The 2008 MLS Season

MLS Championship - State of the League

By Robert Woodard

Major League Soccer (MLS) concluded its 13th season with the Columbus Crew who won the 2008 Supporters Shield, emblematic of the best regular season record, defeating the overachieving New York Red Bulls 3-1 at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. The Crew outlasted the Red Bulls in a championship game that made up in intensity for what it lacked in artistic value.

Soccer purists love to criticize Major League Soccer’s American styled playoffs. This year, the main reason for their despair was a New York Red Bulls team, owners of a losing regular season who shocked experts making it to the 2008 MLS Cup Final with a 1-0 upset over Real Salt Lake in the Western Conference Final. The Red Bulls rode Lady Luck as Real Salt Lake dominated but couldn’t get the bounces to go their way.

Against Columbus, the luck of the Red Bulls finally ran out when New York could not capitalize on their early dominance, missing several scoring opportunities. It came back to haunt them in the 32^nd minute when Alejandro Moreno latched onto a Red Bull turnover and drew goalkeeper Danny Ceparo out of position before hitting a slow roller that kissed off the far post for the game’s first goal.

John Wolnyiec equalized for New York in the 51st minute, toe poking a shot past Crew goalkeeper Wil Hesmer off a brilliant 1-2 combination with the ever-dangerous Dane Richards. Less than a minute later, Chad Marshall restored the Columbus lead slipping through a crowd of defenders with a header on a corner kick.

Columbus defender Frankie Hedjuk removed all doubt about the outcome with less than ten minutes remaining on a header from league and Finals MVP Guillermo Schelotto who assisted on all three Columbus goals.

For Columbus, winning the title served as redemption for a franchise that failed to advance to the MLS Cup in its four previous conference final appearances. For Crew coach Sigi Schmid, winning the game on the home field of the LA Galaxy just two years after they fired him was sweet revenge. “It’s a very emotional moment for me, winning this game here in L.A. in front of family and friends. And, to be quite honest, the town that I was fired in,” Schmid said.

Perhaps, making Sigi Schmid’s day was the self-destruction of the LA Galaxy who fired General Manager Alexi Lalas and lost Coach Ruud Gullit in mid-season after discovering the best offense in the world is no substitute for the world’s worst defense. The Galaxy missed the playoffs for a second season because the combination of Landon Donovan and David Beckham could not compensate for their defensive liabilities. Former U.S. coach, Bruce Arena came in to stop the bleeding, but he did not fare any better as the Galaxy faded down the stretch with a league low 8 wins.

Victor McFarland and Will Chang, MLS’ first minority investor, signed former Argentinean World Cup veteran midfielder Marcelo Gallardo to a club-record contract before the season started. MacFarlane said the signing was intended “to help us make that next step so we can start winning not just the Supporters’ Shield, but the MLS Cup and international competitions.” The experiment failed, as Gallardo simply could not remain healthy enough to make a difference with groin and sports hernia problems.

Just up the road from Washington’s D.C. United’s most bitter rivals, the New England Revolution suffered a similar fate of falling short of expectations. The Rev’s fell 3-0 to a Chicago Fire team they eliminated from the playoffs three straight years. The end was predictable for the Rev’s after a season plagued by injuries and absences by key players on international duty in the Olympics and World Cup Qualifying. The upside for next year is that a number of younger players gained valuable experience, including teenage Gambians Kenny Mansally, Sainey Nyassi, and Major League Soccer Rookie of the Year finalist Kheli Dube.

Toronto FC (TFC) started like a ball on fire only to implode as a road team that could not find the back of the net away from the friendly confines of BMO Field and its passionate, often unruly fan base. TFC possesses a starting lineup capable of competing with anyone but not the depth to survive the entire season.

TFC’s problem is opposite of the LA Galaxy. They possess a solid defense but cannot score. Defender Marvell Wynne has emerged as a legitimate star, showing the talent that made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2006 MLS SuperDraft out of UCLA. His performance on the Olympics team in Beijing gained him a look by Senior Men’s Team and put him in the running for a spot on the World Cup 2010 squad.

League attendance dipped slightly this year going from an average of roughly 16,700 per game to 16,100. That should improve with the addition of the Seattle Sounders, a team with deep roots in the old North American Soccer League and over 17,000 season tickets sold with six months remaining before their first game.

Philadelphia will open up shop in 2010 in an area rich with soccer tradition and built-in rivalries with DC United and New England nearby.

Six cities are competing for the final two spots, including Atlanta, Ottawa, and Portland. But, the favorites have to be St. Louis who recently added two-time National League MVP Albert Pujols to its investment group. Phoenix Suns star Steve Nash leads Vancouver’s bid banking on his popularity and Canada’s growing love of soccer. Another strong competitor is the Miami bid backed by Barcelona FC’s billion dollar bankroll and excellent player development system. That combined with the lure of marrying one of the world’s greatest brands with Miami’s international community seems an unbeatable combination.

With those kinds of prospects in sight, MLS Commissioner Don Garber addressed some of the lingering issues facing the league in his state of the league address. “We’re trying to schedule away from as many international dates as we can, but it’s an impossibility to schedule away from them all.” Without fully elaborating, Garber explained why MLS will continue to play the spring to fall schedule opposite the rest of the world stating, “Playing a European schedule, to give you my best answer, would cost us millions of dollars, we would not be able to have a business.”

Still, Garber is upbeat about the league’s financial future. “We have to manage our business in a way that is about growing the league in the U.S. That’s where we live, that’s where our teams play, and that is the core of MLS.” Referring to the soccer purists who continually call out for regulation and the elimination of a playoff system, Garber asked, “Is somebody going to tell people in Columbus that it has not been exciting, or tell Red Bulls or Salt Lake fans? Sure, it’s a disappointment in Houston, but it remains a great story. These are the things that drive interest in sport. We need those stories, we need someone pointing to Red Bulls as being a success after all these years.” Reprint permission and photos provided by BSTM. n