1990 MISL ALL-STAR GAME : Three’s (Fast) Company : Tatu, Preki, Segota Give West Stars a Loaded Gun

One guy has two names like everybody is supposed to, the other two guys have one.

One guy has seven championship rings, the other two have one between them.

One guy is from Brazil, the other two from Yugoslavia.

One guy throws his shirt into the crowd every time he scores, the other two give theirs to the equipment manager to be washed.

Introducing . . .

Tatu. Forward. Dallas Sidekicks. He has one name, one championship ring, is from Brazil and is the guy who throws his shirt into the crowd.

Preki. Forward. Tacoma Stars. He has one name, no championship ring and is from Yugoslavia. His shirt gets washed.

Branko Segota. Midfielder. Sockers. He has two names, seven championship rings and is from Yugoslavia. His shirt gets washed, too.

Collectively, the three don’t have a lot in common. Except this: They are the most dangerous offensive players in the Major Indoor Soccer League. Tonight, for the first time, they will play on the same team when the MISL All-Star game kicks off at 7:45 in the San Diego Sports Arena.

So Ron Newman, you’ve got the privilege of having three scoring wizards on your West All-Star team. How do you plan to use them?

“They’re on the defensive power play.”

Yeah, but seriously? How about this lineup?

“It’s quite awesome, really.”

Tatu leads the MISL in points with 74, 15 ahead of second-place Jan Goossens of Kansas City. Preki has 44 points, despite missing the first six weeks of the season with a knee injury. He was the league’s scoring champion last season. Segota has 40 points, a scorching shot and is tough to stop with an elbow or a kick in the shin.

Their thoughts on playing together?

Says Segota: “It’s going to be kind of strange.”

Says Tatu: “I don’t think the other team will have a chance to double-team anybody. So that’s good. For at least one night we can play, and we don’t have to worry about somebody doubling us.”

Says Preki: “It’s fun. So much talent. The whole team is good. Everybody is on the team because they’re good, not because they’re good looking.”

In the first minute of the first game in 1987, Tatu blew out his knee and was told by the doctor he was finished for the season.

Tatu, 28, had read about two professional football players--Curt Warner and Billy Simms--who had similar injuries. Warner came back and played. Simms retired.

“I kind of thought ‘Well, am I going to be in this side or in that side,” Tatu says. “It was kind of scary.”

Things worked out. Tatu returned last season, though he wasn’t quite the player he had been. He finished with 64 points, 10 fewer than what he has this season with 19 games remaining.

“It was tough,” he says. “I was overweight and I couldn’t work hard to lose weight because it hurt my knee. So it was a no-win situation for me.”

This season, the aches, pains and self doubts have disappeared. It’s fun again.

“It seems like (the injury) was a long, long time ago,” he says. “I feel comfortable, and the team is playing well, so that’s making it even easier.”

Tatu is also finding that life in America is easier than in Brazil. He goes back every summer to visit, but the United States has become his home.

“It seems like I’m starting to get used to the American way,” he says. “I see things in my country that are completely different than here and I don’t like it.

“There are a lot of economic problems. You can see by the way people dress that the country has problems with the economy.

“I’m a family type of person. I still go to my country because my parents are there. Without them, I would probably go every four or five years.”

For Preki, Monday was just another frustration in what has been a frustrating season. He boarded a plane in Tacoma and wound up in San Jose, waiting on the runway for two hours until the fog cleared.

When he finally arrived in San Diego late Monday afternoon, he was tired. And he looked it.

So goes the season.

Tacoma (14-21) has the worst record in the MISL and is in last place in the Western Division, seven games behind first-place Dallas. The Stars have more injuries than any other team in the league.

Preki, 26, injured his knee during preseason and had to sit around and watch his teammates struggle for six weeks. He has played well since coming back, but the Stars haven’t.

Asked what he wants to accomplish this season, he responds: “I just want to make the playoffs. The only thing I haven’t done in my career is win a championship.”

But championships aren’t realistic for teams with so many injuries and so many losses. Preki knows it.

“At this point, I can’t say anything about (winning a championship),” he says. “Our team doesn’t look good at the moment because we have so many injuries. That hurt us a lot.”

Through it all, Preki remains the offensive magic man. He is considered by many to be the most skillful player in the league.

Socker goalie Zoltan Toth went against him one-on-one in a shootout Sunday. Toth came out of the box, Preki swerved to his right. Toth wound up on the ground. Preki knocked the ball neatly into the goal. There’s nobody who does that better.

And, Preki says: “I think my passing ability is better than that.”

Two points of interest:

--Two years ago, in the All-Star game in Los Angeles, Preki got into a scuffle with Tatu and sprayed him with a little saliva.

No big deal, says Tatu.

“To me, it’s past,” Tatu says. “That’s the way it goes. It’s a situation where you are upset in the heat of the game.”

No big deal, says Preki.

“It was just one of those things in the game where you just lose your head,” Preki says. “After, there was no problem. Just business. We shook hands.”

--When Preki and Socker forward Steve Zungul played together in Tacoma, Zungul took Preki on as a protege. They were friends for a while, but eventually there was friction. It’s tough to have two stars on one team.

“Stevie’s tough to handle when he’s around soccer,” Preki says. “Outside of soccer he’s a nice guy. But around soccer, he wouldn’t trust his mother.”

Mr. October, Branko Segota is not.

October is probably his least favorite month. There are beach runs, contract negotiations and all that fun stuff that comes before you can just go out and play. By his own admission, Segota, 28, doesn’t get too pumped up for the early part of the season, particularly since MISL financial troubles two seasons ago chopped his salary in half.

“I usually have a better second half than first,” he says. “I think it’s got something to do with motivation. Before, there used to be all sorts of bonuses, and they’ve taken those away.

“The first half of the season really doesn’t mean anything.”

Selfish?

Not when you consider that Segota has more assists (24) this season than goals (16). And not when you consider that the end results of Segota’s achievements have been championships, not individual awards. He has never been selected the MISL’s most valuable player.

There is perhaps no better example of what Segota can do than Game 7 of last season’s semifinal playoff series against Dallas. In a scoreless tie, Segota, nursing a hamstring injury, was about to be pulled from the game by Newman, who figured Segota couldn’t go much longer. Suddenly, bang. Segota hit a shot from 30 feet with the outside of his right foot and bent the ball into the top corner of the Sidekick goal. And the Sockers went on to defeat Dallas, 1-0, and meet and defeat Baltimore in the championship series.

But even with all the championships, Segota misses the old days. He recalls the 1981 All-Star game at Madison Square Garden in New York, when a handful of players got together, had dinner and talked soccer. That doesn’t happen any more.

“I would like to see it go back to those days,” he says. “If you keep it like a family, it’s better.”