He’s a symbol of sport’s fluctuating fortunes, a first-year star who then languished on the bench before tearing apart MLS defenses once again this season.


The 18 goals and 15 assists of Jason Kreis rank him on top of the league’s scoring charts, and in the hearts and minds of many fans, as the obvious choice as league MVP. The Burn posted its best-ever record at 19-13, and missed first place by a point.

There’s a devil in D.C. and a blond in L.A. who are talented indeed. Strikers in D.C. and Columbus have their fans, as does the blond’s diminutive midfield maestro.

But for value to his team, Kreis is a strong fit.

No other Burn player scored more than four goals, despite Coach Dave Dir’s system of play that is designed, in his words, to “spread the goals around.” This season, the chances fell to ù and were snapped up by ù a player that had been juggled around several positions during his first three seasons.

“Our system is not isolated to get the ball to Jason,” said Dir. “So the amount of goals he’s scored is even more amazing.”

Numbers can be deceiving, but not in this case. Of the Burn’s 54 goals, Kreis directly contributed to 33 of them. He started every game and missed only a grand total of 65 minutes. Not only was he far and away the team leader in goals, he had more than twice as many assists as any teammate.

Such a performance had been foreseen by many following Kreis’ first campaign at the top flight. Few could have foreseen how long the wait would be.

With just one year of minor-league soccer on his resume, Kreis surprised the league and his coach by scoring 13 goals and recording five assists during the inaugural 1996 season. Dallas, which complained during that first season that MLS honchos did not allocate it a popular U.S. international, would soon have one in Kreis.

But not until this season did he equal and surpass what he’d wrought that rookie year. What ensued in-between shows how fickle fortune can be for a young player caught in the snare of trying to please club, country, and himself.

His resurrection this season might never have occurred had not 1997 been so traumatic.


A severe sophomore slump


Blessed with a fearsome shot, a quick first step, and an uncanny knack to find the frame, Kreis burst upon the league in its inaugural season playing a central midfield position similar to the one he played at Duke.

Yet Dir admits he anointed Kreis, chosen in the fifth round, as playmaker almost by default. “I could see there weren’t going to be 10 players like [Marco] Etcheverry in the league,” he recalled. “I had watched him a lot at Raleigh, and he had impressed me.

“I figured he could do a lot of things we needed, and we’d get a playmaker later.”

The arrival of Swiss international Alain Sutter in 1997 moved Kreis from the center of midfield out to the flanks with Dallas. He’d already been shoehorned into that spot by U.S. head coach Steve Sampson, with disastrous effects to his game and his spirit.

U.S. Cup 1997, held in cold and rainy January, is remembered for bad weather, bad crowds, and bad U.S. results. Fielding a squad of a few core veterans and numerous young MLS players, the U.S. lost three matches to Peru, Mexico and Denmark by a combined score of 7-1.

“There were a lot of things happening to me,” Kreis said, “and my life was changing in so many ways and a little bit too fast.”

Kreis was selected for a subsequent two-game trip to China, where the U.S. lost one game and tied another.

He says it was the lowest point of his career.

“He went crazy on me there,” said Kreis of Sampson. “We played the first game in a 4-4-2 and they had five in midfield. This was the first chance I had to play center midfield, but I was playing defensive midfield, me and Martin Vasquez. We got tooled around, and beaten, 2-0.

“Afterward, he had a meeting with me, and basically told me I was shù. That I wasn’t even trying and all those sort of things. He just tore me apart.”

During the MLS season, he buckled under a burden imposed by the head rush of success that inevitably follows a scintillating debut, the tighter marking and harsher fouling, and the increased pressure of greater expectations.

MLS had renegotiated his contract, and he bought a new car and house. Nothing crazy, but hey, why not?

With Sutter as the playmaker and other options up front, Dir planted Kreis on the bench for part of the season and his numbers dropped to eight goals and six assists while starting only 21 of 32 games.

Kreis suffered through the tragedy of his grandfather’s death, “only the second funeral I’d ever gone to,” he said.

Kreis played just a few minutes in the Burn’s Open Cup victory.

He was glad to see the season end.


Resurgence and revival


Injuries decimated Dallas in 1998. Sutter sustained a career-ending injury early in the season. Kreis resumed the playmaker’s role, until the club acquired Colombian midfielder Oscar Pareja in mid-August.

Uh, Jason, guess what?

“The first thought that went through my mind was, ‘Here we go again,'” said Kreis. “‘I’ll be making a change in my position and shortly, I’ll find myself on the bench.'”

This time, though, Dir pushed Kreis up front, not out wide.

“You need guys who can find ways to score goals in nearly any situation,” said Dir. “I felt he could finish off a lot of the chances we were creating, and that’s what makes him special. He’s able to adjust.”

Kreis finished the season with a modest improvement (9 goals, 8 assists) in his totals and a sharp upturn in attitude.

“I really enjoyed myself all the way through,” he said. “That was a change between ’97 and ’98. I told myself this is supposed to be fun, I’m supposed to be enjoying it.”

“It was a huge learning process for me, and a necessary one as well.”

He brought forth enthusiasm to the 1999 preseason, and Dir’s pronouncements of a new age.

“He made it clear we were going to play the way he thought we should play, instead of trying to adjust to every team we were playing against,” said Kreis. “In previous years, I thought we did way too much of that.”

Kreis hit a hat trick in the season opener against Kansas City, and held the scoring lead nearly wire-to-wire. Still, the Burn floundered around the .500 level, until Dir swung a trade to bring Ariel Graziani to Dallas from New England.

Dir paired Graziani and Kreis up front with Pareja in support, and Dallas scored 18 goals in the last nine games of the season while winning all but one.

Kreis and Graziani both flourished in their complementary styles.

“You always have to have two kinds of soup,” said Dir, a burly man whose knowledge of food includes professional experience in the airline industry. “Ariel’s speed matches Jason’s ability to hold the ball and quickness.

“Jason’s a quick player. His first step is quick, his turn is quick, but he’s not going to run past people like [Roy] Lassiter. His ability to turn in tight space, his ability to move off the ball and find spaces, his ability to play with his back to goal have all improved.”

So, too, have Kreis’ finances improved with a new, multi-year deal he signed in September. It binds him to MLS for several seasons, and with another solid season, it could raise his salary to or above the unofficial league maximum of $247,500.

Dreams of Europe had swayed his thoughts, but concerns about his wife Kim and 6-month-old son Kason spurred him to take a substantial sure thing.

“If the decision was mine and mine alone, I would have gone to Europe,” he said. “It wouldn’t have mattered what the league offered.

“In the end, it was always going to be the right decision for my family to stay here.”

And a right decision for Dallas, too, MVP or no MVP.

by Soccer America senior editor Ridge Mahoney