Coaches Praise Scheme
Europe’s leading soccer coaches confirmed Monday what Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid has known all season: that one striker is enough.
Schmid and the Galaxy rode the talents and the league-high 24 goals of Guatemalan striker Carlos Ruiz to the best record in Major League Soccer and the top seeding in the MLS playoffs that begin Wednesday.
On Monday, at the start of a three-day summit of Europe’s 52 national team coaches in Warsaw, former Scotland coach Andy Roxburgh, now UEFA’s technical director, said teams that play a fluid system behind a solitary front-runner often are proving the most successful.
“One of the key trends coming out of the World Cup is more teams playing with one striker,” Roxburgh was quoted as saying by Reuters. “No team gives up space for free nowadays, so you need players to rotate in front.”
Roxburgh said Brazil won the World Cup largely because of the ability of players such as Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho to interchange positions on the fly.
“When they played with two strikers, one was slightly behind the other,” he said. “When they played with three front-liners, they were always rotating, always moving. That is the most difficult thing to mark [defend against] and the greatest advantage of this system.”
France to Host Cup
The Executive Committee of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, announced that France will play host to the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup from June 18-29 at Paris, Lyon and Saint-Etienne.
Australia, South Africa and the United States also had bid to stage the eight-nation event, which features the champions of FIFA’s six continental confederations as well as the world champion and one invited team.
The 2003 Confederations Cup field will consist of Brazil (world champion), Cameroon (Africa), Colombia (South America), France (Europe), Japan (Asia), New Zealand (Oceania), the U.S. (CONCACAF), as well as an invited team yet to be named.
MLS Attendance Again Rises
Attendance at MLS games grew for the second consecutive season, to an average of 15,822 a game during the just-concluded 2002 regular season, according to league figures.
That represented a 6% rise over 2001 and a cumulative 15% jump in the last two seasons. The average is the highest since the league’s inaugural season in 1996.
The Colorado Rapids led the league with 20,690 fans per game, followed by the Galaxy with 19,047 and the New York/New Jersey MetroStars with 18,155.
Wortmann Takes Charge
Ivo Wortmann, former coach of the defunct Miami Fusion of MLS, was hired as coach of Botafogo in the Brazilian league after the resignation of Abel Braga, who became the 13th coach to either quit or be fired since the start of the Brazilian season Aug. 11.
See, We Told You
Failing to learn from the ridicule heaped upon Welsh rugby referees, who earlier signed a sponsorship agreement with a leading British optician, Scottish soccer referees Monday agreed to be sponsored by the same firm, Specsavers.
Under terms of the $1.17-million agreement, the company’s name will be worn on referees’ shirts. There was no immediate word on whether the placards handed to Welsh rugby fans that read “Get your blinking eyes tested, ref,” will also be available to Scottish soccer fans.
