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| Friday, September 14, 2001 24:13 EST |
MLS talent better than ever
[Associated Press]
A rising American teen-age star decided to come home. A veteran
Bulgarian superstar decided to stay in Chicago. A Los Angeles team
won the right to compete against the best clubs in the world.
Santino Quaranta stands with MLS commissioner Don Garber on draft day. |
When Major League Soccer begins its sixth season on Saturday,
the talent on the field will be better than ever. If attendance and
TV ratings could show the same kind of improvement, the league
would be an unqualified success.
As it is, the numbers have decreased slightly for four
consecutive years after a promising debut in 1996. At some point,
that trend has to stop -- the league has lost $250 million -- and
commissioner Don Garber has decreed that this is the year it
happens.
"We've been relatively flat," Garber said. "Our goal is to
grow it. We've got to go up this year."
Early indications are favorable. Garber said leaguewide season
ticket sales have set a record. Soccer purists reacted favorably to
last year's rule changes, so the only tinkering this year is a
reduction in the schedule from 32 to 28 games, which eliminates
many poor-drawing midweek dates.
If the fans come, they'll see a Chicago Fire team rich in talent
and expected to take the MLS Cup title after losing the
championship game 1-0 to Kansas City last fall. The experience
inspired the Fire's flamboyant Bulgarian star, Hristo Stoitchkov,
to sign up for two more years.
"I enjoyed my first year with the Fire," Stoitchkov said. "It
would have been better if we had won MLS Cup, but I strongly
believe we can accomplish that. That's part of the reason why I
decided to stay here a while longer."
The fans can also enjoy the talents of 19-year-old Landon
Donovan, something the crowds in Germany never got a chance to do.
A U.S. national team forward, Donovan left MLS two years ago to
improve his game in the talent-rich German league with Bayer
Leverkusen, but he never got on the field.
Now he's back and playing with the San Jose Earthquakes, a
much-needed boost to a team that won just seven games last season.
"We don't want to place undue expectations on Donovan,"
Earthquakes general manager Tom Neale said. "That said, Landon
symbolizes a lot for American soccer and for youth soccer in this
country."
Perhaps the most important games played by an MLS team this
season will take place in Spain. The Los Angeles Galaxy will
compete in the World Club Championship from July 29-Aug. 12, having
qualified by winning the CONCACAF Champions Cup in January. The
trip will give MLS a measuring stick against world powers such as
Real Madrid and Galatasaray.
Fans of all 12 MLS teams can be heartened by last year's
worst-to-first performances by Kansas City and the New York-New
Jersey MetroStars. This will be the first season that three-time
champion D.C. United, hit hard by salary cap cuts, won't be an
overwhelming favorite to make the title game. Parity has struck,
just in time for some franchises that had been struggling.
"This is my sixth season with the MetroStars. And this is the
first time we have a set roster and system," midfielder Tab Ramos
said. "The other clubs respect our team now. We are no longer a
doormat. We know we have as good a chance as anybody in this
league."
While the league still gets mileage out of older players such as
Stoitchkov, Carlos Valderrama and Alexi Lalas -- who came out of
retirement to join the Galaxy -- it will benefit more if future U.S.
World Cup players such as Donovan, United's Bobby Convey and
Santino Quaranta, and Chicago's DaMarcus Beasley continue to choose
MLS over Europe.
"Perhaps our greatest achievement is the improvement of quality
of play on the field," Garber said, "the number of players who
believe in this league -- and want to make it their own."
Garber hopes more fans will do the same.
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