They made some deal with the MLS Player Association.

Its still related to the MLS. It wont matter for regular people if its union or whatever as long as the players promote it.

try to change the design to foosball, button football, beach football, or indoor football, what partly explain the 7 players, and the gameplay, the plenty goals, wild results.

As long as there is a clear design decision im fine with it. As long as it is something. This here doesnt look like anything really.

Have you ever seen any kind of football game without competitions? Without some league system (with prizes, relegation, promotion etc.) and at least 1-2 cups?

I had a lot of understanding until the point I actually saw it. I dont know, but it feels like the developers working on this are extremely poor. Maybe im wrong, maybe its the lack of funds but the fact they released this as if everything is fine with it, ready for beta testing shows that there is something very wrong there.

instead of admit their faults and try to correct it as fast as they can.

Ill give the game a shot once it comes out. The game looks terrible but there might be some redeeming features. If splinterlands does well, maybe they get some decent devs on GLG and maybe they manage to find 1 person that has watched at least a single football game in their life to help design this.
The crypto space is dumb, and often doesnt make sense. So who knows... stranger gambles paid off.