Sockers Have New Faces, New Scenario, Same Results

Those teases. That had to be what the Sockers had been doing. Teasing.

They had their fans in a funk and the Baltimore Blast fans on fire. They had been playing so poorly, looking so flat, looking so lifeless.

And all of this at the worst of times, all of this needing only one more win to take their seventh indoor soccer championship.

Did the Sockers really have a chance to win Game 7 of the Major Indoor Soccer League’s championship series Saturday night in Baltimore?

Are you kidding?

No one who watched them lose Tuesday night at home and then suffer that 7-0 embarrassment Thursday night here would have given them a ghost of a chance. Mr. Ed would win the Belmont before these guys would win Saturday night.

It turns out the Sockers had been kidding. They had to be.

What happened Saturday night was that the Blast got hit by a giant dose of reality. The Blast got hit by the real San Diego Sockers. The Blast scared the Sockers out of their wits, but came up short in what was probably the most electric game the Sockers have ever played.

The final score was 6-5.

Goodby, Blast.

Hello, seventh Socker championship.

And No. 7 was heaven, because it had seemed so unlikely.

“We win at home and we win on the road,” said Kevin Crow, a veteran defender at all of 27. “We win coming back and we win sweeping.”

And that they won this one at all was . . .

“Unbelievable,” said Waad Hirmez, whose fourth-period goal was the game-winner. “It’s amazing how we did it.”

And, for the Blast, it all seemed to happen so swiftly. The score was 1-1 late in the first half and 11,220 fans were waiting anxiously for the hometown heroes to break it open and kick the celebration into gear.

Then it happened.

Blast goalkeeper Scott Manning’s hand ball outside the box gave the Sockers a penalty kick, and Branko Segota scored with 3:13 left to break the tie.

Early in the second half, the Sockers went from tiebreakers to heartbreakers. First Segota scored and then Brian Quinn and then Steve Zungul, all in the first 2:33 of the second half.

Suddenly, the Sockers, left for dead Thursday night, were up, 5-1.

“We wanted to stay tight in the first half,” said Hirmez, “and then come out fired up and win the first seven minutes of the third quarter.

The Sockers won those first seven minutes in the biggest of ways, playing vintage Socker soccer. They blocked and counter-punched and threw attackers in waves at the out-manned Manning.

When Hirmez banged a goal home 33 seconds into the fourth quarter, it had the makings of a rout. Little could anyone image that this insurance policy would ever be cashed in.

When Blast Coach Kenny Cooper installed David Byrne as a sixth attacker with 12:50 to play, it smacked of desperation . . . albeit very understandable desperation.

Even then, no one imagined the score would be 6-5 with the longest 4 minutes 28 seconds the Sockers have ever experienced ahead of them.

Goal keeper Victor Manuel Cabral DeBarros Nogueira, perhaps the only man in professional sports with all five vowels in his last name, had the hottest seat in the house for that frantic, frenzied final 4:28.

“We were getting pretty scared,” said Nogueira. “They were scoring like crazy.”

Not quite crazy enough. The Sockers held on and V.M.C.D.N. added three more initials--MVP.

“It’s kinda weird,” said Nogueira, an indoor veteran but a champion for the first time. “The San Diego Sockers are always champions. There are different players every year, and I’m just another different player.”

New faces abounded in the champagne-soaked locker room. Paul Wright, the 20-year-old kid from Grossmont High School, was the smiling face who had the winning assist. Chris Chueden was new. Ralph Black was new. Cacho was new. Alan Willey was new. None of them had won championships before, because none had been Sockers before.

“Everyone wrote us off at the beginning of the season,” said Crow. “We lost a lot of players for financial reasons and some people weren’t sure we kept the right players. This team can win with anybody.”

One constant, of course, is that Ron Newman is the coach. He has been part of each of these celebrations, and a very big reason why they keep happening.

“It’s a miracle,” he said, “continuing to win like we have.”

This one may have been the biggest miracle at all. This team was dead and all but buried. No one believed in them but themselves.

But then, who else could have known that they were just being teases . . . right to the end.