Sixth Sense Often Key to Comebacks in MISL : Soccer: When goalie exits, and extra attacker enters, strange--and wonderful--things happen.

It’s a funny looking shirt. Too big, strange color.

Each team in the MISL has two. One style is basic gray, pretty ugly. It’s just light enough to look weird on teams that have white uniforms.

The other is a throwback to the flower-child era. It’s multicolored and would have been perfect for Woodstock.

On the back, it says: “SIXTH ATTACKER.”

Sixth attacker.

Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

It’s only fitting that this shirt looks strange. Strange things happen when a sixth attacker is on the field.

A sixth attacker is most often used by a team that is about to lose. As the minutes in the fourth quarter melt away, a player gets the call, pulls on the silly-looking jersey and takes the field. The goalie takes a seat.

A sixth attacker has to have an abundance of stamina. He has to be quick on his feet. He has to have good vision, an ability to see the open man and a knack for making a good pass. He needs to be deceptive and careful. A wrong decision, and the ball goes into the goal at the other end. Then the game is over.

There is a certain art to playing this position. Defender Kevin Crow is the primary sixth attacker for the Sockers and one of the league’s best. So what if people say he looks like Herman Munster in the oversized jersey?

Others around the MISL who are particularly skilled at this job are Kim Roentved, a defender for the Kansas City Comets, and David Byrne, a midfielder for the Wichita Wings.

It’s hard to find a better example of effective use of this offense than Game 7 of last season’s championship series between Baltimore and the Sockers. With the Sockers leading, 6-1, Byrne became the sixth attacker with 12:50 to play.

His well-timed and accurate passes led to a goal by midfielder Kai Haaskivi and two by forward Domenic Mobilio. Soon after, Socker defender George Fernandez intercepted a pass and wound up to send it across the carpet. Byrne stood at midfield, the last line of defense.

“I figured I could bend it around him,” Fernandez recalls. “I hit a perfect ball.”

But Byrne dived to his right and deflected the ball with his hands. He got up, rubbed his head as if the shot had hit his noggin and ran to the corner to retrieve the ball. There was no whistle.

“I stopped,” Fernandez says. “I thought they were going to call something.”

They didn’t. Twelve seconds later, Baltimore scored to make it 6-5. Fernandez couldn’t believe there was no penalty for the hand ball. He doesn’t think Byrne could, either.

“He was shocked, too,” Fernandez says. “I looked at him, and he just smiled. There was a big grin on his face, and he was rubbing his head. I said, ‘Yeah, you dirty snake.’ ”

Says Baltimore Coach Kenny Cooper: “One referee was on the blind side, the other was in the corner. I remember they took a quick glance at each other, but neither called it.”

The Sockers hung on to win. But it was a clever play by Byrne, no?

“I’d like to give Byrnie some credit,” said Ron Newman, the Sockers’ coach, “but I think he just realized that was all that was left.”

A sixth attacker does what he has to do.

“I would have done the same thing,” says Fernandez, who sometimes plays sixth attacker when Crow needs a breather. “That was a great save.”

And a prototype sixth-attacker performance.

“Truly magnificent,” Cooper says. “One of the best that will ever be seen in that situation. David’s the type of player that thrives in that type of situation.”

Defenders today have a better idea of how to cope with the sixth-attacker offense than they did, say, five years ago. Scoring four goals while using a sixth attacker, as Baltimore did in the championship game last season, is rare.

It used to be that an open goal at the other end of the field would give a player wide eyes and cloudy judgment. Any ball that came into possession of the defense was cleared immediatedly. There was no strategy involved.

“The defenders used to panic so much in trying to get the ball to the other end they ended up giving it back to us,” Newman says. “Now, they’re much more comfortable with it. It’s far more risky to pull the goalkeeper.”

All kinds of things can go wrong. Witness Wes McCleod, defender for the Dallas Sidekicks, forgetting the goalie had been pulled during the Sockers’ 4-2 victory Friday at Reunion Arena. Socker midfielder Brian Quinn was scrapping with him for the ball, and McCleod turned and cleared it back. Nobody home. Goal.

Quinn plays sixth attacker for the Sockers sometimes, but he isn’t as effective as Crow or defender Ralph Black. An offensive midfielder is sometimes too concerned with offense and invention and not enough concerned with defense and prevention.

“With Quinny, it’s a bit risky,” Crow says. “He’s almost too aggressive. He’ll dribble in, and when you do that, you’re really leaving it open at the back.”

Then again, Crow doesn’t think the Sockers’ sixth-attacker offense is aggressive enough.

“We don’t have that killer instinct,” he says. “I think sometimes our team shies away from being aggressive because we don’t want to lose the ball. That’s not the way you should play it. You’ve got to trust the guy that he’s going to be able to read the game and get back.”

Crow’s solution is fairly simple. The ball, he says, needs to go to the right or left side of the penalty box to guys such as Branko Segota, Damir Haramina and Hirmez, all dangerous shooters.

“I don’t think we use the guys on the outside well enough,” he says. “We should get them the ball and they should just be hitting.”

Feb. 11, 1986 was ceramic mug night at the San Diego Sports Arena. The Sockers were leading the Los Angeles Lazers, 7-4, with three seconds to play. Newman, who had recently begun to pull his goalie in the final 10 seconds of each quarter, called a timeout and put in a sixth attacker.

Lazer Coach Peter Wall couldn’t believe it. As the final seconds were played, a Lazer player snuck up behind Socker forward Ade Coker and kicked him in the back of the leg. As time ran out, a fight broke out. Ceramic mugs began to fly. Wall said afterward: “They have to come to L.A., and it will be a blood bath.”

Newman said he was merely using his sixth attacker for practice. Crow has never agreed with it. He still thinks it’s insulting to the other team. Newman once said that if he was looking to rub salt in a team’s wounds he would “tell everybody to get on one leg and cover an eye.”

The sixth attacker offense, like most anything else in this unique league, is not without its share of controversy. Sometimes even getting the jersey on is an adventure and can attract the watchful eye of the referee.

In a game at Wichita in January, Hirmez was to play a rare shift as the sixth attacker. The goalie came off, and Hirmez could be seen on the sidelines, struggling to get his arms through the sleeves.

After a few seconds of twisting like a man trying to free himself from a straight jacket, Hirmez ran on the field with the jersey pulled over only one arm. The referee didn’t go for it and assessed the Sockers a penalty.

“I just couldn’t put one of the sleeves in,” Hirmez says. “My muscles must be too big.”

You would think a goalie might get a charge out of watching a sixth attacker trying to make a save with his hands. Asked about this, Socker Victor Nogueira gave a very serious answer. Evidently, he was called on to play sixth attacker two years ago while with the Cleveland Force, and things didn’t go too smoothly.

“I let in three goals,” Nogueira says. “I don’t like to be used like that. I told them I didn’t want to do it. I’m too tired at the end of the game to do it. You have to be able to shoot and pass the ball real well.”

If Nogueira has gained respect for a sixth attacker’s job, Crow has learned to respect the trade of goalkeeping. He doesn’t particularly relish standing in the goal when somebody is about to let a 70 m.p.h. shot fly in his direction.

“You’re worried about being blasted in the face with a ball,” he says. “You’re not a natural goalie.”

That doesn’t faze Fernandez.

“I like it,” he says. “I think it’s exciting. It’s a bolt of energy, a rush. I’ve always played in goal in practice. There’s a lot of action. It’s fun to save somebody’s shot like Branko’s or Waady’s.

He has been successful during games, too.

“When I’ve been on they haven’t scored that much,” he says, pausing and snickering. “I think I’m doing a damn good job.”