As much as MLS commissioner Don Garber spoke about a shared vision during his Wednesday conference call, he and Jurgen Klinsmann are coming from different places.

Garber called the news conference as a rebuttal to Klinsmann’s comments in which the United States men’s national team coach questioned whether Sounders forward Clint Dempsey and Toronto midfielder Michael Bradley are staying as sharp in MLS as they would in top European leagues.

“We believe that the league and the future of the sport and the relationship with the federation are inextricably linked,” Garber said.

But as “frustrated as hell” as Garber might be — and as dedicated as both men may be to bettering the sport’s future in this country — their short-term initiatives aren’t always going to be lock step.

“Klinsmann’s trying to make the national team the best possible, Garber is trying to make MLS the best possible,” Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said Friday after training. “They’re both pushing from each direction.”

Klinsmann was addressing the situation of USMNT forward Jozy Altidore, who is currently struggling for minutes and for form with Sunderland in the English Premier League. Altidore has hinted at his desire for a January move — and plenty of MLS clubs would undoubtedly be interested.

“I want (Altidore) to get through the difficult time at Sunderland and maybe make a big step one day to a Champions League team in Europe because that’s where the top players in the world play,” Klinsmann told media in Florida on Monday.

Sounders right back DeAndre Yedlin faced a similar choice after his breakout World Cup this summer.

More and more USMNT players have chosen to stay in MLS, but when a chance to move from his hometown club to Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premier League came up, Yedlin jumped at it.

“I thought about it,” said Yedlin, whose transfer becomes official in January. “It would be more just to be at home. I want to challenge myself, being in a new culture, being around different people and being in a place I’m not used to. That was also a big part of my decision.

“Right now, I think everybody would all agree that … certain leagues in Europe have better competition than MLS.”

Just as Garber and Klinsmann are motivated by their own set of goals, each player’s situation is different.

“For Landon Donovan, playing in the situation he was comfortable in was very important to him playing well,” Schmid said. “His situation is different than somebody else, like Dempsey, who spent five or six years over there. That’s what he needed. That was his drive. That was his ambition.”

Dempsey, who Schmid said “was a little bit under the weather” Friday and wasn’t made available for comment, ultimately chose to come back home. He and Bradley have become the faces of their respective franchises rather than scrapping for minutes in the rotation of a European club.

Both provide different challenges, to be sure, and their own set of pressures.

“It’s good for soccer in this country that we’re talking about issues like this,” Schmid said. “In the past, nobody cared.”

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