MLS Cup Preview
Sports Illustrated soccer writer Grant Wahl sets the stage for the Fire and United
Posted: Friday October 23, 1998 05:35 PM
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United's Roy Lassiter scored two goals in Game 3 of the Eastern finals on Wednesday Mike Powell/Allsport |
LOS
ANGELES— Well, here we are in California, only half a continent away
from the nearest hometown of the two teams—the Chicago
Fire and the two-time defending champion D.C.
United—that will be playing in Sunday's MLS Cup. I'm
already imagining what a half-full Rose
Bowl will look like on national TV, as opposed to what
would surely be a sold-out RFK Stadium in Washington D.C.
It's a simple question: If MLS cares so much about
attendance, why doesn't it treat its championship like the
NBA Finals instead of the
Super Bowl and award home-field advantage to the team with the
better regular-season
record?
"It would have been a mess,"
MLS
commisioner
Doug
Logan told me Thursday over coffee. (One great thing about MLS:
its comissioner is by far the most accessible in all of
sports. When I called Logan's office two weeks ago, for
example, the commish himself answered the
phone.)
"For one thing, we would have had to print four sets
of tickets for four possible cities," Logan said.
"And if the game had been held in D.C. on such short
notice there's no way we could have handled the walk-up
crowd. There aren't enough ticket booths
there. The Redskins never needed them when they played there
because they always sold out. We had a great walkup crowd
on Wednesday at RFK for the D.C.-Columbus [Eastern
Conference final] game, but we didn't get the last person
into the stadium until
three minutes into the second
half."
Hmmmm. Seems like pretty sketchy reasoning to me. Still,
Logan said he expects to draw 45,000 on Sunday, so we'll
see how many fans actually show up to watch two teams they
care very little about. Then again, professional football
is a rare commodity
around L.A. these days (there's still no NFL team here, if you
can believe it), so you never
know.
Here's a comparison of the two teams by position and, of
course, a prediction for the
game:
FORWARDS: United's
Roy
Lassiter has finally started scoring again (two goals in Game 3 of
the Eastern finals on Wednesday), after going AWOL in the
opening round of the playoffs. Lassiter's speed and partner
Jaime
Moreno 's smarts—not to mention their big-game
experience—give D.C. the edge over Chicago's
Ante
Razov and rookie
Josh
Wolff , though not by much. Give Razov and Wolff a couple of
years, and they could be the starting forward tandem on the
U.S. national team. (You heard it here
first.)
Advantage:
D.C.
MIDFIELDERS: It's not even close. United's
Marco
Etcheverry , the league's likely MVP, will be the man of the
match—so long as the referee doesn't let the Fire's
defense get away with too much physical play. Etcheverry's
playmaking counterpart for the Fire,
Peter
Nowak , is solid but nowhere near as creative. United's
supporting midfielders
( John
Harkes ,
Ben
Olsen and
Richie
Williams ) work better together on the attack than the Fire's
Chris
Armas ,
Jesse
Marsch and
Jerzy
Podbrozny.
Advantage:
D.C.
Fire goalkeeper Zach Thornton was the league's biggest surprise this season Aubrey Washington/Allsport | |
DEFENDERS: The reason Chicago is here (remember, this is an expansion
team) is its defense.
C.J.
Brown was a great young American find,
Francis
Okaroh is a steady veteran and
Lubos
Kubik was the MLS defender of the year. They're playing so well
together lately that they compare favorably with D.C.'s
superb back line
( Carlos
Llamosa and national-teamers
Eddie
Pope and
Jeff
Agoos )
Advantage:
Even.
GOALKEEPERS: The Fire's
Zach
Thornton was the league's biggest American surprise this season,
beating out Mexican international
Jorge
Campos for the job and winning the goalkeeper of the year award.
United's
Tom
Presthus has played O.K. since taking over the starting job in the
playoffs, but he looked shaky at times coming off his line
in the conference finals. Still, it may not matter much.
Presthus will be D.C.'s third starting goalkeeper in the
last three MLS
Cups.
Advantage:
Chicago.
TACTICS: Fire coach
Bob
Bradley : Please,
PLEASE, if you're reading this ...
Don't go defensive on
us. The biggest complaint about Chicago this year has been
that the team is boring to watch, and sadly this has been
true on many occasions. D.C.'s
Bruce
Arena , on the other hand, favors attacking soccer, and he's
proven himself in two MLS Cups
already.
Advantage:
D.C.
PREDICTION: Confirming my fears, Chicago will come out in a defensive
shell and dare D.C. to send too many players forward. The
strategy will work for most of the game until D.C. finally
rams it through. The crystal ball says
United,
2-0 , both goals coming in the last 20
minutes.
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