New Goals
Eric Wynalda was on the bench.
The U.S. national soccer team had completed a two-hour training session in Claremont on Thursday morning and its all-time leading goal scorer was cooling off.
These are difficult days for Wynalda. Once the best, he is now simply one of the rest. He knows that when the United States takes the field against Iran at the Rose Bowl on Sunday afternoon, he will be in exactly the same place:
On the bench.
For a decade, Wynalda, born in Fullerton and raised in Westlake Village, was the player the U.S. turned to in its search for goals. And for a decade he came through.
He was there at the beginning, making his U.S. debut in the national team’s first match of the 1990s, a 2-0 victory over Costa Rica in Miami on Feb. 2, 1990.
And he was there at the end, scoring the Americans’ lone goal in its last match of the 1990s, a 2-1 loss to Morocco in Marrakech on Nov. 17, 1999.
In 10 years, he has played 102 games for the U.S. and has scored 33 goals, a dozen more than anyone else. No one else has come close to his average of a goal every three games. But time and a succession of bad teams and bad injuries have taken their toll.
Now, at 30, Wynalda is like the old lion fighting off the inevitable.
“It’s something that I’ve dealt with over the years,” he said of the half-dozen or so challengers for his position. “Always, a new guy comes in and tries to take my job. That’s the way it works. It’s the nature of the business. But I’m still here.”
One reason is that no other player in the last decade, with the possible exception of another Californian, Joe-Max Moore of Irvine, has been able to do what Wynalda does--stick the ball in the back of the net with a reasonable degree of consistency.
In fact, only eight players in the 84-year history of the U.S. national team have managed to score in double figures, and one of them, Marcelo Balboa of Cerritos, is a defender.
Now, a new generation of American strikers is emerging.
With Moore playing in England and unavailable, U.S. Coach Bruce Arena probably will start Brian McBride, unquestionably the best U.S. forward at the moment, and the Germany-based Jovan Kirovski against Iran at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
Of the other three forwards in camp, Roy Lassiter, Major League Soccer’s all-time scoring leader, has never really appeared comfortable in a national team role, and Jason Kreis, the league’s 1999 most valuable player and scoring champion, and former UCLA striker Ante Razov have yet to do anything spectacular enough to catch Arena’s eye.
“There’s not a direct correlation between being a very good club player and being a very good international player,” Arena said. “That’s part of the equation here; it’s us trying to predict how successful those players can be at this level.”
Looking further ahead, however, the prospects for the U.S. developing a top-class striker are quite promising. Coach Clive Charles’ U.S. Olympic squad features four players--Chris Albright, Josh Wolff, Conor Casey and Landon Donovan--any of whom could become the next Wynalda.
Not that it will be easy.
“Every team in the world is looking for a dominant scorer, and it’s not like they grow on trees,” Galaxy and U.S. national team defender Robin Fraser said Thursday.
“I think Eric has been physically the best that we’ve had in that he can do everything with the ball. He can play with his back to the goal, he can run at people, he’s good on crosses, good in the air.
“All you can ask is to develop players like that, and then some will just have a knack for scoring goals.”
Wynalda, Fraser said, is much more than just a finisher.
“He’s complete,” he said. “He can score in so many different ways, not just off being in the right place at the right time. Not just having the instinct, but also the ability to create a lot of the things for himself.”
Bob Bradley, who coached the Chicago Fire to the 1998 MLS title, said MLS is developing others who could become as good.
“The pool of good strikers is deeper, and I think the league helps that,” he said. “Whether any of those guys are going to be really special on an international level, that’s still our issue in this country.
“The only thing that you hope happens along the way is that we’re doing a good job of identifying players who do have goal-scoring talent and that we’re getting them into the most competitive situations.”
At the moment, it’s Wynalda who finds himself competing, with his place on the national team no longer assured.
“I think that only comes with good performances,” he said. “I’ve had a very rough two years. I really haven’t been in the national team for almost two years [since the France ’98 World Cup]. I’ve only had one chance to play for Bruce.
“Right now, I’m just concentrating on getting healthy and staying healthy, and I think the rest will take care of itself.
“The way we’ve been playing, it’s pretty clear that I haven’t been fitting into Bruce’s plan. It’s my job to do something about that.”
Being sidelined has affected Wynalda’s scoring instincts.
“I’m thinking too much,” he said. “I’ve been away from the game for a while, so I’m over-thinking things. My confidence really isn’t where it used to be. Right now it’s a totally different situation. I’m basically a bench player who is trying to be supportive and maybe help.
“We’ll see how it goes.”
Soccer Note
While an Iranian group objects to a brewery’s sponsorship, beer ads will remain on the Rose Bowl field for Sunday’s game. “We have tremendous respect for Muslim tradition, and understand that abstinence is an Islamic tradition,” the Chicago-based U.S. Soccer Federation said in a statement Thursday. “However, because the game is being played in the U.S. . . . Budweiser will remain one of several event sponsors.” It was unclear who complained about the Budweiser ads. “A U.S-based Muslim group expressed concerns about Budweiser’s involvement with the match, so we put out the statement to clarify our relationship with all our sponsors,” U.S. spokesman Jim Moorhouse said, declining to identify the group.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Top U.S. Goal Scorers
Ranking the all-time American goal scorers:
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Player Era Games Goals 1. Eric Wynalda 1990 to present 102 33 2. Bruce Murray 1985 to 1993 86 21 3. Joe-Max Moore 1992 to present 79 20 4. Marcelo Balboa 1988 to present 127 13 5. Hugo Perez 1984 to 1994 73 13 6. Frank Klopas 1987 to 1996 40 12 7. Peter Vermes 1988 to 1998 67 11 8. Dominic Kinnear 1990 to 1995 54 10 9. Alexi Lalas 1989 to 1998 96 9 10. Brian McBride 1993 to present 35 9 11. Cobi Jones 1992 to present 119 8
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U.S. vs. IRAN
Sunday
2 p.m.
Rose Bowl
ESPN
