he wants his own to imitate and you get a clear answer.
“I’d like Charlotte FC to become a Seattle Sounders,” Krneta told Backheeled.
Acutely aware of the limitations faced by teams in non-glamor markets, Krneta is drawn to an identity that doesn’t involve top-tier spending. “I really, sincerely think that most of the big stars, superstars, don’t want to come to Charlotte, Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbus, and Cincinnati. So we need to have a plan B. We have to be different.”
“Even Miami couldn't buy everything,” Krneta said. “They won the title, but over the three years (since Lionel Messi signed in 2023).” He noted that the Sounders “are not the biggest spenders.” Seattle ranked 20th in MLS in total guaranteed salary spending last season while ranking dead-last in MLS for transfer fee expenditure since the start of this decade, according to Transfermarkt. “Once they spend, they spend wisely,” he said of Seattle.
