Opening Comments by MLS Executive Vice President Ivan Gazidis “I have a couple of player announcements I want to make, but before I go into that I’ll give my weekly update on Mexican player discussions. We are still continuing to work on a number of different fronts that I can’t comment on further at this time. The two pieces of news that I have are: first, that MLS’ Player of the Month is Kansas City forward Miklos Molnar, with four goals in five games and an assist. He’s got an ankle injury at the moment so he missed this past weekend’s games, but he’s still second in the league in scoring. Apparently, Miklos stays behind an extra day on each road trip; Miklos’ way of seeing America.” “The other news regards Tyrone Marshall, a young player with the Miami Fusion, has been called up to the Jamaican national team for a May 17 game against Romania. Tyrone played at Florida International and is playing very well in MLS this year, we wish him well on the call-up.” “Lastly, congratulations to our Olympic team, our U-23 team. I was out at Hershey on Friday, there is a lot of good young talent on that team and I expect that they will do well and represent MLS and the U.S. in Sydney very well.” Opening Comments by Kansas City coach Bob Gansler “Obviously we are happy about what has transpired so far. We feel that we are for real. I think the combination of veterans and young players are going about their business in good fashion. How real we are, only time will tell.” Opening Comments by Kansas City defender Peter Vermes “Playing against Los Angeles, they are always a very formidable opponent, very successful on both sides of the ball. They do a great job on both sides of the ball. They do a good job of recovering the ball as well as keeping it, they do a good job of finding ways to attack you.” “With the likes of Cobi up front, he’s so quick you have to pay attention to him for 90 minutes. Cienfuegos is very good, very mobile around the field, he’s another guy you have to pay attention to. They are very solid defensively as well. All in all, its definitely a huge challenge for us, since they’ve been together for five years basically.” “The amazing thing for our team is that we’ve come together as quickly as we have. We have a lot of room to grow, based on the fact that we are still learning about each other, on things like set plays.” “No doubt the game this weekend will be a huge challenge for us, as they all have been. The greatest asset to us is season has been getting off to a good start this season. The coaching staff has done a tremendous job, not only preparing us for this season, but tweaking our system as needed.” Opening Comments by Los Angeles defender Robin Fraser “I feel like we’ve gotten off to a good start, as has Kansas City. We’ve had stretches where we’ve played real well, and times when we’ve played poorly. We played poorly last weekend but still won, when that happens you feel like things are going in your favor.” “Kansas City has always given us a tough game, in the years where they’ve been dominant and in the years when they haven’t, they’ve given us a tough game. It’s definitely been a good rivalry, which will be increased with the good starts of both teams this season.” Gazidis on offers for young MLS players “I think it’s a positive that our best young players perform well. Clearly it goes hand and hand with foreign teams being interested in them. Certainly it has an affect on the kind of contract negotiations we have to have with our young players. We have a difficult balancing act, because we don’t have the kind of money that’s available in Europe. At the same time we have to try and keep our best young players here in MLS.” “With respect to the reported interest of Rosenborg [toward Colorado goalkeeper Adin Brown], I’m not going to confirm or deny the report. I think that all of the these young players are attracting international attention and they will attract more attention in Sydney. I think the positives far outweigh the negatives.” “We’re not in the business of signing young players to make a transfer fee killing, we are trying to develop young players in our league to become MLS stars, players that the fans can support.” “Transfer fees do not drive us. Of course, we end up in situations, like Eddie Lewis and Stern John where they have a personal ambition to transfer to Europe. If we see that we can’t hold onto the player, we try to make the best of our alternative, maximizing the benefits of losing the players. That money we get goes back into securing the future of our young players, like Clint Mathis.” Gazidis on American players overseas “We certainly spend a significant amount of time in contact with U.S. players and their situations overseas. Whenever we see an opportunity to bring an American player back will we do it. We had talks with John Thorrington, the possibility of him coming to MLS, and while the timing wasn’t right, it’s certainly something we’d like to see in the future.” “There are two ways for young player to develop: sign a contract with MLS, which will generally provide him with less money that in Europe, but provides him a guarantee of playing time to improve. If you sign in Europe, you’re a little bit more at the mercy of Europe. In the right situation it can work, but at the same time it’s difficult. However, because they are contractually tied in, they cannot move back freely. Its not an easy decision.” Gansler on how his coaching style has changed “I’m probably the worst judge of that. I like to think all of us grow as we get older, if mellowing is part of that, then so be it. I don’t see any radical changes in the way I think about the game. As most coaches, we always try to see what we have, and get the heck out of the way.” Fraser on tough battles with K.C. “I’m not sure why they give us trouble, something about the individual match-ups that we have. They’ve always been a very tough team to play against, not sure of the reason, maybe the styles. It’s going to be even more difficult now, based on the players they’ve brought it, the Wizards are solid offensively and defensively.” Fraser on Kansas City’s surprising start “Yes, I’m surprised about their start, no one expected us, nor them, to be undefeated at this point. I always knew that they have good players and made some strong acquisitions, but you never expect any team to be unbeaten at this point.” Gazidis on the two remaining allocations (New England and San Jose) “Nothing to report on those fronts, those two allocations are open and waiting to be filled. As everyone knows there have been have trade talks between San Jose and Los Angeles that haven’t come to fruition so there’s nothing new to report.” Gansler on Preki’s revival “Preki has played extremely well. His passing has been superb. He’s worked so hard, as has Mo Johnston, my 36-, 37-year-old teenagers. He has just been extremely strong, and very good with the young players.” Gazidis on the effect of World Cup qualifiers in midseason “We actually had a meeting this morning with [U.S. national team head coach] Bruce Arena to run though some scheduling issues and what the qualifying schedule would mean for this season. Certainly it presents a lot of issues for us. Probably the most difficult two issues are: the July games [16/23] and then another fixture date in October [7/8]. The former presents problems because players will be gone for a significant amount of time. The latter presents problems because they could be missing the weekend before MLS Cup. Clearly, we don’t want our most important playoff games affected by the qualifying, which may mean not having our games on the October 7-8th weekend. Bruce has been terrific doing the things he can do to avoid scheduling problems.” Vermes on being traded to Kansas City “I really wasn’t upset with the trade, the toughest part is the move side of it. I had to move my family from Colorado to Kansas City. Gansler and I have a long history, dating back a long time, it’s a pleasure to be able to play with him again. He’s a very honest person, you know what you get, you know what he expects of you. From that regard I was very happy. I’ve always believed this team has a lot of talent, and with the direction and discipline of Gansler we can do well. I enjoyed playing in Colorado, they have great ownership there, but soccer and sports moves you around. I’m very excited about being here, not just because we are winning, but because of the soccer situation.” Vermes on the Wizards undefeated start “I didn’t think we’d be undefeated, I believed as much as anyone how important it was to get off to a strong start. I think the players worked very hard in the preseason. I don’t thing anyone though we’d be in this position. After the first couple of games we realized we have a half-decent team. Hopefully with hard work we can continue to progress.” Gazidis on the MLS playoff format “The only thing that is undecided is what happens at the end of regulation time in the third game of a playoff series if its tied. Everything else has been set. I haven’t heard any suggestions that we would change the format. It’s not inconceivable that the World Cup scheduling difficulties can be a factor, but that hasn’t been an issue.” Vermes on the three-game playoff format “I look at it, three games is better than say five games or so like they do in other sports. I do like the home and away that they play over in Europe, where you have aggregate scores. But in the U.S. you have a series, and best of three works well. The format is better now than say 1996, where the team with the better record has the home field edge. I don’t mind the three games, I think it works out well. At the end of the day it rewards the team most ready to play.” Fraser on his chances to play in the Olympics as an overage player “I have not been contacted, I have actually never even heard my name as a rumor. Certainly, it would be something I would be interested in. I’d jump at the chance, to represent my country. It’s a huge sporting event.” Gansler on the future of Alex Bunbury “Alex started our last game against Colorado, gave a real good account of himself. He created an opportunity six minutes in, and hit it off the far post. He created another opportunity that went wide later on. He gave us 60 good minutes. I feel like we are blessed with Molnar, Johnston, Alex, Chris Brown and Gary Glasgow. The first two have played so well, its been hard to get time. There will be a lot of opportunity for Alex to shine in the future, don’t count him out yet.” Gansler on preparing a team that has lost three games in a row to L.A. “The folks that didn’t win those games are not the folks that will be coming with us to L.A. A lot of our guys weren’t there last year or in 1997. L.A. is playing real well, they are exactly where they are supposed to be. We are just trying to get there. The past will not weigh us down, we will concentrate on that team.” Fraser on predictions for Saturday “There’s no way to predict, I got lucky last week [predicting the 1-0 victory over the MetroStars]. Kansas City is playing so well, its too close to call. I expect it to be a really good game. It could be the little things that will make the difference. It’s way too premature to make a prediction on this game.” Fraser on Luis Hernandez or another Mexican player possibly coming to L.A. “I don’t think it really is an issue as to whether we need another forward now, he’s a guy that would be so well recognized here in L.A. and all around MLS. He’s a very good player, still playing very well, he would fit in well in our system. Sigi [Schmid] has been real good about being up front, letting people know who may or may not be affected. Sooner or later a final decision has to be made. From there, we’ll deal with it and move on.” Gazidis on the effect of the players lawsuit on young players “I don’t think the lawsuit will affect the younger players a great deal. For the Olympic guys, its about what international opportunities they will have.” Gazidis on fair market values for young players “The players were arguing for free agency in MLS, but they already have that outside of MLS. When the young players contract ends, they are on a free transfer. The league is seeking to sign these guys for say four years, for more money. I hope that with the recent developments in the lawsuit, it give us a chance to heal some of the divisions that are there. We’ve always had an open door as far as negotiating the issues. As a league, both the players and owners would like to put it behind us.” Gazidis on Luis Hernandez “The name Luis Hernandez has never been mentioned by me. A lot of the comments, rumors are about him and Tigres, but that’s not coming from the league office. We are looking at a number of different options for a Mexican player in L.A. Any deal for Mexican players is difficult to do financially. It involves a lot a different pieces, and some scheduling problems. The Galaxy are likely to be receiving the player late each year due to the Mexican schedule. There is not an official deadline, but clearly there comes a point in the season were you don’t continue to pursue it.” Gansler on Molnar’s injury “Today, Miklos is getting an MRI and they will ascertain exactly what is wrong with his ankle, and if he is out we will do what we did last weekend, start Bunbury with Glasgow and Brown coming off the bench. Molnar has done exactly what he was hired to do, score goals. We are not a one-man show, we have other guys ready to pick up the slack.” Gansler on the importance of the L.A. game “Every game is important for someone who is coming from where we came from last season. I can think of one time when we were the better side against them last season and lost, these matches are very competitive. But, I don’t place any more value on the game. I still think there are two extraordinary teams in this league and the rest of us are trying to get there.” Gansler on Chris Klein’s play “Our No. 1 concern going into year was holding the ball. In order to do that, we’ve got to have as many guys on the field that can hold possession. We’ve asked Chris to play a different role. He’s played as a right back, but he doesn’t stay back, otherwise he would not have gotten a couple goals and assists so far. He is an emerging young player, with [Peter] Vermes helping him in the back and Preki and Mo [Johnston] guiding him into attack.”