By Graham Parker/The Guardian

Monday’s news that Haji Wright, the 17-year-old US prospect, had signed with the New York Cosmos offset what’s been a difficult week for the North American Soccer League.
The announcement of Minnesota United as the latest MLS expansion team last week, was greeted with congratulations through gritted teeth by their current home NASL, which has done its best to portray that deal as an endorsement of its own league’s quality, but whose staff privately feel aggrieved by what they see as yet another encroachment on their terrain by MLS.
But having one of their teams, albeit the somewhat rogue state of exception that is the Cosmos, land Wright from under the noses of MLS, is possibly a rather more tangible endorsement for the league from one of the USA’s brightest young prospects.
Wright has been part of the international set-up since being called up for the under-14 side three years ago, but has really come to the fore in his performances for the U-17 team – helping them qualify for this summer’s World Cup in Chile, and scoring 18 goals in 22 games for them in 2014. While much of the focus on his particular generation of players has been on the eligibility of Arsenal’s Gedion Zelalem, three months Wright’s senior, there’s been at least as much excitement about the homegrown talent of Wright, albeit with the usual caveats about making premature judgements on players.
Significantly, from a local politics point of view, Wright has progressed as a member of LA Galaxy’s academy team – and given the trajectory of Gyassi Zardes from homegrown player to Galaxy regular to emerging full international talent, it would have been reasonable to expect Wright to continue developing with the Galaxy for the foreseeable future – so the decision to jump to NASL and the Cosmos is certainly an eyebrow-raising one.
Wright himself said of his decision, “The team plays with an attacking mindset that fits my style and I think it’s the perfect environment for the next stage of my development,” adding, “Getting the chance to train with and learn from world-class players such as Raúl and Marcos Senna is any player’s dream.”
Raúl of course, is more typical of the profile of eye-catching Cosmos signing, though it was an intriguing component of his arrival in New York that he will also be responsible for aspects of the team’s youth development.
And the Raúl connection makes even more sense when you consider that Wright trained as a “guest player” with Schalke 04 last summer. Existing regulations mean that Raúl’s former club would not be able to sign Wright until next March, so if the player were to end up in Germany, the timing of a stint in NASL under Raúl’s influence makes a certain sense. It’s unlikely Wright will be with the Cosmos for long.But it still bucks a trend for Wright to make this move, and that’s welcome news for NASL, who with Minnesota’s defection will lose their most high-profile player success story in US international Miguel Ibarra.
Being able to demonstrate an alternative model, whether for player development, or of an open league structure, is at the heart of how NASL continually seek to present themselves, to the ongoing annoyance of MLS. The sniping between the two has become more pointed of late, with NASL noting MLS moves into their markets (most obviously with Minnesota, but also with the decision to start an MLS franchise in Atlanta, where the NASL Silverbacks play). NASL have also questioned the basis of US Soccer Federation’s designation of MLS as a division one league, NASL as division two and USL as division three, when there is no mechanism for movement between them such as promotion/relegation.