MSL NOTEBOOK : Outdoors Cold to Some Teams
The MSL’s rush to outdoor soccer might have been a bit hasty. At least those are the thoughts of Derek Armstrong, coach of the San Diego Nomads outdoor soccer club.
Until two weeks ago, the Nomads belonged to the American Professional Soccer League, which was formed last year by a merger of the Western Soccer League and the eastern American Soccer League.
The new APSL season begins in May.
“We were moving so fast,” Armstrong said, “that we frightened the MSL to death and they felt they had to move outdoors. But they needn’t have worried because we weren’t quite ready.”
With the APSL insisting on playing an intertwined schedule between teams on both coasts, 11 franchises, including the Nomads, called it quits, citing spiraling costs.
As a result, only nine franchises remain.
“We decided the budget demands were just moving too fast,” Armstrong said of the Nomads’ decision. “And in these times of recession, we couldn’t find anybody to share the burden.”
Armstrong is trying to put together a semi-pro outdoor league consisting of two divisions, Southern and Northern California.
The loss suffered by the Ron Newman-coached West team in last week’s All-Star Game is already being heralded in Baltimore as a possible sign of things to come.
This note appeared in the Sunday edition of the Baltimore Sun:
When Blast Coach Kenny Cooper guided the East All-Stars to a 9-8, overtime victory over Coach Ron Newman and the West All-Stars, it was a breakthrough for Cooper.
Newman was 2-0 against Cooper in All-Star games, and he and the San Diego Sockers are 4-0 against Cooper and the Blast in the MSL championship series.
Could it be an omen if Cooper meets Newman and the Sockers again for the championship this season?
This note, of a different topic, appeared Monday evening in the same paper:
CLASSLESS ACTS: The Sockers may be No. 1 in the West, but the performance of San Diego’s Paul Wright Friday night was so far down in the snakepit, he may never climb out--unless it is on the shoulders of Wichita Wing Jim McGeough, who fought fire with fire.
After misconduct penalties Friday, they emerged from the penalty boxes. Wright wrapped his arm around McGeough’s shoulders. Then he spit at him. McGeough spit back, but missed Wright and hit Socker Rod Castro.
McGeough and Wright were both given violent conduct and red cards and ejected from the game.
The Wright-McGeough incident is not closed as far as the league is concerned.
Jim Baker, director of operations, earlier this week finished his review of game tapes and forwarded them to Hank Silva, director of officials. The two will get together with Commissioner Earl Foreman and most likely dole out further fines.
The red cards already will cost Wright and McGeough $85. That figure could go higher because of the flagrant nature of the fouls.
Also, Baker said it is possible others involved in the halftime scuffle (such as Wing Victor Moreland, who body-slammed Sockers assistant Erich Geyer) and those involved in another fight with two seconds remaining (such as Kevin Crow and Wing Chico Borja) will receive fines.
None of the fines, however, are likely to reach the level of those assessed former Socker forward Zoran Karic, who now plays in Cleveland.
In Friday’s 7-6 victory over Tacoma, Karic was whistled for three consecutive misconduct penalties in the third quarter. Each comes with an $85 fine.
In addition, two misconducts equal a yellow card (a $45 bill), and three penalties merit a red-card ejection. Because it was Karic’s second red card of the season, he will be hit with an additional $170 charge.
That’s not all. The first of Karic’s three misconduct penalties put him over the 30-minute mark for the season, a dubious plateau which is marked by a $170 fine.
The next plateau is 36 minutes which tags players with a $255 fine. With the last of his three penalties, Karic hit that, too.
All totaled, that game cost Karic $895.
Like other Yugoslavs who made their way to the MSL, Karic has combined a hot temper with a propensity for scoring. He is currently second in the the league with 51 goals, fourth with 33 assists and fifth with 84 points.
Karic is a big reason the Crunch (18-19 as of Tuesday) has won nine of 10 games and 11 of 14 to move within 2 1/2 games of East-leading Kansas City and within a half-game of second-place Baltimore.
However, Karic is getting little credit for the streak. All of that is being heaped on Trevor Dawkins, who took over as coach for Kai Haaskivi 15 games ago.