http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/articl...ng-partnership
Finally this gets at what this league has been missing for such a long time: a place for players to play who have potential but aren't ready to make the large jump between being a youth stand-out and a contributing professional. This should be very useful for a team like TFC that's producing a decent number of prospects through its academy.This season, MLS clubs sent 11 players on either short-term or long-term loans to NASL sides. That’s a number that has trended steadily upwards since the NASL’s inaugural season in 2010.
Players like Bryan Arguez, Conor Shanosky, Michael Tetteh and Josue Soto (pictured above) are by no means big stars, mind you. But they all have one thing in common: They’re young players with big potential who have found minutes hard to come by on their respective first-team rosters. And continuous run-outs in the MLS Reserve League may not be an accelerated enough learning curve.
“We know for a fact there are some really quality players on MLS rosters that don’t get enough playing time to become better players,” David Downs, the NASL commissioner who's moving on to new challenges this winter, tells MLSsoccer.com. “We believe if they were playing in our league in front of 4,000 to 6,000 fans, with real men in real competition, that’s a better situation for them.”