United And Galaxy Roll Back The Years

Compiled by Gavin Willacy

WELL, if this season's MLS play-offs haven't got the American public interested in football again, then they never will be.

Eighteen months after the national team flopped at France 98 and with attendances well down in the domestic league, Major League Soccer was struggling. But it has burst into life in extraordinary fashion over the last month, with some thrilling games and amazing results. The latest one came at Washington's RFK Stadium, where Columbus Crew have never won in 12 visits. They needed to break that run to pip DC United to a place in the MLS Cup Final but they failed – in spectacular fashion.

Having crashed to an astonishing 5-1 hammering in Ohio last week, DC bounced back in chilling fashion, thrashing the Crew 4-0 and totally humiliating the young pretenders to their Eastern crown. DC marched into their fourth straight final, a one-off Super Bowl-style clash, where they will meet Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday in an uncanny repeat on the inaugural MLS Final in 1996. The game is even back at Foxboro Stadium outside Boston and, given the entertainment on show in the last few weeks, the attendance should top the 34,643 who turned up in horrific weather three years ago.

Bolivian superstar Marco Etcheverry netted a trademark 25-yard free-kick in the dying moments against Columbus, having delightfully set up all three other goals, once for international team-mate Jaime Moreno and twice for top scorer Roy Lassiter, as United beat the Ohio side in the play-offs for the third straight year.

"Someday, we'll break that streak," sighed Crew coach Tom Fitzgerald, whose side took 89 minutes to have a shot on goal. "I thought 13 was our lucky number. In front of their fans, they're tough to beat. We know that better than anybody."

"I'm very happy we're going to the finals," said Etcheverry, who then winked and added: "It's not my first time."

The Bolivian veteran is looking for a third winners’ medal, having been part of the United side who beat Los Angeles 3-2 in overtime in 1996 and Colorado Rapids 2-1 a year later. He was on the losing side last October when Chicago Fire pulled off a surprise 2-0 win in Pasadena.

"We had no champagne in the locker room," said United coach Thomas Rongen. "We had some beers. They want the big one."

United have never lost a play-off game at RFK, but they may not be there next season, as their lease is up. The crowd of 21,451 were given a farewell to remember - if it is to be the final game on the turf once graced by Redskins gridirion legends like Joe Theismann and John Riggins.

In the West, the Galaxy finally broke free of their defensive shackles to beat Dallas Burn in Pasadena, 3-1. The visitors were in trouble after only three minutes when Greg Vanney converted a penalty – Garry Flitcroft-lookalike Paul Broome being penalised for a handball when a cross brushed his arm. Having lost all ten regular season games in which they went a goal down, the omens were not good for Dallas.

Carlos Hermosillo added a second on 20 minutes after Mark Dodd, back in goal, parried a Clint Mathis shot, while Ezra Hendrickson set up midget playmaker Mauricio Cienfuegos – surely Joe Pesci’s little brother? – for the third after the break. It was fitting that Jason Kreis scored the final Dallas goal of the season after his inspirational year but he will have gained less enjoyment from his last-minute penalty than any of his other goals in 1999.

The play-offs have not been a happy hunting ground for Kreis, but at least he has something to take his mind off it. He flew off to Morocco with the USA this week for Wednesday’s friendly, trying to take advantage of the absence of LA and DC players in Bruce Arena’s 16-man squad. And he won the Football365 MLS Player Of The Year Award, as voted by our readers.

It could have all been so different for Dallas. In the first game in Los Angeles, they controlled the game and were heading for a shoot-out but got nothing for their efforts thanks to a last minute fluke own goal when Henrickson’s cross deflected inside the near post off Brian Haynes.

But, as they say in Hank Hill country: 'If aunt Belle had a dick, she's be uncle Bill'. The fact is the Burn are out and that could lead to major changes in Texas this winter. Manager Dave Dir and the players are safe, but there are rumours that the NFL's Dallas Cowboys may buy the Burn and move them into Texas Stadium, if they change the playing surface from astroturf to natural grass.

Now the MLS roadshow heads to rural Massachusetts and Foxboro. The New England Patriots don't have a home game until December 5, so hopefully the powers that be will have learned from the Conference finals and get all the gridiron pitch markings removed for the showpiece final. The grass at LA's Rose Bowl home was covered in the massive yellow and blue logos of the UCLA Bruins college gridiron side for their matches against Dallas and the hashmarks all over the pitch were so bright they looked like they’d been painted on that morning.

The fanatical Galaxy ‘Ultras’ contributed to the yellow and blue carnival with their obligatory T-shirts and confetti – if only the team wore those colours too. Instead, they will probably wear their murky and most un-LA ‘juniper’ and black with gold pinstripes on Sunday, with DC in all white.


IF THE play-offs had been run under the European system, that is home and away legs with aggregate scores and no shoot-outs, rather than best-of-three, we would have different finalists on Sunday.

While half of the six post-season series went to third games, taking the aggregate scores over 180 minutes, Columbus would have beaten DC in the Eastern Final and LA would have been playing Chicago, not Dallas in the West, after the Fire’s 4-0 home win in Game Two of their semi.


CREW striker Stern John may get to find out for himself about the English method having signed for Nottingham Forest on Monday night. Forest, managed by former England star David Platt, are struggling in the first division but John’s goals should help them up towards challenging for a play-off place come May.


GOING the other way will be Lothar Matthaus, who has finally signed on the dotted line for the New York/New Jersey MetroStars. The German legend, who equalled Thomas Ravelli’s record number of international caps at the weekend, will stay with Bayern Munich until their season ends before heading to Jooysey. Let’s hope the managerless MetroStars still have something to play for by then.


THE FOOTBALL365 MLS AWARDS
To read all about the inaugural winners, click
here