We look back on a decade of promises, pledges and calls to action. Gathered in one place, they show that those who want to see Canadian soccer succeed really can’t be sure what to make of MLS, even though the league has been playing games on our soil since 2007...

Critics will point to Toronto FC’s 2014 campaign as the most high-profile failure in the franchise’s history — and that’s saying something. Apologists will point to the strides the team made despite missing the playoffs — again. So, is the glass half-empty or half-full for MLS’s poster boys for futility?

Well, at Tuesday’s roundtable, Garber confirmed that there isn’t going to be a new approach. When pressed by Leduc, Garber retreated back to the argument that U.S. labour law prevents Canadians from being domestics on American soil. He said a Canadians can’t be treated any differently than a Mexican, a Honduran or a Brit. So, Garber made it clear that the status quo will remain — and that roster equality will not become reality in MLS.

In North America, interest in soccer is at an all-time high. But the championship game for Major League Soccer doesn’t attract major media attention or viewership numbers. Here are some suggestions on how the league can turn around the fortunes of its marquee event...

But let’s be clear. If you want to bitch and moan about the Canadian Soccer Association legislating new rules, understand that’s the price that comes with not inviting Canada to the table when this deal was first hatched.

So, as MLS looks to tweaking or making major changes to the international rule as it relates to Canadians, the Canadian Soccer Association and the league need to set a goal that’s more cut-and-dried than giving more roster spots or even, gasp, dropping the Canadians-as-internationals-on-American-teams designation. Someone needs to write down a number. And that number would be a ballpark average of first-team minutes for Canadians.

If MLS wants to attract talent from abroad to boost the league, it must eventually understand that strictly following North American practises — such as trading a player just a few weeks after he’s been offered a contract — don’t sit well in the global soccer marketplace. MLS must compete for talent with leagues that regularly pay for their players’ accommodations and transportation, and who guarantee a player will be settled for the length of his contract.

As expansion ramps up, critics will claim MLS is watering itself down. But this next period of expansion offers a perfect time to answer those critics, to make the playoffs more exclusive. Even by knocking it back to eight teams, it would allow MLS to claim that, by 2017, you’d have just one-third of the clubs making the post-season. And you would have a situation like NASL, where games matter right off the bat.

Mirror, mirror on the wall — what are the biggest issues MLS faces of all? An upcoming CBA negotiation and uncertainty over the kickoff of the 2015 season. An increase in NASL spending that’s putting pressure on MLS to offer improved entry-level contracts. The fact that there are still wide gulfs between how MLS does deals and how the rest of the world does deals. We asked agents across North America for their input — and we got some very, very interesting answers. Here’s a rare peek behind the scenes...

In 2013, the chance of a Canadian player getting first-team minutes with an MLS side was only slightly better than it was in 1996. We looked at every minute played by all Canadians who have ever been in MLS employ; we found that, over the last four years, the first-team minutes granted to Canucks by MLS coaches have been in steady and serious decline...