It’s the Season for Change in MLS
It seems only yesterday, or perhaps the day before, that the Galaxy was losing Major League Soccer’s 1999 championship game to Washington D.C. United. Nonetheless, another MLS season is about to begin.
The league’s 12 teams start on-field training Monday, then head to Florida on Feb. 7 for a two-week camp that will include a full schedule of exhibitions.
The next few days, therefore, will probably feature some significant trades and signings as teams try to position themselves for Saturday’s MLS draft in Fort Lauderdale.
The first in what could be a chain of such moves occurred last week when New York/New Jersey MetroStar midfielder Tab Ramos, who missed most of the 1999 MLS season because of injury, signed a one-year contract with the team. Terms were not disclosed, but it is likely that Ramos accepted considerably less than the league maximum of almost $250,000 he was paid last year.
“My salary goes up if I play certain games, it goes up if I play all the games,” Ramos told the Newark Star-Ledger. “To be honest, I’m embarrassed to be hurt as much as I am, and I’m trying as hard as I can to stay healthy. The last thing I want to do is be off the field. . . . Last year was embarrassing, but there was nothing I could have done different.”
Ramos, from Kearny, N.J., has played in 65 MLS games and has seven goals and 22 assists. He played 82 games for the U.S. national team and was a starter in the 1990, 1994 and 1998 World Cup tournaments.
“Hopefully, this will be the beginning of our turnaround,” Ramos, 33, said of the MetroStars, who had a league worst 7-25 record last season under Bora Milutinovic but who now are coached by former Galaxy mentor Octavio Zambrano.
Meanwhile, two other former U.S. national team players also are facing new challenges.
Frank Klopas, the Greek-born forward who helped the Chicago Fire win the MLS title and the U.S. Open Cup in 1998, announced his retirement at 33.
The only MLS player with ties to the old North American Soccer League, Klopas made his pro debut for the NASL’s Chicago Sting at 17 in 1984 and later played six seasons for AEK Athens and Apollon in Greece.
He scored 12 goals in 40 games for the U.S. national team between 1988 and 1995 and was a member of the 1994 World Cup squad.
In four MLS seasons, two with the Kansas City Wizards and two with the Fire, he had 13 goals and 16 assists in 89 games.
Klopas will remain with the Fire as its strength and conditioning specialist and in a community affairs role.
Thomas Dooley, who played for the U.S. team in the 1994 World Cup and was its captain in the France ’98 tournament, was traded Friday to the MetroStars by Columbus after a falling-out with Crew Coach Tom Fitzgerald.
Dooley, 38, played sparsely in ’99 and angered Fitzgerald by going to Germany to pick up his coaching license while the Crew was playing D.C. United in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Dooley said he was injured. Fitzgerald said he was not, and the two have not seen eye to eye since.
In New York, Dooley will play alongside 1990 World Cup winner Lothar Matthaeus of Germany in what will be an aged but exceptionally experienced MetroStar defense.
That could open the way for New York’s Iranian defender, Mohammad Khakpour, to come to Los Angeles as a replacement for Steve Jolley, who is likely to be traded by the Galaxy.
Meanwhile, there should also be interest in Colombian forward John Jairo Trellez, who was cut by the Dallas Burn in order to get down to the league limit of four foreign players.
Less likely to be picked up is talented but temperamental Serbian midfielder Sasa Curcic, whom the MetroStars are trying to unload.
SNAKE-BITTEN?
There are good weeks and bad, and last week was definitely bad for U.S. Under-23 national team defender Chad McCarthy of Clovis, Calif.
McCarthy is a starter on the Olympic team, which is in Europe for three games, and two miscues by the Tampa Bay Mutiny player caused the U.S. to lose its first two encounters.
On Tuesday, McCarthy committed a foul that gave Portugal a 65th-minute penalty kick from which Hugo Leal scored to earn a 1-0 victory in Alverca, Portugal.
On Thursday, McCarthy came on as a second-half substitute and accidentally deflected a shot into his own net as Portuguese first division club FC Estoril defeated the U.S., 1-0, in Lisbon.
The Americans close the tour with a game against Germany second-division team Offenbach FC today before returning to open a one-week training camp in Fort Lauderdale on Friday.
QUICK PASSES
Galaxy midfielder/forward Cobi Jones is one of three finalists for the Honda player-of-the-year award that will be presented Feb. 13 in Miami. The other two finalists are goalkeeper Kasey Keller of Rayo Vallecano in Spain and midfielder Claudio Reyna of Glasgow Rangers in Scotland. Jones edged Keller for the annual award in 1998. . . . Jim Smith, 34, an associate athletic director at Ohio State the last four years, was named general manager of the Columbus Crew, replacing Jamey Rootes, who left to assume a similar role with the NFL’s new Houston franchise. . . . Alfonso Mondelo, who coached the MetroStars in 1998, was named director of player development for MLS and coach of U.S. Project-40 team. A native of Baracaldo, Spain, Mondelo, 41, coached the Long Island Rough Riders to an 86-34-1 record and one national title in four years and also has coached the U.S. Under-15 and Puerto Rican national teams.
Brian Hall is the only American included among the 11 referees selected to officiate the Feb. 12-27 Gold Cup in Miami, San Diego and Los Angeles. Jorge Reyes of the U.S. was named one of the tournament’s 10 assistant referees. . . . More than 200 referees under the guidance of World Cup ’98 official Esse Baharmast today complete a three-day workshop at Cal State Fullerton that includes experimentation with the two-referee system being studied by FIFA. . . . MLS signed six players to Project-40 contracts for the 2000 season. They are U.S. Under-18 national team captain Bobby Convey, the youngest player to ever sign a MLS contract (16 years, 8 months); defender Nick Garcia, who led Indiana University to two consecutive NCAA Division I championships; Under-23 national team member and 1999 Pan Am Games bronze medalist Carlos Bocanegra of UCLA; Under-20 national team member Rusty Pierce of North Carolina Greensboro; Shaker Asad of North Carolina State; and 19-year-old Sergio Salas of Washington, D.C. . . . Moscow, Havana, and Tehran would seem to be among the least likely places for the U.S. men’s national team to play, but all three have been penciled onto Coach Bruce Arena’s schedule for the coming year.
