Salsa Beats Sounders to Move Into First : Soccer: Wright, Paulinho get goals in 2-1 victory.
The last time the Salsa played at Titan Stadium, league MVP Paulinho was on the bench, Coach Rildo Menezes was defending himself and a championship was being lost.
Before an opening-night gathering of 2,148 Sunday, Paulinho was scoring, Menezes was long gone and the Salsa was moving into first place.
For a day, anyway.
The Salsa beat Seattle, 2-1, to take the lead in the American Professional Soccer League, though it may be short-lived. The league is expected to rule today on what to do with the Salsa’s 3-0 victory over Houston. The APSL revoked the Houston franchise’s membership Friday, citing an internal ownership dispute.
The APSL has three options: Wipe out the game against the Force and take away the Salsa’s nine points for victory; rule the game a 1-0 forfeit victory for the Salsa and take away only two points from the Salsa’s total of 31; or it might reschedule with another team playing the Houston spot in the schedule.
The Salsa (4-2) has a four-point lead over Seattle (3-3, 27 points). It has won four in a row.
The victory was the first for goalie Bob Ammann, who had four saves.
“We were a little slow getting started this season, but our defense has been superb,” Ammann said. “Tonight, I didn’t even have a lot to do. It’s just a matter of time before Paul (Wright) and Paulinho get going.”
Wright scored the game’s first goal in the 19th minute off an assist from Paulinho, and Paulinho made it 2-1 with a goal in the 42nd minute after taking a pass from Yari Allnutt.
Wright and Allnutt each have three goals and an assist for the Salsa.
“We thought the first goal was way, way offsides,” Sounders Coach Alan Hinton said. “At the same time, L.A. played a wonderful soccer game and I have no complaint with the result.”
Salsa Coach Rick Davis said he doesn’t expect the team to really begin playing well, though, until August.
“We decided to limit our preseason . . . put it off until June,” Davis said. “The fact we’ve won four in a row with the team playing 60-70 % of its capability makes us happy. July 31st will be 8 1/2 weeks and that will be a regular preseason. Come August, when we hit our stride, I don’t think there will be anybody in this league that can play with us.”
Notes
Salsa owner William De La Pena announced the Salsa will compete this fall in Mexico’s new Division I-A. The league begins the first week of September and the Salsa will play its home games at Cal State Fullerton. The 14-team league will not compete against the 18-team Division I in league, but will be involved in a 32-team Cup tournament in early 1995. Also expected to compete in Division I-A are Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. De La Pena expects to play a home game every other week during a 26-game schedule; he expects the schedule to be completed within two weeks.
