Winner Take All in MISL Final Tonight at Sports Arena : Sockers Have Home-Field Advantage Over the Strikers as They Try for Their 5th Straight Title

Battered Socker bodies will take on shattered Striker psyches in tonight’s Major Indoor Soccer League championship showdown at the Sports Arena.

This is it.

It’s winner take all in Game 7 at 6:05 p.m.

The Sockers are decimated by injuries to key players, but also filled with confidence after their stirring 6-3 victory at the Met Center Friday night.

“Now that we’ve come home to play,” Socker midfielder Branko Segota said, “it has to be in our favor.”

San Diego is 27-1 in home playoff games, but its one loss was to the Strikers in Game 2 of this series, and Minnesota has a 3-2 edge at the Sports Arena this season.

The Strikers are healthy, but also emotionally drained after their disappointing loss Friday.

“That was the most emotional defeat we’ve ever been through,” Striker Coach Alan Merrick said. “We know everything is stacked against us.”

Everything except the injury report. San Diego dominates that.

Socker forward Juli Veee (sprained left knee and ankle) and midfielder Jean Willrich (left groin pull)--integral parts of the Socker offense--are expected to play. So is defender Brian Schmetzer (sprained left knee).

The status of forward Hugo Perez (sprained left knee), who missed Friday’s game, has been upgraded from doubtful to questionable. Newman said he would make a decision on whether to dress Perez after watching him in practice this morning.

“Right now,” Newman said, “I just get excited when the players don’t walk with a limp.”

Newman said the injury situation reminded him of the San Diego team that took the field against Baltimore in the fifth and final game of the 1983 MISL championship series.

Kaz Deyna, Guy Newman, Vidal Fernandez and Gary Collier played with injuries as the Sockers beat the Blast, 3-1, in front of a sellout crowd at the Sports Arena.

“That situation was probably worse than now,” Newman said.

That was Socker championship No. 2.

Tonight, a sellout crowd will be on hand to see whether the Sockers can win their fifth straight indoor championship--and cap a memorable comeback by winning their third game in a row.

“Maybe San Diego needed to be woken up,” Newman said. “They (fans) said you’ll always win. It’s not that easy. Maybe our destiny is to win the hard way.”

The Sockers certainly faced their share of obstacles Friday at the Met Center.

San Diego played in front of a thunderous partisan crowd. Going into the game, Minnesota had never lost at home in 12 playoff games and the Sockers had never beaten the Strikers in six tries at the Met Center.

The Strikers thought Friday was the night they would end an era and win the first professional sports championship in Minnesota since the Minneapolis Lakers won the NBA title in 1954.

A crowd of 15,944 rocked the Met Center, but the Sockers shocked the Strikers.

Playing without four regulars for much of the second half, the Sockers scored five goals to erase a 2-1 deficit.

“I think they thought they had us,” Segota said. “They were very confident.”

After the game, the Strikers were very disappointed.

“The players are going to have to look within themselves,” Striker Coach Alan Merrick said after Friday’s game. “We have a team with a lot of character, and it will have to come through.

“Right now, heads are hanging pretty low, but we have two days to reflect and get the fires stoked again.”

Goalkeeper Tino Lettieri traded bravado for guarded optimism after Game 6.

“I think we can do it,” Lettieri said. “We have to look around and say we can do it. It will be a tough match.”

On Sunday morning, Merrick still sounded subdued. But he also portrayed a professionalism that has marked him and his team throughout the series.

“We’re back to normal,” Merrick said in a telephone interview Sunday. “The players put things in perspective. We have to go one game at a time and take the same mental attitude we’ve had.”

This is the second straight season the Sockers and Strikers have met at the Sports Arena in a decisive game. With Jim Gorsek in goal, San Diego crushed Minnesota, 7-0, in the fifth game of their semifinal series last year. Newman said that Gorsek would be his starting goalkeeper tonight.

“I remember (that game),” Striker midfielder Ray Hudson said, “and I’m not relishing the prospect of going back there. However, it gives us the capability of really doing it in style.”

If the Sockers are overconfident or the Strikers play another near-perfect game as they did in Games 2 and 3, Newman is quite aware that his team might be the one surprised tonight.

“After the excitement of it all (the other night),” Newman said, “we have to come down to earth. We have not won yet, but we’re sitting in a pretty good position.”