All That Remains Are the Memories : Soccer: Now with the U.S. national team, three ex-Sockers lament the demise of the MSL.
With the demise of the Major Soccer League early last month, only 20 jobs remain for fully professional soccer players in this country.
That’s the roster size of the U.S. national team, which played its first game in more than a month, or since the MSL folded, losing to Colombia, 1-0, in Friday’s opener of the Friendship Cup at the Coliseum.
Three former Sockers perform with the national team: defender Fernando Clavijo (who won three championships with the club between 1984 and ‘88), midfielders Hugo Perez (four championships between 1983 and ‘88) and Brian Quinn (seven championships between 1983 to ‘91).
Clavijo, Perez and Quinn are the lucky ones--they still have jobs. But their words after Friday’s game did not convey a sense of good fortune.
“Hey, what’s happening with the team?” Quinn asked a reporter he recognized from his days with the Sockers. “Have you heard anything?”
Quinn left the team only six months ago, but Perez has been gone since 1988.
“I have so many good memories,” Perez said. “It was a good league four or five years ago, but everything went downhill like it always does with soccer in this country. It’s always such a fight here.”
The three were a part of the Sockers’ string of 10 championships in 11 seasons. Now their efforts might mean nothing.
There’s no one left to print MSL record books. No future generations will read about the six goals Perez scored against the Cleveland Force in the 1988 championships. The scoring barrage--it came in only four games--earned Perez the most valuable player trophy that year.
The 17 assists and nine goals tallied by Quinn in the 1990 playoffs when he was named MVP also will be lost.
There won’t be any highlight films distributed, either, and that is where Clavijo’s efforts are best recorded. Called the MSL’s fastest player, Clavijo could single-handedly thwart an opponent’s counterattack. Because of his prowess in back, he was named the Sockers’ defender of the year three times (1986-88).
“But no one can take away the memories,” Clavijo said. “The thing you’ll always remember is winning all the championships.”
Clavijo said he recalls the 1986 championship and the 1988 title most fondly. In 1986, the Sockers had to rally from a three games to one deficit to defeat Minnesota. In 1988 the Sockers were in the same predicament against the Kansas City Comets in the Western Division Finals before coming back to win that series and the championships series against Cleveland.
“We had some of the best players ever, guys like Kaz Deyna, Steve Zungul, Juli Veee, Brian Quinn, Zoltan Toth,” Clavijo said. “It was so easy to play with guys like that. They made every game so enjoyable. And they gave everyone a feeling that no matter what, we couldn’t lose.”
Now all three wonder if soccer will lose, and they are not alone. When the U.S. Olympic soccer team failed to make it out of the first round earlier this week in Barcelona, Coach Lothar Osiander intimated the U.S. can’t expect anything more without a professional league to nurture its players.
“There’s no question about it,” Clavijo continued. “It doesn’t help the game when a league like that falls. “For me, my goal is to reach the 1994 World Cup. But as a soccer player I would like to see a league that maybe some day my son (Jonathan Martin, 9) can play in, or at least something for him to look forward to, and something that maybe I could coach in when I’m done playing.”
As the last MSL season wound down in April, Clavijo was deciding between accepting a permanent job as coach of the St. Louis Storm, or continuing with the national team. He never got the chance to make the decision--the Storm went out of business at season’s end.
Still, he was surprised when the entire league followed.
“I was in the league 11 years and every year I heard that the league was going to fold,” Clavijo said. “But it never happened, and I didn’t think it was going to happen this year being so close to the World Cup. I thought all the problems would be solved.”
Quinn said he, too, was stunned.
“I had been through the scenario so many times,” he said. “As far as I was concerned, it was another case of the boy crying wolf. But they day it was announced, I was numb.”
The league’s owners had threatened to shut down operations several times since 1988, when a salary cap was established at $1.2 million. Last year it stood at $550,000.
Quinn said some irony in appeared the day after the league folded. He received a letter form the players’ union stating that in order to continue, the owners had said the salary cap would be reduced to $385,000.
“So half the players wouldn’t have been able to afford to stay around anyway,” Quinn said. “When was it going to end? When it reached $120,000? Absolutely under no circumstances should (the league’s failure) be blamed on the players. Bob Bell (the Sockers’ original owner) lost $500,000 when the salary cap was $1.2 million. Now it’s $550,000 and they’re still losing $500,000. Something is not right there.”
Clavijo also said he had received word of the salary cap’s reduction.
So what happens now?
“The game is going to be resurrected,” Quinn said. “It’s not going to die. It’s too good, too entertaining, too dynamic.”
And if the game isn’t resurrected, the players at least plan to rekindle their memories.
“One time for sure,” Clavijo said, “We’re going to have a reunion game. We’re all going to get together again. All the great players from all the championship teams. You watch.”
But for now, only a void exists.
“We had some special moments that will always be there,” Clavijo said before going off on a tangent. “But still it seems strange that the MSL is gone.”
Soccer Notes
The Sockers’ search for a viable league continues amid much uncertainty. Letters were mailed Friday to the club’s 3,400 season ticket-holders apologizing for the delay and promising refunds to all ticket-holders requesting them. The other option is to keep the money on account should the Sockers find a league. Toward that end, work continues toward aligning with the proposed Continental Indoor Soccer League, which would begin play in June, 1993.
“Let’s just say we’re starting to sizzle,” said Fred Whitacre, Sockers vice president. “And that’s spelled C-I-S-L.” It is not known if Oscar Ancira, the club’s managing general partner, is as optimistic. Ancira could not be reached. A main concern is the CISL’s pay scale, $300 per player per game for a win and $200 for a loss, according to a source who has seen the CISL’s operational blueprint. Before it folded, the average salary in the Major Soccer League was $860 per game.
Whitacre, however, said owners who have already committed to the CISL are willing to compromise on the salary structure and bring it up to a level closer to which former MSL teams are accustomed. Nevertheless, Socker Coach Ron Newman said that if the Sockers gain a rebirth in the CISL, they will lose several star players.
Besides the four players with Sockers ties competing with the national team during this weekend’s Friendship Cup, there are five former Socker front-office employees involved with either the national team or the World Cup ’94 effort. Former vice president Randy Bernstein is now a vice president with the marketing arm of U.S. Soccer. Three others hold positions similar to their roles with the Sockers: Robin Roylance is a marketing director, Jim Moorhouse is handling media relations for the Friendship Cup, Brian Fleming is the national team’s equipment manager and Renato Capobianco is listed on the roster as an administrator. . . . Only in U.S. Soccer: While in Los Angeles, the U.S. public relations team bunked at the posh Sheraton Grande. The American players, meanwhile, holed up at the Holiday Inn in Torrance.
* U.S. LOSES
Colombia defeated the United States, 1-0, in the Friendship Cup opener. C16
