Michelle Akers, widely regarded as the greatest female soccer player in history, and longtime U.S. men's national teammates Paul Caligiuri and Eric Wynalda will be inducted next fall into the National Soccer Hall of Fame, Hall officials announced Wednesday at a Home Depot Center media conference.

Caligiuri and Wynalda, who helped blaze the trail for American products in German soccer and who were pivotal figures on the U.S. national team over most of the past 20 years, are the first two players from Major League Soccer to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Induction ceremonies will be held Oct. 11 in Oneonta, N.Y.

Akers was named on nearly 96 percent of 73 ballots cast. Wynalda was listed on 93.2 percent of ballots, and Caligiuri on 89 percent. A maximum three players could be chosen for the Class of 2004.

Akers scored 105 goals in 153 international matches and led the U.S. women's team to Women's World Cup triumphs in 1991 and 1999. A gifted forward possessing physical dimensions otherwise unseen in the women's game, Akers was a dominant player whose career was slowed, and finally halted, by health issues.

Wynalda, the all-time U.S. men's goals leader with 34, played in 106 games and three World Cups during a decade of service with the national team. He starred at Saarbruecken in Germany and in MLS with San Jose, Miami and Chicago. A knee injury ended Wynalda's playing career in 2001, but he serves as color analyst on ESPN's broadcasts of MLS matches.

Caligiuri, whose legendary goal in Trinidad sent the U.S. men to the 1990 World Cup, played 110 times and in two World Cups in a national team career that spanned from 1984 to 1997. The defender played in Germany for Hamburg, Meppen, Freiburg, Hansa Rostock and St. Pauli, and in MLS for Columbus and Los Angeles. He retired as a player in 2001, and today is coach of Cal Poly Pomona's men's and women's soccer teams and a color commentator on soccer broadcasts.

TOP VOTEGETTERS
(73 ballots)

Michelle Akers 70 votes, 95.9 percent
Eric Wynalda 68 votes, 93.2
Paul Caligiuri 65 votes 89.0
Thomas Dooley 42 votes, 57.5
Hugo Perez 42 votes, 57.5
Bruce Murray 33 votes, 45.2
Roy Wegerle 23 votes, 31.5
Fernando Clavijo 20 votes, 27.4
Mary Harvey 14 votes, 19.2
Desmond Armstrong 12 votes, 16.4
Chico Borja 12 votes, 16.4
John Doyle 12 votes, 16.4
Mike Sorber 12 votes, 16.4