There truly hasn’t been a team to carve out their own slice of Americana in quite the way Wrexham A.F.C. has. Three years ago, if you’d heard of Wrexham and you didn’t live in the United Kingdom or have any family lineage in Wales, I’ll brand you a liar. The former-fifth-division side in the UK just gained promotion to League Two. Traditionally, the top four leagues, with the Premier League at the helm, represent the professional leagues in the United Kingdom. Wrexham is cashing in on its new-found popularity thanks to the Hollywood backing of owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, alongside the hit FX show Welcome to Wrexham, with an American tour playing the wide disparity of opponents. Both Manchester United and LA Galaxy II, the reserve side of a Major League Soccer franchise, are on the docket. And with the now-fourth-tier Wrexham taking a victory lap in the homeland of Wade Wilson and Mac, let’s make something clear: Wrexham would get wrecked in the MLS.
The Red Dragons would be the worst team in the highest tier of American and Canadian professional soccer and it would be by a wide margin. MLS has plenty of faults and couldn’t touch the quality of several other leagues worldwide, most of which are in Europe. Forgetting how far you’d fall to reach the fifth level of football in the UK and thinking a safe platform would be stateside is beyond foolish. Most teams in League One, the tier above where Wrexham will play next season couldn’t keep up with the last-place team in the MLS, much less a team that played two tiers below that for the last 15 seasons. Per the competition, Wrexham was one of the UK’s best teams over the last year as a team that garnered more than enough talent to be promoted into League Two a year ago. And with how much Wrexham could spend this summer and forthcoming winter, back-to-back promotions aren’t off the table. Looking at the current squad, being blinded by the co-stars of Morena Baccarin, or Danny DeVito, is the only excuse to think it’d compete.
How Wrexham would fare in MLS
Let’s take the MLS’ worst team, which is somehow Sporting Kansas City with three points from the team’s first 10 games. Seven losses, three ties, and zero wins. None, zilch. Nein. And Sporting is the only team in the league to not win a game. And with how much talent is on that roster, even in the doldrums, it’s a 5-1 win over Wrexham. The Welsh jumbo shrimp have players who’ve played professionally at times, sure, compared to the entire roster in Kansas City. And even with the team’s struggles, give me Peter Vermes, who was good enough on the sideline to coach the United States men’s national team a while back, over Wrexham’s Phil Parkinson. The English manager has some impressive credentials, coaching former Premier League sides Bolton, and Sunderland. But they weren’t close to top-flight form when Parkinson patrolled the sideline.
The joyride coming from being the professional child of McElhenney and Reynolds is well deserved and I genuinely liked every single episode of Welcome to Wrexham. Believing Wrexham would do anything other than sputter out of control with the ramp-up in competition coming from the MLS is mind-numbing. Just enjoy how a small Welsh club has captured the hearts of many and not get carried away.