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| Friday, September 14, 2001 24:19 EST |
MetroStars left options on draft-day table
By Jeff Bradley
[ESPN The Magazine]
Editor's note: ESPN The Magazine's Jeff Bradley will contribute a weekly look at Major League Soccer throughout the season. This is his introductory column.
This is the First Edition of the MLS Boot Room, a column I hope will become a weekly must-read for hardcore MLS fans. We're going to try to bring you the same type of buzz from the field, dressing room and front offices that all ESPN-aholics crave and receive in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB.
It's not going to be a soft, "up-with-MLS" column. Not by any stretch. But the news, notes and opinions here are going to be written with the serious MLS fan in mind -- the fan who wants to know who's in the coach's doghouse and who's the Flavor of the Month. The fan who wants to know who's on the trading block and who's untouchable. And the fan who wants more rumors than his or her brain can likely comprehend.
So if you fit that category -- if you're an MLS junkie -- get ready for our first few touches. Just remember, spring training is just beginning, so we're going to have some kinks to work out before we find a rhythm.
Shaky first touch
Everyone was anxious to see how the new MetroStars braintrust -- GM Nick Sakiewicz and coach Octavio Zambrano -- would handle their first draft. Tthe consensus was that they botched it.
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THE FIRST XI
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What people in and around MLS are talking about, sort of:
11. New kits (Tab Ramos models for MetroStars, escapes without injury)
10. Junior Agogo (Can Fire invitee play? Who cares with that name)
9. Giovanni Savarese (Serie A? Seriously?)
8. Dante Washington (Stern John's replacement in Columbus)
7. Joe Public (Not in the stands, but on the field at Spartan Stadium)
6. Green cards (Accepted everywhere, especially Kansas City)
5. Expansion 2001 (Wait until after World Cup 2002, please)
4. Central defenders (Experience necessary)
3. Tony Meola and Peter Vermes in KC (Who'll be the third tenor?)
2. Sasa Curcic (Apparently MLS isn't ready for Dennis Rodman)
1. UC Pasadena (accepting all credits earned at UCLA)
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No one doubts that UCLA central defender Steve Shak was a solid first pick, but the Metros could have very well dealt the first overall selection for two high first-round picks, still gotten Shak (or a comparable collegiate defender like Maryland's Dan Califf , Indiana's Nick Garcia or UCLA's Carlos Bocanegra) and added another young player (perhaps Indiana forward Aleksey Korol, who ended up in Dallas).
No one knows how any college players will make the transition to MLS. A lot of big-time college stars have failed. But the MetroStars, who didn't pick again until the fourth round, had a chance to begin stocking a bare cupboard with some prospects. Instead, they held to a romantic notion that they could get two quality, established players for the No. 1 pick, when the best they were going to get was one player (Dante Washington or Wolde Harris) and a pick or two for the future.
Next up for the Metros: some important foreign acquisitions. They currently own one "allocation" and are thinking about trading Colombian Henry Zambrano to Colorado for the Rapids' allocation. Who are the allocations going to be? Reports out of South America say Adolfo "El Tren" Valencia will be one. That makes sense, considering he played at Bayern Munich with soon-to-be-MetroStar Lothar Matthaeus, who has asked the GM and coach if he can have input into player selections and tactics. The other name mentioned often has been Costa Rican forward Hernan Medford, but the Metros are said to be looking elsewhere. If they can land Valencia, they may just pull the plug on the Zambrano deal and go with two Colombians up top.
I see Azizi
After the spectacular 50,000-plus crowd for the U.S.-Iran friendly at the Rose Bowl, there was speculation that the Galaxy would push hard for veteran Iranian forward Khodadad Azizi. Well, just say they pushed a little, then backed off when they learned that Azizi is not known to have the greatest training habits. That's why his present club, FC Cologne, is willing to release him.
Look for MLS to sign Azizi anyway, and for him to end up in San Jose, where the e-Quakes would also benefit from an Iranian star.
A simple game for clever people
Hristo Stoichkov, the man who once described soccer this way, has created a deafening buzz over the past few weeks. The best we can figure, the man has a few different agents working the phones for him, playing an MLS offer against some coaching offers in Eastern Europe.
At least twice this week, a deal with MLS has been considered dead, only to rise again. If Stoichkov does sign, the story will then get really interesting. It's been assumed he'll end up in Chicago, but the Fire does not own an allocation. To get Stoichkov, Chicago would have to trade with one of the teams that does own one.
It's all quite appropriate for Stoichkov to arrive in such noisy fashion. Anyone who's followed the volatile Bulgarian's career knows Stoichkov's not going to come to MLS quietly.
In the meantime, if Stoichkov stays put, the Fire are talking to former Czech international midfielder Vaclav Nemecek, who played with Fire sweeper Lubos Kubik in World Cup '90 and Euro '96. Nemecek, 33, played for Sparta Prague in the 1998 Champions League, then moved onto the Chinese Premier League, where he played for Dalian Wanda.
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THIS WEEK'S RULES
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In case you were wondering which teams have allocations coming to them and why, here's a quick rundown:
The four teams that did not make the playoffs (MetroStars, New England, San Jose and Kansas City) all get allocations, described by a league official as "You Stink" allocations.
Matthaeus was described as a "You Really Stink" allocation, so the Metros still have another coming.
Also, teams that lose a "player of significance" get an allocation. Those teams are Kansas City (for Alexi Lalas), New England (Joe-Max Moore) and Columbus (Stern John). Los Angeles will probably get an allocation to replace Carlos Hermosillo, even though they're happy he's not returning. But Chicago will not get replacements for Roman Kosecki or Jerzy Podbrozny, because the club decided not to pick up their options.
That's what the Rules Committee says for now.
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In tight space
If there was one moment at the MLS SuperDraft last Sunday that summed up the state of the league, it was 16-year-old Bobby Convey stepping to the podium in a baggy DC United jersey after he was selected with the final pick of the first round. What team other than DC could afford to use a first-round draft pick on a kid who will have to ride his bike (or get a ride from GM Kevin Payne) to United Park for practice until he gets his driver's license?
Who knows if Convey will ever turn into a superstar? He's a soccer rat, a relentless worker with a crafty left foot, but he's still very much a kid.
The point is this: DC United doesn't have to plug holes in the draft, so they can scheme for the future. And they can dream that, by the time he's 19, Convey will take over in the middle of the park for Marco Etcheverry, another creative left-footer who figures to be his mentor.
Incidentally, DC was able to take another calculated risk in the draft, selecting Butler University and South African youth international midfielder Steven Armstrong in the second round. The night before the draft, MLS GMs were given a "buyer beware" on Armstrong, because he has a $70,000 offer on the table from an English club. Don't be surprised if Armstrong comes to terms with MLS and plays with DC, because United is the only club in the league that can claim its players have averaged about $20,000 in bonuses the last three seasons, due to their success in Cup competitions.
Of course, in MLS there's always going to be a conspiracy theory, so a few GMs were claiming DC orchestrated the "buyer beware" warning and told Armstrong they'd figure out a way to make him happy.
Tampa wants Roy Lassiter badly, but Miami says it's not giving him up -- even though Lassiter went AWOL from camp. Furthermore, Fusion coach Ivo Wortmann says he's going to find a way to get Lassiter, Diego Serna, Eric Wynalda, Welton, Andy Williams and Henry Gutierrez on the field at the same time. "Get ready for some 6-4 games," says DC defender Jeff Agoos. And, while we have the chance, we send out condolences to Jay Heaps, Brian Kamler, Leo Cullen and Tyrone Marshall, the Fusion's backline for now.
It wasn't so strange that the Wizards selected former MetroStar Kerry Zavagnin in the third round. What was surprising was that they were going to take him in the second round until an MLS official asked them to re-think the selection. Upon further review, the Wizards selected Peter Bayahurunga, a forward out of Alabama-Birmingham. Also, it was a bit surprising the Wizards selected John Wilson of the Charleston Battery in the first round,
since they picked him in the first round of the '99 college draft, and then cut him.
Pub talk
Any MLS honcho who thinks bleacher-style stadiums like Fort Lauderdale's Lockhart Stadium are not good enough for the league, please re-think that belief. Every time we visit Lockhart -- with its pristine, wide grass pitch, its day-at-the-fair atmosphere -- we come away thinking, who needs more than this? The Fusion may be ready to launch their third consecutive expansion season -- they go through players Metro-style -- but owner Ken Horowitz still rates high on our list for taking a high school football stadium and turning it into a beautiful place to watch soccer.
Speaking of which: Hey, Columbus soccer fans, start going to games, please. All those empty seats during the playoffs make the rest of us, who dream of a stadium like yours, very uneasy?
Jovan? Come home, please, and show us you can play.
See the new kits? How come when Nike says it's coming out with "distinctive" looking uniforms for each team, they still all look the same? Look, as long as MLS is going to have the familiar, U.S.-sports home and away uniforms, there's going to be identity problems, especially if every team's road uni is all white. So, let teams have a "first choice" kit and a "second choice" kit. If a red team plays a blue team, they can both go with their first choice. And another thing, there won't be a really good MLS kit (except DC) until a team wears a colored shirt with white shorts and white socks. Remember, classy teams wear white socks. That's what Ruud Gullit said when he took over Chelsea, anyway.
I love the Supporters Shield, even wrote about it for The Magazine, but with the new three-divisional alignment, the importance of the trophy took a beating.
Overheard at the Draft: One GM telling a team executive on his cellphone, "Hey, go on the soccerboards at BigSoccer.com and see what they're saying about our picks." Pretty soon they're going to be saying, like their colleagues in other sports say about the newspapers, "I never read the Internet."
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