Teams around Major League Soccer (MLS) were shocked to find that they can buy players that don't go to international tournaments after realizing that Giovinco isn't leaving to the Gold Cup.
Garth Lagerwey, general manager of the Seattle Sounders, stated, "Wait, so they have a player that is one of the best of the league and they aren't going to lose him for months this summer? How on earth did they manage to do that?"
Buying European players who have talent but aren't good enough to make their national teams side seems like a difficulty under the current MLS salary cap but Toronto FC ownership (MLSE) stated that it was actually easy, "We found a European player that is good in our league who wasn't playing overseas, made him a designated player and backed a truck of money up to his door."
While this new approach may work for Toronto it has been decried by some in the league as one anonymous general manager had the following to say, "Sure Toronto may have the money to spend on a player like him, but we are still looking for those players from Honduras that don't cost very much money who will get called into every single international tournament that CONCACAF has over the next 5 years."
General Managers were surprised to find out that they could even go after players from Argentina and Chile who could be great players in Major League Soccer but where weren't even remotely close to making into their national teams. One anonymous general manager had the following to say, "I mean that sounds great. I don't really understand how any of this is possible, but I guess it makes sense. Out of a country of soccer playing millions, there's only 18 that really get called into Argentina at any one time. I mean, imagine if we could bring more players to MLS that are good but aren't Messi. It could be amazing. Then again, we can get players from Jamaica by offering them the ability to get paid on time and that scouting trip is a lot easier to budget. Plus, everyone hyper obsesses over players from the United States here. We would much rather have our USMNT players than someone like Federico Higuain who no one knows and couldn't cut it with his national team."