As a league that plays through the summer (in the Northern Hemisphere), Major League Soccer is subject to the ebb and flow, players coming and going for major international tournaments like the World Cup, Copa América and the U-20 World Cup. It is enough to drive coaches nuts.

“When the sport in this country gets to a certain level, maybe some adjustments can be made,” Columbus Coach Sigi Schmid said Monday in a telephone interview. “Maybe we can talk about starting our season a little bit earlier, ending a bit later and opening up a two- to three-week window in the summer. It is something that has been talked about, especially in World Cup years.”

In Europe, the matter is more extreme because the clubs pay their players millions of dollars a year and are wont to see them traipse off to World Cup qualifiers or to Africa for next year’s Cup of Nations (smack in the middle of the European seasons). The difference, in the majority, is that the seasons for European leagues are suspended for major international tournaments; M.L.S. plays through.

This year, several M.L.S. rosters have been depleted, to differing degrees, by national team call-ups. The Crew was hit the hardest. Its top defender, Frankie Hejduk, missed time when the United States won the Concacaf Gold Cup. (Hejduk was suspended for the final, a victory over Mexico.) Now, Schmid’s team is playing without Eddie Gaven, who is with the national team in Venezuela; and Robbie Rogers, Danny Szetela and Tim Ward, who are with the under-20 team in Canada.

The conventional wisdom is that teams expect bad results as they struggle to replace the missing players. In the Crew’s case, it has had the opposite effect. After its 1-0 victory Saturday over the Red Bulls, Columbus (4-4-6) has won three straight games.

Schmid, who coached the United States team in the U-20 World Cup in the Netherlands two years ago, said: “I’ve never felt we had a bad team, but injuries and some bad breaks have hurt us. And, honestly, these guys are missing and it’s not a good time; we were just getting comfortable with each other. What people have to realize is that M.L.S. prepares them for the national team. They come back to us with more confidence.

“In these tournaments, there is a different kind of pressure. With the national teams, it’s all about results, things are more immediate. In our league if you don’t produce, you don’t get knocked out of the tournament. Playing with the pressure hanging over you is something you bring back and something that makes you a better player.”

Columbus is not alone among M.L.S. teams missing players. D.C. United has gone 2-1 since Jaime Moreno (Bolivia) and bOBBY Boswell and Ben Olsen left for Copa América. Chivas USA is 3-1 in the absence of Brad Guzan, Jonathan Bornstein and Sacha Kljestan.

Houston has been without the services of four players at various times over the past month, but has gone on a 5-0-1 tear. Dwayne De Rosario and Pat Onstad of Canada and Brian Ching of the United States played in the Gold Cup, and Ricardo Clark left for the Gold Cup and Copa América.

Only Kansas City, which is missing Eddie Johnson and Jimmy Conrad, has struggled, going 0-2-2. Chicago, too, has been hurt a bit without Justin Mapp (Copa América) and Iván Guerrero (Honduras/Gold Cup), compiling a 1-2-1 record. The Fire is still waiting for the arrival of the Mexican star Cuauhtémoc Blanco, who will remain with the Mexican team through the end of Copa América.

“When the guys come back, we have got to see how things evolve,” Schmid said. “As a team, you have to go with what’s been successful and make your choices from among who is playing the best.”

Fútbol and Football

It is only a coincidence that Major League Soccer and N.F.L. Europa began operations in the 1990s.

It is only a coincidence that soccer has long struggled to establish a permanent beachhead in the United States while American football has been seen as an interloper in Europe.

And it is only a coincidence that the same person, Don Garber, was once the managing director of N.F.L. International and is the current commissioner of M.L.S.

The demise last week of N.F.L. Europa (formerly known as the World League of American Football and N.F.L. Europe) drew comparisons with soccer and M.L.S. But Garber called them a stretch, at best.