Reports out of Philadelphia say MLS could be naming that city the 16th expansion franchise any day now, barring some late-breaking calamity. Late-breaking calamities aren’t entirely out of the question in these things, and there’s always the chance of the funding going haywire if some Pennsylvania politician decides he or she needs a new bridge in their city.

And while this pushes St. Louis back to bidding to be team No. 17, getting Philadelphia taken care is probably a good thing. The league has been fixated on getting Philadelphia taken care of and once that’s done, that distraction is gone and a well-qualified St. Louis bid can be considered on its own merits, which are abundant. As someone says in the Inquirer story, if the league wanted St. Louis now, it could have done it months ago. It wants Philadelphia first, and it looks like it’s going to get it. And as Jeff Cooper has said, an MLS with a team in Philadelphia is a better, stronger MLS.

One risk, and this speaks to the league in general, is that there will be a lot of teams entering the league in a short period of time. San Jose in 2008, Seattle and probably Philadelphia in 2009, maybe St. Louis and someone else in 2010. That could be at least 100 new players the league needs in three years. Yes, there is a worldwide market of soccer players, and a lot of domestic production, but that’s just a lot of new people. And then you add in the normal churn in the league of guys getting old or just being replaced. It could be a good time to be an American soccer player.