MLS: Coaches Roll the Dice Again

There will be more foreign-born players in the league than ever before

Columbus is counting on a Colombian. An Iranian with a lot of friends in San Jose is bought to shake up the Earthquakes. Tampa Bay hopes a Senegalese is the next best thing to Roy Lassiter. The MLS import class of 2000 is the largest ever, because of the introduction of expanded rosters that protect young players, both of foreign vintage and Project-40 status. There are now junior internationals and transitional internationals as well as senior internationals. They are classified by origin, not caps, and the specifics aren’t that important. There will be more foreign-born players in MLS this year than ever before. As required by U.S. government, green-card holders now enjoy the same status as U.S. citizens. The league had no recourse. At press time, nine MLS players held green cards. Rosters have been revamped so a team can carry 20 players plus as many as five more young players, subject to certain criteria. BEST OF 1999. The best of the 1999 crop is still around: Mauricio Wright, Ariel Graziani, Mauricio Ramos, Jorge Dely Valdes and Roy Myers. Clunkers Roberto Gaucho, Jefferson Gottardi, Alejandro Sequeira, Sasa Curcic and John Jairo Trellez are long gone, the indifferent and ineffective Mauricio Solis is officially injured, and Mohammed Khakpour floats in that weird sporting limbo called waivers. A league that carried Wellington Sanchez (class of 1998) on its payroll long after he’d dropped out of MLS pulled the trigger a lot quicker last year. Coaches are looking ahead to 2001 and the probable reduction in the number of senior internationals from four to three. In most cases, they consolidated their slots and the league’s resources to those who make their living in the other team’s third. The big names include two of the biggest in the sport, and that of a third still carries prestige. Not since the heady days of Roberto Donadoni, Jorge Campos and Carlos Valderrama can MLS claim a trio like Lothar Matthaeus, Hristo Stoichkov and Adolfo Valencia. All three come with some baggage, though. Matthaeus, the king of caps among men, talked loudly how he really wanted to stay at Bayern after all. Valencia, who is reunited with Matthaeus at the MetroStars, was a force earlier in the decade but his recent years have been rocky, and Stoichkov brings a volatile element into Chicago. “I still think he has a great deal of pride,” said Fire head coach Bob Bradley. “He plays with tremendous fire and tremendous determination. He still wants to win. What a player like that brings is not only what he does on the field, but he helps your young players develop, too. If he still has the right qualities and his teammates can see those qualities, it’s worth the risk.” ASSESSING THE RISK. San Jose has taken on a bit of risk with Khodadad Azizi. MLS executive vice president Ivan Gazidis believes he’ll settle easily into San Jose, where a large Iranian-American population includes a fair share of personal contacts. “He surprised me when he told me he knew a lot of people in San Jose,” said Gazidis. “The fact he did have friends there and the crowds that came to see Iran play in January certainly played a role in our acquiring him.” His signing was delayed several weeks due to a document he’d signed with Turkish club Trabzonspor. MLS did not release details as to how that situation was resolved, but it’s likely a small payment was made to the Turkish club – probably by Azizi himself – to clear his path to MLS. Stoichkov will be a crowd draw in Chicago. A Bulgarian community of about 200,000 can be tapped by the Fire, which has also investigated the feasibility of obtaining countrymate Krassimir Balakov for next season as a replacement for Peter Nowak, who may retire at the end of the 2000. A source said MLS paid less for Stoichkov than it did for Nowak, whose price was approximately $400,000. Gazidis said the league’s budget to acquire players this season “does not differ significantly from what it was last season.” The sale of Stern John to Nottingham Forest last year could net the league as much as $6 million, but Gazidis said that money would not be plowed back into player purchases. Instead, most of it, will defray league-wide expenses and losses. YOUNG BLOOD. In the MLS SuperDraft, San Jose head coach Lothar Osiander picked two players from the Trinidad & Tobago Olympic team. He waived one of them a month later. Travis Mulraine, the one retained, will not count against the Quakes’ 20-man roster. He will be protected under the classification of transitional international. The league has obtained clearance from U.S. Soccer to designate 12 players as junior (22 years of age or younger) and transitional (23 and 24 years old) internationals. The 12 slots were filled during the draft and through a special place awarded to New England as partial compensation for losing Gio Savarese, whom the league sold in February. The Revs filled that slot with William Sunsing, who was scouted by director of soccer Sunil Gulati, head coach Fernando Clavijo and assistant coach Renato Capobianco at the Gold Cup. When Osiander waived Adrian Narine, a slot opened up. Chicago’s Yuri Lavrinenko moved up from the waiting list. Another slot had been cleared earlier when the league signed Andy Williams to a long-term contract. This “graduated” him from transitional international status to senior international. Exactly why is not clear. MLS hopes to expand the allotment of junior and transitional internationals to 24 for next season, which would jibe with the expected reduction in senior internationals. A PURE CRAPSHOOT. The travels and travails of Mutiny head coach Tim Hankinson illustrate the convoluted, complex ways of MLS. He traveled to Portugal at the end of the MLS season with the Project-40 team. During that visit, Tampa traded Mauricio Ramos for an allocation. Hankinson immediately left the P-40s to scout possible acquisitions in South Africa. He did not want to repeat the mistakes of Gottardi and Sequeira, both plucked from their native countries – Bolivia and Costa Rica, respectively – who could not adjust to MLS. Hankinson had a clear image in his mind: Roy Lassiter. “A breakaway player with speed who can score goals is probably the most sought-after profile in the world, so it isn’t easy,” said Hankinson. “We had to consider other players in case we didn’t find exactly what we wanted.” Trips to South Africa and England netted visits to Florida by Tico Tico of Mozambique and Mamadou Diallo of Senegal. With no assurance a better option might be available soon, Hankinson – who had seen Diallo a total of five days and in just two preseason games – chose him to be paired with Raul Diaz Arce and to run onto balls from Carlos Valderrama. “It is a roll of the dice,” he said. “It is a pure crapshoot. Raul has made a great success, but there are players that have come in with even more notoriety and haven’t worked out. “There’s no doubt there’s risk, but given the fact we had few choices and this seemed to be the best of the group, we had to take a risk and hope that it works out. A scary thought, eh?” by Soccer America senior editor Ridge Mahoney