The MLS has produced a generation of outstanding youngsters but USA coach Bruce Arena still wants his team to be considered outsiders.

The USA were so poor in the 1998 World Cup that they ended up with no points from their three games, a worse return than Saudi Arabia, Jamaica and Scotland. Japan were the only other side to end the tournament pointless but even they had a better goal difference than the lacklustre USA.

Yet in 2002, the USA team reached the quarter-finals in South Korea and Japan and were unlucky to lose 1-0 to eventual runners-up Germany.

Like four years ago, this USA side has plenty of determination, but they travel to Germany with a new feeling surrounding their squad: those of high expectations. Allied to that run in 2002 has been an excellent run of results and a stability of players and coaching staff.

But the USA can also put their new-found status in world football – this year they are ranked eighth in the world – down to the improvements in development of the country’s top football product, Major League Soccer.

Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley were the USA stars four years ago who represented a new wave of players developed primarily by MLS. Only five of the 23 picked for 2002 had never played MLS – but many of them only joined MLS several years into their prime. This is the key difference, as this time around, many of the players have been developed since their late-teens and early-20s within the American league. “Our young players are better now than before, because of the MLS,” confirmed USA coach Bruce Arena. “That has probably been the most important factor in our team’s development.”

This is the first youth development test that MLS will go through on a global scale. The core of the MLS representation comes from Donovan, Beasley, Eddie Johnson and Carlos Bocanegra, who is now playing for Fulham. The others will want to show that their country’s league is developing big-time players from the beginning of their careers.

There are rising up-and-comers, like New England’s Clint Dempsey who have won praise from Arena. “Clint needs to model himself more towards Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard: two-way midfielders, modern-day midfielders who play up and down the field, can attack and defend,” Arena recently said. “Not playmakers, not holding midfielders, but very active guys. Those are the qualities he has.”

More than the last time around, this World Cup will give a chance for the MLS to prove its strength among other leagues. For that to happen, established stars like Donovan and Beasley need to perform, and younger ones like Dempsey and Johnson must shine. “Eddie is looking sharp on the ball and he’s much fitter, and confident,” said Arena. “He still has that speed and that’s not going to change.”

Arena can still lean on four veterans with three World Cup appearances to their name in Kasey Keller, Brian McBride, Eddie Pope, and Claudio Reyna but it is the current generation and the one coming through beneath it that give the USA grounds for optimism.

“There have been more opportunities for the young players, as when we started in 1996 there weren’t any 17 and 18-year-old players,” Arena added. “The advantage we have is that we are developing our players at a young level, and that can only get better.”

As Beasley, another MLS product who has found success in Europe at PSV Eindhoven, put it: “We may have been put in a difficult group but if you are Italy or the Czech Republic, you cannot take the USA for granted.”

One thing is for sure: the USA team will not be the walkover they were in France 98 (three games, three defeats, goal difference: minus 4). More likely is another quarter-final finish like in 2002. The only change, though, is that this time it would be expected.