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| Tuesday, October 22, 2002 16:42 EST |
Captain Cobi finally a cup champion
By Marc Connolly
[ESPN.com]
FOXBORO, Mass. -- Cobi Jones came barreling through a pack of photographers towards the locker room when he heard a familiar voice to his right that stopped him dead in his tracks.
Well worth the wait: Cobi Jones lifts the championship silverware. |
"I have nothing on you anymore," said the voice.
Cobi turned to see that it was Bruce Arena, his National Team coach the past four years and nemesis for even longer.
"I don't have to hear it anymore," said Jones, as he bear-hugged Arena.
No, he doesn't. All the ragging from his National Team friends and coaches who have triumphed in past MLS Cups -- Arena won two MLS Cups as coach of D.C. United -- is now part of the past after his L.A. Galaxy side persevered through 113 minutes of soccer against a New England Revolution squad that seemed to be playing for a penalty kick shootout.
But in the end, as it always is with the Galaxy, Sigi Schmid's juggernaut got late-game heroics from Carlos Ruiz, whose perfect one-timed ball from Tryone Marshall found the side netting of the goal for a 1-0 win in overtime.
Ruiz, the 2002 MLS MVP, may have been the reason L.A. came through for the first time in four tries in MLS Cup matches, but it was only apropos that Jones got to carry the trophy high above his head and present it to the Galaxy supporters bundled together in the north side of Gillette Stadium -- a small, but loud, portion of the MLS Cup record 61,316 fans.
"I want to thank the fans who have followed L.A. for seven years. Seven long years," said Jones, with a gleam in his eye and a scent of Korbel on his drenched championship T-shirt. "Seven years of wanting and coming so close and being the bridesmaid for so long before finally being the bride. And finally holding up the trophy after all these years."
It was seven years of unfinished excellence. Seven years of feeling snakebitten. Seven years of being the class of the Western Division, but in the same fashion that Buffalo was the class of the AFC in the early '90s.
If the monkey on their backs was the size of the Rally Monkey, then the one that accompanied this club from their Left Coast to the Bay State was of Adin Brown proportions.
"For MLS, this is the pinnacle and the pinnacle of the career for me. Like Sigi said, to finally get the monkey off your backs," said Jones. "No one can talk anymore about 'what about this? (MLS Cup).' I don't have to listen to Bruce Arena anymore in those training camps say 'When are you guys gonna win a championship?' Finally I can walk up to him as I did out there and give him a big laugh in his face and say, 'How 'bout this one. I got this one for ya.'"
Cobi heard about it everywhere. That's what happens when you are the face of the franchise and the one wearing the yellow captain's armband game after game. That's what happens when you're a talented enough player to drive the team's success year after year, but not the type that can take over a game singlehandedly.
That's why this year's Galaxy squad looked so different, due to the signing of Ruiz, who lit up the league for a total that now is an even 32 goals in 32 games including regular season and playoffs. Ruiz's success helped open up the door for Jones to have more freedom on the pitch this year.
Neither of the two players looked effective in the first half, though.
"It was exactly what we expected coming in. We knew that New England had established itself over the past few games by their defense," said Jones, who ranks tied for second on the all-time playoff scoring list with three goals and four assists.
"They had a lot of players dropping into the box. If you looked at the situation a couple of times they had seven or eight players in the box, so it was difficult to score. The wind, as well, didn't help. You were trying to cross balls. It'd dip down or float it up high. It made it a very difficult situation."
What also made it difficult for Jones was his matchup with Revs left back Joey Franchino that resembled a wide receiver-cornerback battle at times as the focal point of a very defensive Revolution gameplan.
The former Galaxy defender clotheslined Jones in the 24th minute after he was beat to the outside. Later in the half, Franchino wiffed on a volley and found the thigh of Jones with his cleat that knocked him to the ground and resulted in his post-match limp around the locker room.
In the second half, Jones played less on the right and was dangerous on countless occasions.
"We needed him to be more active," said Schmid of Cobi's first half. "All season long for us he's been very good at finding different spaces in different places. In the second half, Cobi did that. That's what really opened the game up for us. We got a lot of opportunities off of that."
The biggest opportunity came in the 80th minute when a beautiful ball was played through New England's central defense by Jones that found a streaking Ruiz in midstride outside the top of the box. Usually a clinical finisher, Ruiz seemed to overrun his first touch on the ball and couldn't recover in time to do anything from 20 yards out but push a weak shot wide to the right past an on-rushing Brown.
The two L.A. stalwarts also misconnected on a golden chance in overtime when Jones hit a left-footed shot from the 18 that would have setup Ruiz for an easy goal at the far post. Unfortunately for the Galaxy, the "Little Fish" halted his run and was a step too short to deflect the pass into an open net.
When the match ended all Jones cared about was the final result. Not the missed chances he had today or any time in the past five years. He even embraced Franchino in the midst of celebrating, something that his former teammate wasn't surprised by.
"I've said that Cobi is the best player of all-time in the U.S.," said Franchino, who came to the East Coast from L.A. in 2000. "He never runs his mouth out there. It was just a battle between us, but that's what we used to do everyday in practice. He's a warrior, and he deserves this championship."
As Cobi came back to the locker room, he embraced Brian Kamler and former teammate Eric Wynalda, as well as his parents. Standing there once again was Arena, smiling like he just swallowed the canary.
"I'm a little bitter you have hardware now," said the U.S. coach. "What are we going to talk about?"
Not about monkeys. Or choking. Or his ring-less finger.
Marc Connolly covers soccer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at shaketiller10@yahoo.com.
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