The U.S. top flight is the 42nd best football league in the world. At least according to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics it is.
The organization is well regarded outside the English-speaking world - ie. the Spanish press reported happily today that La Liga has overtaken the EPL as the world's top league - but is the quality of play on offer in MLS really lower than in the national leagues of Egypt (23), Belarus (33), Cyprus (35) or Moldova (38)?
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I couldn't find an explanation as to how these rankings are calculated, but I suspect it's similar to how the IFFHS ranks clubs. Points would be allocated based on a league's clubs' performance within its own federation's club competition, as well as international ones. So perhaps it makes sense then that smaller European leagues would gain more points from preliminary matches in the Champions or Europa Leagues.
And of course, MLS clubs' collective performance in the Concacaf Champions League over the past decade has been shit.
The top-ranked Concacaf league was Mexico, at a fairly respectable and reasonable 12th spot (probably due to Club World Cup and Copa Libertadores appearances), followed by MLS in 42 and Guatemala at 59.
Supporters have been debating this question since the league started, but today's ranking is as good a news peg as any to hang another discussion on. Where exactly does the MLS fit in the grand hierarchy of world leagues? Surely it must be in the top 20?