Current Portland Timbers midfielder and former teammate of Radamel Falcao, Diego Valeri, said that Falcao “would like to play in MLS” when his loan spell at Chelsea ends.
There have been hints that Falcao would want to come to MLS given that he has failed to impress on loan stints at Manchester United and Chelsea and his situation with Monaco seems to be at an impasse. And given that someone like Sebastian Giovinco was able to come from Europe in his prime, to MLS and get his career back together, Falcao may feel the same could be the case for him.
But considering that he hasn’t played well at all at Manchester United and Chelsea, is Radamel Falcao even good enough for MLS? No doubt he’s talented enough for MLS, I mean “is he good enough to earn the kind of big contracts that other top stars like Giovinco have earned while in MLS?”.
In case you aren’t aware, MLS and their teams pay their players a bit differently than other leagues. What I mean is the vast majority of MLS players make less than $1 million and even more make less than $500k. A select few, typically established USMNT players who used to play in Europe and former world class players past their prime make over $5 million per year. While it’s not as simple as this, an MLS player’s salary is based on how talented and how marketable they are.
Radamel Falcao, even with disappointing spells at two of the big teams in England, is good enough to play in MLS and probably even make an impact (no pun intended) for an MLS team. That being said, not too many people are going to come to a game to specifically see Radamel Falcao. Falcao is nowhere near worth the kind of money the highest paid players, like Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard are getting.
If I was a GM of an MLS team and I could get Falcao for $1 million or maybe even $2 million a year, I would sign Falcao as a designated player. But considering Falcao made $20.6 million at Manchester United and took about a 40% pay cut at Chelsea, he is not going to take another big pay cut on top of that in MLS. If Falcao does sign with MLS, he will either be taking a tremendous pay cut or MLS will be paying too much. So somebody will be getting screwed if this happens – either Falcao or whichever team signs him.
