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| Friday, September 14, 2001 24:17 EST |
MLS Santa likely to visit MetroStars
By Jeff Bradley
[ESPN The Magazine]
After Wednesday night's embarrassing scene at Giants Stadium, where the MetroStars lost 2-1 to the Kansas City Wizards before an "announced crowd" of 7,800, it appeared obvious that something big is going to have to come down to salvage something this season from the league's saddest franchise. And we're not talking about the trades for Steve Jolley and Daniel Hernandez or the imminent release of Mohammad Khakpour.
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THE FIRST XI
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What people are talking about around MLS:
11. Danish Dynamite
10. Lothar's post-game interviews
9. The Taxi fanzine
8. Judah Cooks' thought process
7. Brian West's national team debut
6. The end of 2001 expansion talk
5. What to do with an allocation?
4. Who wants Eduardo Hurtado?
3. WMLS vs. WUSA
2. The lawsuit that was
1. Sigi Schmid vs. MLS "rules"
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According to one player, after the game, coach Octavio Zambrano told his team, "This is the last game this group will ever play together." And at a team meeting on Thursday, first-year GM Nick Sakiewicz told the Metros he had a "sixth sense" that some of them "feared winning." How Zambrano and Sakiewicz will go about the reconstruction remains to be seen, but some of the expected moves included the trading of Miles Joseph (probably to Tampa), and the shopping of just about every other American on the roster. Their hope is to clear enough players out to make some significant changes. Of course, if they're asked to stay within the strict parameters of Major League Soccer rules, that won't be easy.
One league official sized up the situation: "They brought in two big-money allocations in Lothar Matthaeus and Adolfo Valencia, another pretty big-ticket player in Alex Comas, so there's really nothing big they can do according to the rules the rest of the league plays by ... but we've seen Christmas come early to the MetroStars before. So, you never know what's going to happen. Personally, I think Santa's about to come to town."
Sakiewicz says his team already has cap room to discover a pretty good player. He also says most of the old Metros have been "traumatized by all this losing." That list obviously includes players like Joseph, Brian Kelly and Mike Petke. There seems to be a good chance all of those players could be shipped out soon, if just to bring in new blood.
When Khakpour is released they'll also have an open foreign spot. What they don't have is an allocation, or in other words, the ability to obtain a player who requires a transfer.
That's where Tab Ramos comes into play. Word coming out of Giants Stadium on Wednesday was that Ramos was going to make his season debut in Washington on Saturday. It was hard to find anyone-except Ramos-to say he was ready, since Ramos has hardly touched a ball in the past month.
"My gut feeling," said one MetroStars player, "is that Tab's going to get on the field and get pulled out of the game early. At that point, the club's going to say to the league, 'We can't live with this situation any more. This is supposed to be our marquee player, so we need a replacement."
Sakiewicz said the team has already made an appeal to the league that, should Ramos have to be placed on the "indefinite IR," the Metro should be able to seek a replacement.
"There's going to be some pissed-off GMs and coaches if that happens," said one GM. "But this is nothing new. Sometimes I think it's a plan for the Metros to suck, get a player, suck some more, get another player ... and keep doing that until one day, we'll all wake up and they'll be the Cosmos."
Could we see some Krafty deals?
Sunil Gulati is a busy man these days. As the director of all things soccer-related for the Kraft-operated New England Revolution and the San Jose Earthquakes, Gulati is trying to make two historically bad MLS teams better. It's a heavy burden, even for a workaholic like Gulati, who, back in the day, used to monitor every team and every player in the league. Among his tasks now: trying to put some zing in the Revs and Quakes lineups, some buzz in the stands and, most all, some wins on the board. And, oh yeah, this little decision he's got to make about what to do with New England and San Jose's allocations.
As this week progressed, it appeared that Gulati's first move might be a trade with himself -- if only to keep his coaches happy. In New England, Fernando Clavijo has had it with enigmatic Eduardo Hurtado and desperately wants to ship him out. In San Jose, Lothar Osiander is less than thrilled with sweeper Mauricio Wright.
However, even though both coaches would probably accept that deal, there's no way Gulati would make it. More likely, Osiander will have to learn to live with Wright, who's talented but seems to do whatever he wants on the field and Gulati will sell the contract of Hurtado (probably at a loss for MLS) back to his team in Ecuador. That will free some cash to let the Revs discover a striker and use their allocation for a defender, though negotiations with Honduran Samuel Caballero have apparently reached a roadblock.
Meanwhile, San Jose still wants a physical striker to complement diminutive Ronald Cerritos. Osiander has asked Gulati to consider Eintracht Frankfurt's massive Norwegian goalscorer Jan-Aage Fjortoft, but Gulati is more likely to pursue a Mexican. Several weeks ago, Gulati spoke with the representatives for Luis Garcia, but may well have moved on to a different player by now.
At any rate, if Los Angeles doesn't come up with a trade offer for the allocation that packs some punch, Gulati has told everyone he'll gladly use the allocation on the Quakes and let the financial and competition execs at MLS figure out what to do with Luis Hernandez -- the star everyone agreed to ship to L.A., if the Galaxy could get the allocation. If the Quakes end the trade talks, the league may just say to L.A., "We were committed to getting you a Mexican star, but you didn't do what had to be done. Sorry."
Or, the league may just throw a new wrinkle into the "rules." Who knows?
Buying into Rochester?
Latest buzz on the expansion front is that MetroStars investors Stuart Subotnick and John Kluge want to talk to the people in Rochester about becoming that club's operators, rather than mess with a second New York metropolitan franchise. It would make a lot of sense.
The Rhinos are going to get their stadium, a $44 million, 18,000-seater that will instantly become the finest soccer facility in the United States. They've got the funding in place, and now await a site. General Manager Chris Economides says they will definitely be ready for a 2002 kickoff. The Rhinos' only problem is how to come up with the franchise fee to join MLS. Subotnick and Kluge can provide an easy answer to that dilemma, since they own the right to a second MLS franchise that can be activated for $5 million.
"Obviously, that would be great for us," says Economides. "We've heard from two MLS commissioners now that if we ever got a stadium built, we move to the top of the expansion list. Well, we're spending $26 million of our own dollars on the stadium, and it's going to be hard for us to come up with another $25 million to join the league. At the very least, we'd hope MLS would offer us some wiggle room."
Or better yet, a couple of investors ready to welcome to the league with open arms.
In tight space
Sorry, but more on the MetroStars. Is there any doubt Wednesday was the worst day of Matthaeus' professional soccer life? As if it weren't bad enough that he had to watch Bayern Munich advance to the Champions League semifinals -- knowing he could have been on the field -- he then had to play before 70,000 empty seats at Giants Stadium.
The whole Matthaeus-in-New York deal is a bad fit for everyone. The Metros are going to have to become a scrappy, frantic team to get any results this year, and it's very apparent that Lothar likes structure on the field. Add in that he's leaving for Euro 2000 soon, and you have to wonder if MLS shouldn't be negotiating with Bayern Munich today to see if they can re-coup some of the money this folly has cost them.
Colorado should be a much better fit for Junior Agogo than Chicago, as the Rapids are a much more direct team than the Fire and it was going to be difficult for Agogo to see much action behind Ante Razov, Hristo Stoichkov, Josh Wolff and Dema Kovalenko. Still, the Fire are miffed they couldn't get more for Junior than a third-round pick, because one of the reasons they signed him was because they thought he had trade value.
The Galaxy have been trying unsuccessfully to deal Roy Myers to a team with an open foreign slot (actually, he wouldn't be a bad fit for the Metros, but they have visions of something much more grand), and some in the league think they're going to claim, by trading Myers, that they did precisely what the Metros did to make way for Matthaeus.
The Metros will be unable to trade Mohammad Khakpour for anything. The question is, will some team claim him on waivers? He's only making about $60,000.
Kansas City's 4-0-1 start is impressive, but remember the Wizards have played three games at home, and have played on the road against anemic Miami and the floundering MetroStars. Compare that to New England, which has had one home game and played at Miami, Tampa, Los Angeles and Dallas. Just saying, it's a long season.
The latest hot spot for the MetroStars, as they search for a plot of land for a soccer stadium, is Harrison, N.J. There's a huge, barren patch of land behind Harrrison's PATH station, and just across the Passaic River from Newark's Penn Station that needs to be decontaminated. Of course, a lot stands in between the Metros and that piece of land, including Miramax Productions, who want to build a movie studio there.
Pub talk
From the sounds of things, the natives (I'm talking about the players) are getting restless in Miami. After reading some of the comments from Eric Wynalda and Co. after their latest loss, I thought I was reading old clips from France '98.
Dallas looked very, very good in its 2-1 loss at L.A. It's so apparent that units that have been together since early last year -- Dallas, L.A., Tampa -- are playing the best soccer right now as work-in-progress teams search for the right combinations.
Got some angry e-mail from Wizards fans who think I don't like K.C. Let's see how many turn out on Saturday to see your unbeaten club take on Tampa Bay at Arrowhead. If you top 10,000, I promise to call your city Soccertown, USA in my next column.
And I've taken some pops at Columbus fans for all the empty bleachers at Crew Stadium, but I come to your defense this week. Anyone who'd ever call your park a "dump" has no clue. We should have such a dump here in the Metropolitan area.
Caught up very briefly with Joe-Max Moore this week. He says he's having a blast, but we feel sorry that he'll miss out on his first Liverpool Derby because of injury.
Also caught the Amazing Ian Feuer's high-wire act for West Ham United last week (Feuer and the Hammers defeated Derby County, 2-1). Just goes to show you how one man's trash can be another man's treasure.
The MLS investors who want women's teams should just sit down with WUSA and get on the same page. If that helps get a few stadiums built around the country, then great. Obviously, WUSA has a plan and that's great. The MLS office has enough to worry about with its own league.
So, the Lawsuit was ditched. I still think MLS players who've put in four years, who then want to move to another team should be allowed to do so. Really, the only ones it would help out are the guys at the lower end of the salary scale.
The editors of The Stars and Beyond, the unofficial fanzine of the MetroStars supporters, claim I stole the name for this column from their rag. Did I? That's possible. But like everything in MLS, only the league office knows for sure.
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