Formula for MLS needs a remix
This column is supposed to be about how Major League Soccer can take the next great leap forward and about the sort of things that are holding it back from doing so right away.
But first, a few words about Danny Cepero.
Yes, the two would appear to have nothing in common, but they do. Just read on.
Six weeks ago, Cepero was a soccer nobody, a 23-year-old goalkeeper and New York Yankees fan from Baldwin, N.Y., without a single second of professional experience.
Today, Cepero will be in the nets for the New York Red Bulls when they try to defeat the Columbus Crew at the Home Depot Center in Carson in the 2008 MLS championship game.
For Cepero to get from where he was to where he is required a remarkable series of events, an even greater and more improbable aligning of the stars than it will take for MLS to get from where it is to where it wants to be.
It began in mid-October when the league banished New York starting goalkeeper Jeff Conway after a failed drug test, even though it was nothing more than an over-the-counter remedy.
That gave Cepero his chance, at Giants Stadium against, strangely enough, Columbus. He not only started, and New York not only won, 3-1, but Cepero became the first goalkeeper in league history to score a goal.
He was only putting the ball back in play, but his 65-yard free kick from deep within his own half bounced up and over the Columbus goalkeeper and wound up in the back of the net. A fluke that has become a YouTube classic.
“That could very well be the best debut in soccer history,” said New York forward Juan Pablo Angel.
Angel earns $1.6 million a year. Cepero makes $248 a week. That’s your first clue about what’s wrong with MLS and what needs to be fixed in a hurry.
It’s difficult to take a pro league seriously when more than 80 of its players earn less than the ushers at the stadium turnstiles.
Five days later, the Red Bulls were in Chicago to play the Fire. It was a game they had to win to reach the playoffs. Instead, they were humiliated, 5-2, and the loss left them with only one road win all season.
But fate again intervened. When Columbus beat D.C. United three days later, it allowed New York to slink into the playoffs as the No. 8-seeded team.
From here on out, Cepero took over. He held the defending champion Houston Dynamo to a 1-1 tie in New York, then beat them, 3-0, in Texas in one of the all-time MLS upsets. He then beat Real Salt Lake, 1-0, in Utah in the conference final to secure the Red Bulls’ place in today’s title game.
Here’s where it is time once again to take issue with MLS.
Don Garber, the league’s commissioner, is a proponent of playoffs, the ex-NFL man arguing that it is the American way. But that doesn’t make it sacrosanct and it isn’t the only way.
Columbus had the best record in the league in 2008. The Crew deserves to be called the MLS champion. But if MLS insists on a postseason and Garber’s argument that the story lines in 2008 have been compelling does hold some water, then there is room for that too.
Simply change the verbiage by throwing out the word “playoffs” and disconnect the season completely from the postseason.
The first produces the league champion, after which the top eight finishers go into a new competition, the winner of which gets the MLS Cup. So there is a league champion and a cup winner. It couldn’t be more simple.
But MLS difficulties in capturing the attention of a larger segment of the public go far beyond these structural sorts of things and might well be beyond the league’s ability to fix.
Stadiums have been built. New ownership is banging on the door demanding entry. Television contracts have been signed, even though it is virtually impossible to see or hear any mention of MLS on nightly sportscasts.
The problem is image. That and pizazz.
American fans want Eli Manning, Kobe Bryant and Manny Ramirez. Soccer has responded by offering them David Beckham, Cuauhtemoc Blanco and, most recently, Freddie Ljungberg.
That’s all well and good, but American fans also want Americans, and the home-grown stars are flocking to Europe in ever-growing numbers, Freddy Adu, Brad Guzan and Jozy Altidore being just the latest to depart, with Landon Donovan also seeking the exit.
That signals that MLS will always be a feeder league, just as Argentina and Brazil are feeder leagues for Europe.
But fans in those countries realize that for their national teams to thrive, their players have to play with the best clubs, and that means Europe. America’s soccer-fans-in-waiting have yet to grasp and accept that.
Garber and the rest of the MLS hierarchy have argued for years that this is a marathon, not a sprint, that the league is in it for the long haul and that patience must be shown.
But Americans, given the choice, would rather watch Usain Bolt for 9.69 seconds than Haile Gebrselassie for two-plus hours. Patience is not their strong point; marathons are not their cup of tea. It’s a young country.
Still, the future beckons.
Danny Cepero was only 10 years old when MLS played its first game in 1996. If the league can come this far in 13 seasons, think how far it might go before Cepero plays his final game.
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