For Openers, There’s One Tie
On opening night for Major League Soccer Saturday, the Miami Fusion and New England Revolution tied, 1-1, before 8,782 at Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Under the new MLS overtime rules, each team earned one point.
In an appeal to soccer purists, the league abandoned the shootout used to break deadlocks and adopted the international standard, in which games can end in ties.
The only departure is 10 minutes of sudden-death overtime if games are even after regulation.
New England’s Imad Baba scored the last goal with 10 minutes remaining. Baba received a free kick from Ted Chronopoulos off the left wing and flicked a 12-yard shot past Fusion goalkeeper Jeff Cassar.
The Fusion had taken a 1-0 lead in the 61st minute, on Diego Serna’s header from 10 yards out. Serna missed Miami’s final 13 games last season after with a knee injury.
Tampa Bay 5, Columbus 1--Steve Ralston and Raul Diaz Arce had two goals each for the Mutiny before 11,779 at Tampa, Fla.
The win reversed a trend that saw the Mutiny drop its first four games last season and first three in 1998.
Tampa Bay’s Carlos Valderrama had two assists to match his total in nine career games against Columbus.
Colombian national team midfielder John Wilmar Perez, allocated to the Crew earlier this month, made his MLS debut.
Dallas 4, Chicago 2--Bulgarian striker Hristo Stoichkov scored twice for the Fire in his MLS debut, but Ariel Graziani’s two second-half goals lifted the Burn to the victory before 12,891 at Dallas.
Stoichkov, the joint-leading scorer at the 1994 World Cup, is the second-leading career scorer in Bulgarian soccer, and had not played since leaving Japanese club Kashiwa Reysol eight months ago.
Stoichkov put Chicago up in the 14th minute on a header inside off a cross from Chris Armas. After Burn forward Jason Kreis’s header in the 28th minute tied the score, Stoichkov made it 2-1 on a breakaway three minutes before the break.
