Is Houston Dynamo target John McGinn a wise alternative to MLS's big stars?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/23/houston-dynamo-john-mcginn-mls

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Just days after Steven Gerrard made his debut for the LA Galaxy, in front of a packed StubHub Center crowd, another British midfielder flew into the US – although there was no such fanfare to greet him upon arrival at Houston. John McGinn hardly carries the repute or sparkle of someone like Gerrard, but the Dynamo see the 20-year-old Scot as a significant coup of their own – and rightly so.

McGinn is one the brightest young Scottish talents right now, as captain of the country’s under-21 team with 87 top-flight appearances for St Mirren to his name before he’s even old enough to buy a Lone Star beer. But he is now out of contract and actively searching for a new club, with Hearts, Hibs and a number of English teams reported to be interested – although it is Dundee United who are believed to hold the most competition for Dynamo. Even Celtic – dominant giants of the Scottish game – have previously been linked with a move for the midfielder.

Yet McGinn is looking further afield, and spent last week training with the Houston Dynamo as talks continued between the player and the MLS side. Fans might not be overly familiar with a player who has only made an impression within Scotland, but McGinn would represent an exciting capture for a team that hasn’t always been the most inspiring in the transfer market.

“John’s a terrific young player,” Houston boss Owen Coyle told MLSSoccer.com. “He’s an outstanding young player and he’s one that I’d like to have here at Houston Dynamo, that goes without saying.” The apparent viability of a move for McGinn has been met with surprise in Scotland, with many still of the opinion that MLS is a retirement home. Houston’s move for the former St Mirren midfielder could blaze a trail for many who had never even considered such a route.

Nonetheless, while the LA Galaxy are splurging $10m a season on contracts for Gerrard and Giovani dos Santos, the Houston Dynamo – both owned by the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) – are forced to be smarter with their transfer movements, looking to slightly more obscure markets for talent. McGinn shows on how shrewd scouting could draw the likes of Houston closer to those in MLS that can afford the marquee signings that come with a Times Square billboard.

It’s not that McGinn is better than Gerrard, Giovani or even Frank Lampard, Kaka, David Villa, Andrea Pirlo and the rest. It’s more that he’s a different kind of signing – providing MLS with his own degree of quality, but also making a statement of its own. The old retirement home saw certainly isn’t applicable to McGinn, a fledgling with his pick of several British clubs to choose from. Towards the end of last year, St Mirren coach Gary Teale claimed that only “ridiculous” would prise him away from the Paisley club. Now he could join Houston for nothing, and the should be taken as a small victory for MLS.

What is concerning for Scottish clubs, in the eventuality of McGinn’s move to the United States, is that MLS is in a position to poach more of the country’s best young talent. Even with someone like McGinn – unattached and out of contract – European clubs are required to pay a development fee when signing players under the age of 24, with St Mirren set to receive somewhere in the region of between £200,000 and £270,000 should their former midfielder sign for another team. MLS clubs however, are exempt from these rules, and so St Mirren will receive nothing if McGinn decides to join the Houston Dynamo – or any other US team, for that matter.

Such is the financial insecurity of Scottish soccer, players are often signed up to short-term contracts – leaving the free agent market at the end of each season decidedly fluid. That’s where MLS could benefit, holding an advantage over British suitors for free agents. McGinn’s move to Houston could set a precedent, or at least open up a new avenue for clubs in North America.

Maybe we should rein in such analysis just a little while the move remains in the balance. Coyle has gushed about the quality of McGinn – with the player also believed to be keen on a move to Houston – but a deal between the two parties might be complicated by MLS’s rules on international roster spots.

The Dynamo are thought to have six such places this season, but with all of them currently filled McGinn will have to wait until an occupying player is traded out, another spot is traded in or until one of Houston’s international players is naturalised – and that process can take just as long for a professional sportsman as it can for a civilian. “If we’re able to manage a couple of those and some movement happened then we would obviously look to do something,” confirmed Coyle, referring to Houston’s lack of roster space.

And so McGinn is training with the Dynamo indefinitely until a solution can be found. The current circumstance must be a frustrating one for both player and club, although the midfielder is probably glad to be back merely training having missed the final portion of last season following a freak training ground incident, which involved him being spiked with a training pole thrown by St Mirren captain, Steven Thompson.

But now fully fit and ready to play, McGinn would provide Houston with a degree of guile and invention that they are perhaps lacking. The Scot is certainly good enough to hold down a first-team place in Texas – a “fantastic young player” in Coyle’s opinion – and would surely become a key player for the Dynamo in no time at all. The likes of Gerrard, Lampard, Pirlo et al might be off-limits to much of MLS, but that doesn’t mean the rest can’t find their own transfer market gems. Big signings aren’t always showered in ticker-tape.