MISL’s Best Appears to Be Getting Better : Sockers: Newman continues task of keeping seven-time league champions at top of their game.

Somebody mailed Socker Coach Ron Newman a book the other day about the Gillingham’s Football League in England. A little smile crossed his face as he flipped through the pages. He has fond memories of his playing career.

“It’s nice to see all my old mates here,” he said.

And then, darned if he didn’t stumble onto a black and white picture of himself in his old soccer uniform.

“Playing is clearly better (than coaching),” he said. “What responsibilities do you have except to yourself?”

Newman’s perpetual burden as a coach is to remain innovative enough to keep his 18-player team ahead of the rest of the Major Indoor Soccer League, an increasingly difficult task. The Sockers open their 10th indoor season and seventh title defense tonight against the Dallas Sidekicks at 5:35 (PDT) in Reunion Arena.

It was Kenny Cooper’s Baltimore Blast that darn near stripped the Sockers of their championship status last season, before the Sockers finally set them down with a one-goal victory in the seventh game of championship series. Each time the Blast loses one of these things to the Sockers--as it has done three times--Cooper hankers to beat Newman’s team a little more the next season.

“We’re probably the second most successful franchise in the MISL,” Cooper said. “But from a coaching standpoint, it’s all about winning. Last year we thought was our year, but they found a way to win.”

The bad news for Cooper is that Newman thinks his latest version of the Sockers is actually a lot better than last year’s. The nucleus is much the same. Branko Segota remains the team’s undisputed star, though he’s acting less like one this year. For the first time in a long time, Segota has been with the team through all of training camp. He’s chummy, Newman says.

But with the addition of Damir Haramina, a forward acquired in a trade with the Kansas City Comets, and Jim Gabarra, a forward who signed Friday and will be available when he’s not playing for the U.S. National Team, the Sockers should have more zest offensively. Zoran Karic, the team’s leading scorer last year, returns, as does Steve Zungul, a 35-year-old veteran who can still be effective if properly paced (he did not make the trip for tonight’s game because of the flu).

Both Newman and Socker President Ron Cady have indicated there is a good possibility the Sockers will make a trade soon. If that is the case, Karic’s name should probably be put at the head of the list. He’s a valuable forward who would attract interest, but he hasn’t always done things the way Newman would like, and he is an individual player in a field of team players.

To make room for Jacques Ladouceur, a ball-winning midfielder who was pushed off the roster when Haramina signed, the Sockers Friday changed Arturo Velazco’s status to developmental, which still allows him to play. Ladouceur was signed to a one-year contract.

“The lad’s looked good,” Newman said.

What about a trade?

“I wouldn’t consider doing it until I see how Haramina fits into the team,” Newman said.

As usual, the midfield will be steadied, humored and squawked at by Brian Quinn, the team captain who earns his living making everybody else play better and doesn’t mind telling you when you’re not playing quite well enough. One of the reasons the Sockers wound up in second place behind the Blast after the regular season last year was that Quinn missed 18 games because of injury. Newman brought in midfielder Rod Castro from the American Indoor Soccer Assn., which might prove important if Quinn and Segota have injury troubles again.

You’d think defense would be the Sockers strength considering that Kevin Crow, George Fernandez, Ralph Black and Cacho all return from last season. But, of course, Newman says he’s uneasy about the depth. He tends to worry that way. This shouldn’t be a problem if Donald Cogsville, the team’s first-round draft choice, matures quickly.

The Sockers have never been a team to jump out in front at the beginning of the season. Their record in season openers is 3-6, and they are 1-4 in season openers on the road.

“It’s not at the beginning where it counts,” Fernandez said.

True enough, but even so, Newman wouldn’t mind seeing his team break tradition by starting off with some snap. Pacing in this league isn’t as simple as it was, say, five years ago, when the Sockers were so much better than the rest of the competition that they could play below their potential and still win.

But if the victories are harder to come by, the motivation for more championships remains.

“It never gets tiring because that’s what you play for,” said Crow, the MISL’s defender of the year last season. “You’ve got to find different challenges. I’m not ready to give up that feeling of being a champion.”

Socker Notes

Tonight’s game will be televised live on Ch. 51. The radio broadcast on XTRA 690 will be joined in progress following the Stanford-USC football game. . . . Forward Jim Gabarra will not play tonight because of national team commitments. Midfielder Ben Collins will miss the trip because of a strained left thigh muscle. Branko Segota injured his ankle in practice earlier this week but is expected to play.