Just Lifting Cap on the Season Is a Victory for the Sockers : After Dealing Willrich, Keeping Gorsek and Meeting Limit, San Diego to Start Season Against Wings--Without Segota
The weeks preceding the Sockers’ Major Indoor Soccer League season opener tonight have not been easy for Coach Ron Newman.
His team captain, Jean Willrich, was traded. His top scorer, Branko Segota, was injured and had to be left off the opening-day roster. And he had to juggle the roster to meet a salary cap mandated by the MISL.
Finally, the roster is complete and the worries of meeting the salary cap are over.
Yet Newman, a veteran coach whose team has won five indoor championships, is still nervous.
“I’m always nervous going into an opening game,” said Newman, whose team will play the Wichita Wings at the Kansas Coliseum today at 5:35 p.m.. “I’m more nervous in the opener than in any of the playoff games. I don’t know what I’m facing--it’s an unknown quantity.”
Newman knows at least one member of the opposition very well--Willrich. He was traded to the Wings Tuesday.
Willrich was the Sockers’ second-leading scorer last season behind Segota, who will remain in San Diego because of a pulled hamstring.
With the acquisition of Willrich, Wichita has become a solid contender in the Western Division. The Sockers will face Wichita eight times this season, more than any other opponent.
“Naturally, we are delighted to have (Willrich),” Wichita Coach Charlie Cooke said. “It will make a difference for us this season. We have a higher opinion of ourselves now.
“It was an unusual set of circumstances that made him available to us, and we were lucky enough to get him.”
The circumstances were a downright headache for Newman and the rest of the Sockers. This season, the league required that all teams comply with a $1.275-million salary cap, setting a Nov. 15 deadline.
Willrich and goalkeeper Jim Gorsek were the only Sockers in the option year of their contracts. They were also among the highest paid. To slip under the salary cap, one or both players had to leave. Gorsek signed a multiyear contract Thursday, taking a pay cut for the first year to keep the Sockers under the cap.
Next, Newman was faced with Segota’s injury, which had bothered the veteran throughout training camp. Newman believed he had no other alternative than to leave Segota behind before tonight’s game.
“I don’t think that makes much of a difference,” Cooke said of Segota’s injury. “The Sockers are the standard by which everybody else in the league should be judging themselves, there is so much quality and depth on that team. Any club would naturally miss a player like (Segota). But they, better than most clubs, will be able to handle it.”
MISL RULE CHANGES
- There will no longer be suspensions for time penalties accumulated during the season. Last season, a player was suspended from his team’s next regular-season game after the game in which he received penalties for his 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th minutes, etc. Fines for accumulated penalties will remain.
- Three-line passes will no longer be allowed when a team is playing with two players in the penalty box.
- A penalty shot will be awarded when a trailing defender intentionally commits a penalty offense to prevent an attacking player from completing a reasonable scoring opportunity. The offensive player must only be across the halfway line.
- If a team does not inbound the ball on a restart within five seconds of the signal by the referee, the ball goes to the other team.
- When a player is ruled to have intentionally thrown a ball out of play, the opposing team will get a free kick from the top of the arc in front of the offending team’s goal.
- Teams can dress a maximum of 14 players for a game instead of 15.
