While MLS Sleeps, He’s in Lalas Land
It is April 12, 1995, the last Wednesday before Easter, and do you know where Alexi Lalas is?
In a better world, or a smarter one, he would be here, banging in headers for the Los Angeles Itos or the San Jose Hooligans of the new, up and running MLS--Major League Soccer, to those who promote it, and Missed Opportunities, Inc., to the rest of the globe.
You do remember Major League Soccer, don’t you? The long-rumored main course that was supposed to follow the tasty hors d’oeuvre the World Cup served U.S. palates last year? The first U.S. outdoor professional soccer league that was going to do it right--i.e., survive--by building directly on the interest and curiosity fanned last July by Romario, Baggio and Thomas Ravelli?
Well, according to Alan Rothenberg’s original plan, MLS was to have opened its inaugural season last weekend. What, you say, no ESPN highlights? Don’t phone your local cable operator. MLS action has been postponed until further notice, victimized by yet another work stoppage. Rothenberg couldn’t come up with the money, the players won’t work for free, so MLS stopped before it could start, rescheduling its new inaugural season for (wink, wink) 1996.
Lalas, the rockin’ Rasputin of Team USA, was going to be the poster boy for MLS. More than that, he was going to be poster boy, teen idol, goodwill ambassador, marquee attraction, league spokesman, round-the-clock PR machine and, quite possibly, the halftime entertainment. The tousled orange hair, the scraggly goatee, the electric guitar, the slacker-with-a-cause persona--Lalas was perfect for MLS.
LALAS, they ought to have renamed the league.
Instead, Lalas spends his days and some of his nights in the northern Italian town of Padova, about a half-hour west of Venice, toiling on the back line for one of the weakest teams in Serie A , the Italian first division.
He has become something of a national novelty there too. Lalas is the first American to play in Serie A , the most prestigious soccer league in the world. It was bound to happen eventually, though Italy still can’t quite come to grips with the sight of the ground-breaker--”This big sort of walking stork with no technical abilities,” as Lalas self-effacingly describes himself.
“Just like everybody else in this league, I have my bad games,” Lalas says over the phone. “But my bad games are portrayed differently than the others because of who I am.
“A lot of people say, ‘Maybe he’s just a fluke.’ But even if I fall on my face here, at least I tried . . . I wanted to test myself in the best league in the world. And it meant a lot to be the first American to do this. Whatever else happens, I am the first American to play here, the first to score here, the first to win here.”
Padova’s first season in the first division has been gangly and awkward, a little like Lalas himself. To date, Padova has played 26 games, won nine and scored 29 goals. In an 18-team league that will demote the bottom four to the second division in 1995-96, Padova is in 13th place, one point above relegation.
Somewhat astonishingly, Lalas has scored three times for Padova--once in the Italian Cup and twice in league victories over Torino and defending European champion AC Milan. And, Lalas the header master notes with a tinge of pride, “I’ve scored both with my feet.”
Lalas has captivated the Italian media--big surprise there--for better and worse. The talk shows love him. They ask Lalas--an atheist rock composer and singer who lives with his girlfriend--about religion, popular music and cultural mores and then wring their hands in glee with every response.
“I say what’s on my mind,” Lalas says, “and I guess that’s uncommon for them. My only defense is, you’re not looking at a social commentator here. I make it up as I go along.”
On the other hand, the Italian soccer press “prints stuff you don’t say and rips you whether you have a good game or a bad one,” Lalas says. “In America, we have a very limited soccer press, and you might get criticized if you play like (garbage). In Italy, it’s, ‘Oh, you played well, but you’re (garbage) anyway.’ ”
Lalas laughs.
“I always said I wanted to live in a soccer culture. Well, I’ve landed in it. Soccer is life here. I play a World Cup game, in terms of having everybody in the country into it, every Sunday. The people have a passion for the game that’s difficult to describe.
“I live in a world where everybody knows who I am. Everybody knows how I look. All of Italy knows who won and lost on Sunday. And occasionally I hear stuff like, ‘You don’t respect the sport. You don’t respect it because of your music and the way you look.’
“Because of the way I look? It’s absurd. Absolutely incredible.”
Given his options, however . . .well, Lalas didn’t have any options.
He says he was “initially very disappointed” when MLS called off its 1995 season. “Then I sat down and thought about it. It’s easy to start a league that lasts for two years. What we need in America is a soccer league that is going to last.
“Should we have started up right after World Cup? Yeah. Obviously. But we have to have a league that lasts. If waiting a year makes the league better in the long term, that’s the way we should go.”
When, and if, MLS gets its act together, Lalas says they know where to find him.
“Obviously, they’d have to make it worth my while,” Lalas says with a laugh. “But I know that they’re smart people. Cobi Jones, myself, Marcello Balboa--they have to bring us back. The American people want to see the World Cup players. The league has to sign a lot of the bigger names.”
Lalas quips, “I’m a hired gun. I go where the work is.” Making the move from Mission Viejo to Padova wasn’t his first preference, but what’s an American World Cup hero to do? Starve?
