MLS needs star power -- but will it do it the right way?

	Clint Dempsey (left) gave the Revs a spark off the bench, but his influence dissolved as New England lost yet another final. AP

At 3 a.m. on Sunday night -- or Monday morning, I guess -- Clint Dempsey was still on the lips of the well-lubricated socceristas at a last-call saloon in Plano, Texas. A few hours earlier, Big Deuce had stood by while his New England Revolution lost the MLS Cup final to the Houston Dynamo -- on penalties.

Why didn't Dempsey shoot? people asked.

He had come on as a sub in the 60th minute, after recovering from an ankle injury, and immediately changed the game. He was his usual punkish straight-outta-Nagodoches self, freestyling through the midfield and into the attack, dancing on the ball, and wearing yellow cleats that screamed "I'm the man!" Maybe a little too loudly.

Was he really too injured, as his coach Steve Nicol said afterward? Or did he wilt just when the world most wanted him to bloom? If he's going to be the man, then he's got to be the man, was the general consensus at the bar.

It was a purely contemporary Dallas spot: fake rustic décor in a prefab development. Shiner Bock neon signs and Dallas Cowboys schedule posters. Plasma screens showed highlights from the day's NFL games. Just a few miles from Pizza Hut Park, there wasn't a single bit of FC Dallas paraphernalia to be seen.

Maybe, I thought, if an entertaining native Texan like Dempsey were with FCD, this bar might actually care. But that's not in the cards anymore. Barring some miraculous turn of events, Sunday's MLS Cup final was Dempsey's last match in MLS.

His eminent departure has me in a quandary. That's not too strange. I find myself in quandaries often. But this one has me more flummoxed than usual.

A quick note: During MLS' annual meetings over the past weekend, the league's capos approved the "Designated Player" rule, a.k.a., the "Beckham Rule," which allows MLS teams to have one player on the roster whose salary is unlimited and is paid by the team -- as opposed to the league. There is some salary-cap calculus involved, but basically it means every MLS team is going to suit up one marquee multimillionaire.

The rumor is that Real Madrid marketer, I mean, midfielder David Beckham is headed to Los Angeles next year. Maybe Ronaldo will be in New York. Presumably these "household names" will pull in the screaming masses to all those shiny new stadia with sponsored names. Obviously, if Becks came here, there would be a bump in attendance, and an equally good jolt to the league's Madison Avenue profile. But I worry that it won't last long enough to justify the string of zeroes on his paycheck.

So my question is: Should MLS and its owners throw money at big names? Or should they use their precious resources to keep players like Dempsey here?

If pressed to answer my own question, I guess I'd say it's better to go after the big-name foreigner. The soccer world, unlike that of any other sport, is in fact a world. It's an entire globe. Bringing big-name, top-notch foreigners here connects MLS to that global matrix. It doesn't just help MLS at the box office, it muscles the league into the global soccer consciousness in a way that it's never done before. It legitimizes MLS in the cash-heavy eyes of European bigwigs, some of whom might one day want to invest in the league, maybe buy a team.

But MLS has to be careful not to pull the same mistake the NASL did by going for legendary over-the-hillers and mass-appeal marketing faces. Today's American soccer fan is too smart to be duped by a big name with busted knees and no heart. (Lothar Matthäus comes to mind immediately.) In this new league order, the teams need to go after legitimate name players. They don't need Ronaldinhos. But they also don't need pudgy Ronaldos with busted knees.

In the MLS Cup final, only Dempsey was worthy of "designated player" status. Yet, Houston's orange-clad supporters filled Pizza Hut Park to the brim, looking like a spilled bag of candy corn. They were a diverse bunch and they cheered not for any one player, but of their team. And that, ultimately, is what's really going to draw the screaming masses -- a good team, big name or not.