Note: RM = Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney; PB = Online Editor Pete Bailey.

John Burke

Troy, N.Y.

I am eagerly looking forward to the launch of MLS, but I am very concerned about the team nicknames and the kits that the players will wear for the inaugural season. In general, I am appalled by both. I believe that D.C. United is the only credible nickname chosen so far, and the results of your recent on-line poll seem to confirm this. Unfortunately, none of the teams will be wearing respectable uniforms this year. I have been watching English, Dutch and Italian soccer for the past several seasons and it has not escaped my notice that players in these leagues wear uniform designs that are far more conservative, traditional, attractive and, in general, far simpler than those that have been selected for MLS. In addition, I think any professional soccer player worth his salt would rather be playing for a team known simply by the name of its city, e.g., Leeds or Parma, or by an easily recognizable club name, e.g. Manchester United or AC Milan.

Thus, my questions: In your opinion, what, if anything, can be done to discard such awful nicknames as the Clash, the Burn, such dreadful uniform logos as a scorpion, a hardhat, and a fire-breathing stallion, and such hideous color schemes as the yellow-stripes-on-black-shirt of Columbus and the rainbow pattern of the Wiz? In addition, can we make the team names more palatable, such as by stripping the nicknames altogether and just going by the city names?

RM: I can’t say I don’t share your feelings, but the best message you can send is to not buy team jerseys, T-shirts or any merchandise bearing logos or designs you don’t like AND inform the team as well as sporting good stores and other outlets why you’re not buying. Write letters, faxes, e-mails, etc. to the teams to change nicknames and logos.

Personally, I love a good nickname, but unfortunately, it seems that trendy, surf-shop motifs and bizarre, generic-yet-stark images were deemed the way to go. Give the teams time. Meanwhile, enjoy the matches, celebrate the fact that we have a league and stay away from rainbows, electrocuted scorpions and hard hats.

Andrew J. Beaulieu

Cranston, R.I.

I went to a lot of the Rhode Island Stingrays games last year. Do you know if any of their players made it to the MLS? For that matter, what percentage of the players in the MLS came from the USISL?

PB: Unfortunately, no former Rhode Island Stingrays made the 22-man MLS rosters that were announced March 24. Four players (Laurence Pitturo of Columbus, Janusz Michallik of Columbus, Curt Onalfo of Los Angeles, and Mickey Kydes of the MetroStars) did have stints with nearby Connecticut Wolves, though. Of the players on the 22-man rosters, upwards of 40% have spent some time in the USISL. For all 10 MLS rosters, featuring each player’s former club teams, see Soccer America’s MLS Preview in our April 8 issue.

Seth Buncher

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Assuming the national team can beat the likes of Trinidad & Tobago, how will MLS handle players being called up to serve? If the U-23 and World Cup occur around the same time, the league simply won’t have enough players to field more than a park pick-up game.

RM: For the first series of qualifiers, the U.S. will play its six games after the MLS season finishes. In the final round, teams will have to get by as best they can, and the schedule-makers hopefully can minimize conflicts. I suggest MLS increase its 1997 roster limit to at least 20 to help teams compensate for players who miss league matches because of national team team duty or injuries. It’s the same problem shared by leagues all over the world.

Winlar

Seattle

As I understand it, the NASL, in the early years of that league, used to have a different means of settling ties, other than the dorky one-on-one shootout they went to, and the MLS is now copying. I believe they once let ties stand. Is this true? If so, Are there any before/after attendance figure to show what it did for attendance? Is there any real evidence to show that shootouts help attendance? Or are they just monkeying with the sport out of theory? (I suppose it is somewhat obvious what my view on the shootout are.)

RM: The league used penalty-kick tiebreakers at times, including the 1974 championship game that went to penalties, and also let ties stand in other seasons. In 1975, games went into sudden-death overtime, and if not decided in 15 minutes, then went to a shootout.

Unfortunately, no valid statistical comparison for shootouts vs. ties is possible in terms of attendance, since so many factors — expansion teams, teams moving or folding, etc. — affected the NASL’s brief existence. Also, remember, the league fiddled with the offside law, too, adopting the 35-yard line. It affected tactics and scoring, but who knows about crowds?

Shootouts were used in the belief American fans loathe ties, although I never saw a marketing survey that proved this. The league’s point system (six for a win, three for a tie, one per goal per team up to a maximum of three) did increase scoring.

Attendances rise and fall for many reasons: fan loyalty, success, marketing, economic climate, competition from other entertainment forms, etc. The shootout offends some fans, but did it keep fans away from NASL games, and will it affect MLS crowds? I doubt it. (By the way, I don’t like it either, but I can live with it.)

Dom Apollon

Charlottesville, Va.

Can you tell us more about the conventional wisdom on why the NASL failed in the early 1980’s, and how conscious are the MLS administrators of these factors?

RM: Theories abound, with most of the blame heaped on the lack of a national television contract (i.e., money for rights fees), reckless expansion (i.e, greed, fueled by money-losing teams anxious to collect expansion fees), and teams spending wildly to match the glamor and success of the Cosmos (i.e., financial stupidity).

Also, too many good players played only a season or two in the NASL and left forever, because they were on loan, or a management shakeup triggered a clear-out, or the arrival of a new coach sparked roster upheaval. Fans kept seeing new faces every year, or no faces if the team folded, and attendances dropped as the fans reacted to this decline.

MLS has addressed the danger of spiralling player salaries through its single-entity concept, but it is still funded by multi-millionaires who know little or nothing about soccer.

In this era, creating and marketing a good product can make up for naivete and ignorance, to a point.

Howard Hamilton

Atlanta

Does Soccer America have any plans to include player ratings in their reporting of MLS matches? It would be a great if your magazine gave awards for the highest-rated players or referees in the league, like some of the major European soccer magazines (Marca, Corriere dello Sport, etc.).

RM: Yes, we are planning to rate players, and will run cumulative rankings as well as those for each match. From the latter, we will compile a team of the week. We will not rate referees.

Eduardo Pezo

Arlington, Va.

Is a player with a green card counted as an American player or as a foreigner in MLS?

RM: The player does not count as a foreigner. By U.S. law, all green-card holders must be permitted the same employment opportunties as are U.S. citizens. Also, refugees — provided they have been processsed as such by the U.S. government — have similar status to green-card holders.

Eric Vormelker

Austin, Texas

In your last set of questions, Ben Newton of Ann Arbor, Mich., was one of several folks that asked about the larger goal situation in MLS. In response, Ridge Mahoney said “MLS has said it will abide by FIFA’s directive — but if some of the powers that be, who run the league, don’t see enough goals this season, they’ll try to ramrod bigger goals next year, regardless of what FIFA says.”

My question is: how many is enough? Currently, the top league in Europe for scoring is the Dutch league (of the “major” First Division leagues) coming in at around three goals per game. I played with the numbers from the previous A-League and USISL seasons, and while I know they’re not necessarily going to be solid indicators of how MLS will do, I think it’s safe to expect more than three goals a game on average, probably something closer to 3.5. Compared to all the other First Division leagues around Europe, this would be a bonanza. My fear is that these owners have it in their minds that for the league to succeed (or more specifically, for them to be happy) , there needs to be an average of five goals a game or more. But I can’t see that happening without doubling the size of the goal, or doing something else equally drastic. If this is indeed what these owners expect, they’re in the wrong sport. I suggest they go buy themselves a basketball team.

RM: In a My View recently in Soccer America, I addressed this point. No owner in MLS has any idea of what “adequate” scoring might be. If you make the goal bigger, is the increase due to a larger frame, and who decides if x.x goals per game is enough. And if that’s not enough, does the size increase again? Keep this in mind: Some of the MLS bosses are not overly knowledgeable when it comes to soccer. Bigger goals appeal to their simplistic ignorance. I can see them panicking if crowds are low regardless of the score.

A sloppy 4-2 game with goalies dropping crosses and defenders tripping over their bootlaces as forwards roll in sitters isn’t going to fill seats, but back-and-forth 2-1 battles spiced by goalies flying around, sweepers snuffing shots with last-second tackles and sweet passing WILL draw fans. But do they believe this? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Jean Sacki

Washington, D.C.

Is the champion from the A-League, which is like division B in other countries, going to move up to MLS for the ’97 season and so on, and is the last team of MLS going down to the A-League?

RM: No, and I don’t foresee that happening in the near future, if ever. Remember, MLS owners were raised in the American culture: if you buy a pro sports team in the big league, you keep it there until you sell, die, get indicted, etc. The Yankees don’t drop into Triple A if they finish last, and it’s the same for the MetroStars.

Josh Warren

Upper Saddle River, N.J.

I can’t believe that you ranked the MetroStars last in your edition about the Feb. 6 draft. With stars like Roberto Donadoni and Tab Ramos along with under-23 players like Damian Silvera, Miles Joseph, Zach Thorton, AJ Wood, the MetroStars are going to coast to the inaugural title. Why do you feel that they did poorly?

RM: Eddie Firmani may not have his U-23s until August, and some of his draft choices puzzled us. Jeff Zaun? Pat O’Kelly retired!

Frankly, we discussed the drafts with many people — coaches, officials, players — most of whom ranked the MetroStars lower, but not by much, than most other teams.

The rankings are not like the Richter Scale, where 2 is 10 times stronger than 1. You’ll notice Firmani stocked up in the supplementary draft; Caricola is a good pick, but Juninho and Tulio didn’t cut it. No doubt Donadoni, Meola, and Ramos should be among the league’s best, and the team should draw good crowds. In a new league with many players not yet proven at the pro level, every team has question marks.

Peter Schachter

Harrison, N.Y.

How long before the MLS, if it lasts that long, becomes a fully integrated league? Or is soccer in the USA destined to become similar to the NHL, the pro-tennis circuit, the professional golfers’ tour, et al, in regards to the inclusion of African-Americans and other native-born minorities?

RM: By “fully” do you mean affirmative-action? And what native-born minorities are you talking about?

Is the NFL or NBA fully integrated? I don’t see a lot of Asian-Americans or Hispanics at linebacker, or at power forward. Does the presence of a Samoan-American like Junior Seau make the NFL “integrated”? Seau isn’t in the NFL because he’s a minority; he’s in the NFL because he’s a fierce, talented football player.

I do see quite a few Latinos, both native-born and foreign, in baseball. Major League Baseball teams have made a concerted effort to tap that talent pool. Yet MLB has been around for more than a century, MLS is brand new.

True, soccer is still primarily a suburban sport in the U.S., but no longer are the suburbs lily-white. And there are several programs in force designed to bring soccer into the inner-city areas where minorities live.

Blacks and Hispanics, both foreign and native-born, appear on every MLS roster. Shaun Barlett is not African-American, but I believe Americans of all races will enjoy watching him play.

Michael J. Gray

Lompoc, Calif.

Will Coach Steve Sampson scout U.S. players in MLS for the national team? Certainly, we can use more speed in the defensive third and offensive third.

PB: In his post-World Cup ’98 draw press conference (Soccer America, Dec. 25, 1995 issue), Sampson said: “We’ll take our very best (national) team considering the form of the players. If a couple MLS players are in outstanding form, we may give them a look.”

Sampson attended several scrimmage games in Del Mar, Calif., during MLS spring training.

Michael Vraney

Little Chute, Wisc.

Honestly, I am disappointed in your MLS coverage up to now. As the season is about to start, I would have thought coverage would be more than just two pages. Please, a full page on each club each week! (I remember similar coverage for the NASL in the early 80s). I do appreciate the current coverage, it’s just that this new league is our last chance, and needs to be covered like a “major league.”

RM: I’m disappointed in your remark about “only” two pages, every week, for months, of a league that hadn’t kicked a ball. In the ’80s, a story in SA might run about 20 inches, or 10 inches, depending on ad placement. Usually, in the much smaller format (8″x 11″) we used then, two team articles ran per page. We never ran stories on every team, and at the time many fans didn’t like the game-story orientation. At the height of the NASL, our readership was one-fifth what it is now, when we offer much broader coverage of all levels of the game.

We will not run a full page on each team each week; the costs are too high, and few fans have the time or inclination to read 10 team pages each week. What we will do is, hopefully, give you insight and analysis you can’t get anywhere else. Please drop us a line in mid-season and let us know how we’re doing.

Myron Shen

Redwood Shores, Calif.

Any word on Dario Brose in Germany? He must be one of the best but least-known American players abroad. I think he would be a steal for any MLS team. Isn’t he interested in returning to the US?

RM: Brose refused an MLS contract offer; he felt the league wasn’t offering him enough money. He is interested, but for now, will stay in Germany (at Saarbruecken), where even with an “amateur” Third Division team he can make almost double what he could in MLS.

Justin S. Smith

Fort Worth, Texas

Giants Stadium currently plans to use natural grass only for the first part of the season until they replace it with AstroTurf. Is any work being done by MLS officials to persuade Giants Stadium management to keep grass in place for the duration of the MetroStars season?

RM: The MetroStars have been lobbying the Giants, the Jets and the stadium authority for more than a year, but the NFL teams and the stadium still have final say. Maybe when the league offices move to New York, they can use political leverage to keep grass.

Tom Hefty

Evanston, Ill.

For weeks, I’ve been logging on to learn of the upcoming MLS season. I don’t mind, but I’d just as well like to get it from my daily newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. Unfortunately, I have seen not one story about MLS after its draft. What does MLS plan to do about it?

RM: This is a serious problem in non-MLS cities. The league has been very lax in disseminating information to major papers, relying too much on the teams, which normally release information mainly to their local papers and TV stations. Call them at (310) 772-2600 and complain.

Then you should contact (by mail, e-mail, or fax) the Tribune and gently ask them to run MLS stories they receive on wire services and other sources. Associated Press will be covering the league and every game, so don’t let the Trib tell you they don’t have access to the information.

Also, if you’re into sports radio, call those programs and try to talk soccer. You’re in a very tough sports town — which is one reason there’s no MLS team there — so you’ll hear phones slammed in your ear, but if other fans hear your attempts, they’ll try as well. Since you log-on, do so with other local fans and start plotting.

Use on-line services like Soccer America to get your fill. I doubt if papers like the Tribune will feed your need, although they are planning a big preview.

Rich Foss

Ft.Lauderdale, Fla.

What are the REAL (note capital letters) chances of expansion in MLS, when might it happen and where are the likely markets?

RM: The league says it may expand next year, but unless it really comes flying out of the gate, don’t expect this to happen. The MetroStars owner also holds rights for a team on Long Island. Other possibilities are San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Detroit and Seattle.