Sports are built on the premise that winning is the objective. People don't play to lose, and fans don’t like watching losing teams.

However, over the past year, I’ve been troubled by what seems to be a recurring trend in how fans analyze their teams, specifically ones that sucked for a while, but are starting to turn things around. 

In some soccer leagues, there are the usual giants: Barcelona, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, and more. In MLS, however, there’s a lot of parity, meaning that rebuilds can seemingly happen overnight. 

Yet, it seems like Inter Miami and the LA teams are the only ones that seem to have everything going right for them. Across the board, there’s a sense of dissatisfaction in the fanbases of every other team because they’re not operating like the “big” clubs in a league that supposedly has a lot of parity. 

This in turn could lead to consistently high expectations that are likely not to be met short-term and shortens the leash on a group of front office executives that need several years to develop a project. 

I do believe that keeping teams accountable is important, but not every season that ends without a trophy or deep playoff run is automatically a failure, and labelling a process that for most teams is a multi-year one as an example of a front office not being ambitious enough has the unintended effect of hindering a team’s development. 

So where do we draw the line? What level of accountability is acceptable and what level is hurting the teams you want to succeed?

I believe nuance in football is important, and steps to success are relative. For a team that consistently finishes below the top half of the MLS table to become conference contenders overnight is a step to success, and maintaining that higher level is just as important to the first step. But, another dramatic jump is unlikely, so if the expectation is to suddenly compete for an MLS Cup, not meeting it will result in more harm than good. Expectations should be relative to where the team was two or three years before now, not where other teams currently are. 

I feel like Giannis Antetokounmpo, an NBA champion, said it best. 

“You work towards a goal — it’s not a failure. It’s steps to success… “Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure?"

Expecting success every year in sports will only lead to disappointment, but expecting steps to success builds a positive atmosphere each day, each week, and each year.