By Ridge Mahoney, Senior Editor
Last Friday night, D.C. United's Santino Quaranta started and finished a playoff game for the first time.
On the night, in the 0-0 tie with Chicago, Quaranta had no goals, no assists, and a bloody lip that required him to change his jersey, so profuse was the bleeding. The lip was smashed in a duel with Ivan Guerrero near the touchline.
Much of this was unthinkable a few years ago. Quaranta battling for a loose ball, on the flank, during a playoff game? Once an immobile forward with a tendency to lag in the box and get caught offside and not want to hear about the recriminations, Quaranta scored five goals and five assists in 18 games this season.
''For Santino, I think he's learned the mentality,'' says Coach Peter Nowak. ''He wants to be on the team wherever the coach plays him or whatever he needs to do on the field. This is great stuff, considering he didn't play basically for the past two years.''
INJURIES HIT TEEN STAR. In 2003, Quaranta suffered an MCL injury and played only 12 games. Last year, he played 23 minutes in the regular season and 15 more in the playoffs due to series of injuries that included a chronic abdominal problem.
''In the summer, I didn't feel a part of it,'' says Quaranta. ''I wasn't traveling, I was out, I was getting surgeries and stuff. If it wasn't for my fiancie and my daughter, man, I don't know where I'd be.''
In 2001, he'd burst into MLS as a 16-year-old by scoring five goals before the All-Star break. In 2002, his personal life took over. His childhood sweetheart, Petrina, was pregnant and the young couple was determined to have the baby and be a family. Two years of battling injuries and becoming a father took their toll but at the end of the 2004 season, finally, Quaranta felt fit and more importantly, on firm footing off the field.
''Before that I felt healthy but I wasn't right in my mind,'' says Quaranta, who turned 21 two days before the end of the regular season. ''It wasn't letting me do the things I wanted to do and it was kind of weird. I wouldn't take people on like I used to and I was kind of timid. Once I got past that point it was fun and I was feeling like myself again.''
Says Nowak, ''We've been working very hard since the preseason with Santino to make sure he's going to be mentally fit because a lot of things have happened to him in his private life, so fast.''
GETTING VERSATILE. Nowak's brusque doctrines have rankled some players but it brought D.C. a title last year and it hasn't changed this time around. It has also forced Quaranta to not only work in training and attend to defensive duties in games, but also to learn to be a much different player.
''We don't really play with a target striker too much, so we need him to flow around,'' says Nowak of meshing with Jaime Moreno and Christian Gomez in the attack. ''Sometimes he's the playmaker, sometimes he's up top, this is what we expect of him, to flow with the game. At the end of the day when he ends up on the right wing and he needs to deliver the ball, that's fine with me, but we try to play on the ground, not in the air.
''He's scored some good goals. It's important for me that he have the mentality, 'I want the ball, I know my role, but still I'm going to be in the mix, involved with all these things, not just out wide, sending the cross one after another.'''
BRUCE CALLS: The role is also different than that he's played this year with the national team. Bruce Arena's call-up of Quaranta came as a surprise not only to the player but numerous observers who suspected this came as a favor to D.C. United and general manager Kevin Payne, for whom Arena worked the first three MLS seasons and won two championships.
Payne laughs. ''People ask me about this,'' he says, ''and I tell them, 'Do you think he was playing poorly and Bruce just decided to take a flyer on him?' He was playing very well for our team and Bruce saw that and that's why Bruce gave him a chance with the national team. That's added to Santino's confidence and he's getting exposed to a different role and a different style of play and that's all good for him.''
Quaranta played only 124 minutes in the Gold Cup but says that month-long experience of training sessions and international matches deeply affected him. He has subsequently played in qualifiers and unless he suffers a long-term injury will be in the pool of players from which Arena picks his 23 for the World Cup. Quaranta credits Nowak.
''For me, he's been great,'' says Quaranta, ''his motivation and making me do it every day instead of taking some days off. I wasn't that kind of guy who was going to face and defend and Peter just told me if I wanted to play and travel to road games and be a part of all this stuff, the game's changing and the way we win games at D.C. is doing the dirty work. If one guy's not doing it, it's tough for the rest of the team.
''At the beginning of the season, when I started to play, if I did that work I knew I was going to be on the field every Saturday. When I started starting, I knew I had to do my job, and that just doesn't come natural.''
On Sunday, when D.C. and Chicago meet in Game 2, Quaranta might start and he might not, but he's almost certain to play. And the support group will be on hand as well.
''She comes to all the games,'' Quaranta says of his daughter, Olivia, now 2 and a half. ''She knows D.C. United, she knows our mascot, everyone on our team knows her. When she was born it was like an angel jumped into my body. She means the world to me.''