In Major League Soccer, I'm beginning to think these are The Dog Years.

Whenever I'm asked "What does MLS have to do to make it in the United States?" my answer is always the same: "Hang around for 25 years or until people stop asking that question."

So, I can accept that MLS is in "that stage" of its development, the "hang around" years, if you will. But my acceptance of that reality doesn't keep me from getting depressed from time to time.

The sixth MLS season is winding down now and for the sixth straight year, the most important games of the campaign (except those played in Columbus) are going to be played on fields marked with gridiron lines and scarred by the studs of 300-pound men, in front of 50, 60, and sometimes 70,000 empty seats.

The most important games of the season will be full of bad bounces, impossible to control passes and the ugly battles for the ball that usually end up with a whistle and another break in the flow of the game.

The league says it's trying to do something about this problem. Seems every six months or so, we get an update on new stadium projects in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York/New Jersey. We hear that they are "moving along well." And then we hear the same thing six months later. I'll take their word for it, but it doesn't keep me from thinking, "Great, then what about the other seven teams that need places to play?"

I just can't help but think, part of the problem is MLS is just shooting too high when it comes to stadiums -- and that's why in six years exactly two good soccer venues have been added to the league. If more investors did what Lamar Hunt did in Columbus, building a 20,000-seater for $28 million, or what Ken Horowitz did in Fort Lauderdale, refurbishing a city high school stadium for about $5 million, the league would be looking a whole lot better today than it is.

Instead, we get word that the new stadium in Foxboro, CMGI Field, will "downsize well," which satisfies exactly nothing in my book. It's still going to be the Patriots' domain come mid-August every year, so even though the pitch will be FIFA regulation in size (unlike the postage stamp they play on in the old Foxboro Stadium), it's still going to be torn to shreds and painted up for Pats when the Revs are playing key games.

And we get word that Mayor Daley in Chicago may be opposed to the Fire moving to their own place in Arlington Heights, because when he pitched the half-a-billion-dollar Soldier Field renovation, his plan also included the word "soccer." Daley's opposition wouldn't mean a thing if the people at Arlington Park International Racecourse, the proposed site of the new $15 million Fire stadium, weren't saying, "We would never go against the Mayor's wishes." This stinks to the high heavens, of course, because first of all, the Fire need a place to play next year and, secondly, the Mayor thinks it would be good for the Fire to move into the all new, still-massive, still the Bears first and everyone else last, Soldier Field in 2004.

Doesn't anybody get it?

Man, I'm even skeptical of the "good stadium news" that's coming out of MLS these days. The MetroStars say on their web site they're "in the midst of trying to finalize its quest to build a new soccer stadium" in Harrison, N.J. The NJ State Assembly is considering legislation that would provide funding for a new arena for the Devils and Nets in Newark, and also for a soccer stadium in Harrison.

Why am I skeptical? Because the price tag on the MetroStars' proposed stadium is $70 million, which is, to me, enough to make the assembly opposed to it on principal alone. Man, I hope I'm wrong ... hope that palace you can check out here is a reality some day, but I just have this feeling it would have made more sense to pitch something, you know, about $30 million less?

But the MetroStars -- who have said all along they need the state's help to do the stadium -- think "the market" demands more than just a stadium like the one Hunt built in Columbus. Even if it means waiting until 2004 or beyond before they can move out of Giants Stadium.

Again, I hope they get their stadium. But I disagree with their logic. To me, there's nothing wrong with saying, "We're a humble league in a humble sport." I'm a life-long New Jersey resident, part of "the market," and I would have no problem watching soccer in a Columbus Crew-style stadium (which would cost about $40 million in New Jersey), with its blue collar feel and it's $1 bratwurst on Wednesday nights. As great as the MetroStars proposal looks on the web site, I'm skeptical that anyone is going to be willing to finance a project like this for ... I'm going to say it ... an MLS team. Especially one owned and operated by billionaire John Kluge's MetroMedia. I hope I'm wrong.

Before the Chicago project hit its latest roadblock, a league executive said to me, "The Fire's stadium is the thing that could turn the league around. If they get that stadium up and running in six months, for $15 million, this could be the thing that kick starts the league. If it's as successful as I think it's going to be, I could see them doing similar stadiums in Tampa, Kansas City and Dallas."

Personally, I think the move to better facilities in MLS is only a year or two away.

But remember, we're talking about Dog Years here.

Jeff Bradley is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail jeff.bradley@espnmag.com.