Minnesota Exits With Quiet Win : Strikers, Lettieri Get More Luck Than Boos and Beat Sockers, 3-2
With barely a whisper, the Minnesota Strikers came to town for Saturday night’s game with the Sockers.
And without much fanfare, the Strikers got out of town with a 3-2 win in front of 8,335 fans at the Sports Arena.
My, how things change over a seven-month period.
The last time Minnesota came to San Diego it was for the decisive fifth game of the 1984-’85 Major Indoor Soccer League semifinals.
For those who need their memories refreshed, the game had become a necessity when Commissioner Francis Dale ruled that the Sockers lost Game 4 in a shootout for using an ineligible shooter. The Sockers won Game 5, 7-0, but a bad taste lingered in their mouths.
There were also ugly memories for Minnesota, particularly goalkeeper Tino Lettieri. He needed a police escort to and from the game that night for protection.
When the Strikers returned Saturday, Lettieri was little more than a distant memory for the most part. He received a scattering of boos throughout the game, but it was nothing like the last time Minnesota was here.
“I remember the boos, man, the boos,” Lettieri said of last year.
But the atmosphere is not all that has changed since last season. The teams have also changed drastically.
Minnesota (8-3) currently has the best record in the MISL. The Sockers (5-4) have lost two straight at home for the first time since January.
Things are going so good for the Strikers that Lettieri thought he had even won over some of the San Diego fans.
“I like the fans here,” he said. “Some of them behind the goal were talking to me, and I talked back. I even smiled at them. It means I’m winning them over.”
Well, maybe not completely.
One of the loudest cheers of the evening came when Lettieri was on the ground for several minutes in the second quarter. His right thumb was definitely sticking out like a sore thumb after getting hit by a Steve Zungul shot.
With 1:08 left in the game, Lettieri had to be removed after he was hit by a hard Branko Segota shot. League rules state that a player must be removed until the next substitution after the second time he has an injury that stops the game. Lettieri returned for the final 15 seconds and flapped his wings at the fans when the game ended.
In the Socker locker room, Coach Ron Newman was making a little flap over what transpired. Newman simply cited his team’s bad luck, and he may have had a point.
With the score tied, 1-1, Minnesota received an unusual goal at 12:56 of the third quarter. Goalkeeper Zoltan Toth attempted to pin a David Byrne shot against the glass, but when the ball started down, Kazbek Tambi knocked the ball into the net with his body.
The Strikers took the lead, 3-1, on another fortunate break with 4:32 remaining. After Toth misplayed a ball off the boards by Chris Dangerfield, Drago Dumbovic scored into an open net.
“We couldn’t get any luck,” Newman said. “All of the luck was on their side. With all of the breaks they got around the goal, they must’ve thought Christmas had arrived. They didn’t score a good goal.”
Brian Quinn presented the Sockers with their second goal with 2:12 remaining. However, the Sockers did not get another serious shot on goal.
San Diego’s closest goal came when Segota passed to Juli Veee at the goalmouth with two minutes remaining. Veee, playing in his fourth game of the season, remained zero for the season in goals when he could not make the shot.
“Juli’s not 100%,” Newman said. “If he was, I thought he would have gotten at least one goal. And we were only looking for one goal.”
Veee’s immediate goal is to return to full strength from an abdominal strain. He said he is feeling much better but still has a way to go.
So do the Sockers, for now.
“The thing is that we had gone from the NASL (North American Soccer League) to the MISL to the NASL to the MISL,” Veee said. “Now, everybody has caught on to all of the tricks we used to do. We either have to come up with new tricks or work on the old ones, even though we have the talent.”
