MLS Looks to Double Numbers
Major League Soccer, which ends its seventh season Sunday, intends eventually to double in size, to 20 teams, Commissioner Don Garber said Friday, identifying some of the candidate cities as Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Seattle and Tulsa.
Only a year ago, the MLS was folding its teams at Miami and Tampa, but pronouncing the league “in better shape then it ever was,” Garber said that financial losses had been halved this year and that attendance at Sunday’s championship game between the Galaxy and New England Revolution in Foxboro, Mass., could surpass the record of 57,431 set in the 1997 title game. By Friday, almost 50,000 tickets had been sold.
Meanwhile, the league’s year-end awards have been divided among six of its 10 clubs.
Galaxy striker Carlos Ruiz made off with the most-valuable-player and goal-of-the-year awards, and the Revolution also was doubly honored.
Its coach, Steve Nicol, the former Liverpool player who took over from Fernando Clavijo in midseason, was named coach of the year. Forward Taylor Twellman, who dueled with Ruiz for the MLS scoring title, was honored for the play of the year.
In addition, the Chicago Fire’s Carlos Bocanegra, a former UCLA standout, was voted defender of the year; the San Jose Earthquakes’ Joe Cannon was selected goalkeeper of the year; the Columbus Crew’s Kyle Martino was picked as rookie of the year, and the Kansas City Wizards’ Chris Klein was named comeback player of the year.
Kevin Terry was named the top referee for 2002.
Poles Apart
Former Polish World Cup star Zbigniew Boniek, who was named Poland’s coach in July after the country’s disappointing performance at Korea/Japan ‘02, said he would resign if Poland fails to qualify for the 2004 European Championship in Portugal, or at least reach the playoffs.
“If I fail to achieve first or second place in the [qualifying] group, I will quit,” Boniek, 46, told the Warsaw newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. “We will have to give a chance to someone else then. Maybe Boniek is a good coach, I believe he is, but I may be wrong.”
Meanwhile, Poland’s first-choice goalkeeper, Jerzy Dudek, signed a contract with Liverpool that will keep him with the English Premier League club until 2006. Terms were not revealed, but Coach Gerard Houllier said Dudek, who had 29 shutouts in 54 games last season, had been “rewarded accordingly.”
Lapuente Wins One
Manuel Lapuente, who lost his first two games after returning as Club America’s coach, got back on track Thursday when the defending Mexican league champion defeated Queretaro, 3-1, on two goals by Marcelo Lipatin and one by Christian Patino.
Full of Demons
Dinamo Zagreb, Croatia’s league leader and one of the country’s top teams, has requested that the Roman Catholic church assign a priest to the team full-time.
“This club is full of demons and they must be chased away,” Coach Miroslav Blazevic told the Zagreb newspaper Vecernji List. “The priest would travel with us everywhere; he would be at the players’ disposal all the time so they don’t need to go to church.”
Trapattoni on Edge
Franco Carraro, president of the Italian soccer federation, announced that he has ordered a thorough review of the entire national team program, including the future of Coach Giovanni Trapattoni, in the wake of Wednesday’s Euro 2004 qualifying loss to Wales.
Trapattoni has refused to step down, telling Italian reporters Friday that such action would be “as though you journalists decided to resign after writing three bad articles.”
