An MLS History Project, 2002: Coming Back from the Dead to Become the Buffalo Bills

Not judging, just stating (but, yes, judging).

It’s easier to know something about every team in a league with fewer teams, obviously, but few things do the experience real justice quite like the numbers:

“Each team played a total of 28 matches in the regular season, which ran from March to September, facing teams within their conference four times and outside of their conference two times.”

After seeing the same names that often, how could you not put a face to every name? (Also, it was mostly names and faces; I don’t honestly recall how many games I could watch on a weekly basis back then, but I think you’d be surprised; more later.) That was true at the time, but, today, I couldn’t pick Rodrigo Faria out of a police line-up if he was wearing a shirt that said “Rodrigo Faria” on it. And that guy lead the New York/New Jersey MetroStars in scoring in 2002. The limits of going by memory…

If you go by the goals scored, 2002 wasn’t much to look at. For one, it was the lowest-scoring season in MLS history to date with just 42.1 goals for/against league wide (helpfully, the 2001 average came in at 43.25, the former league-low; less helpfully, 2000’s average was 51.0). I remember commentators, and probably the league, panicking about that a little, but can you blame them? MLS contracted from 12 teams down to 10 between 2001 and 2002 – and, apparently, drew up the papers to fold. If you love soccer already, you’ve already priced in low-scoring games, but, just for a minute, put yourself in the shoes of someone whose chosen career is pitching soccer to a country famously hostile to soccer. Now, as that person, how would you feel if the league you ran spent two seasons basically proving the point of everyone who hates that sport – e.g., that no one ever (fucking) scores. So, yes, I’m sympathetic to the situation.

How bad was it? MLS Cup runner-up, the New England Revolution, scored the most goals that season, 49 in all. They barely raised a low average, in other words. The Revs had a pretty damn strong team that season, obviously; a team doesn’t (barely) win the Eastern Conference and reach MLS Cup without outdoing its peers. That didn’t make it any less fitting that MLS Cup 2002* was decided by a single goal, scored in extra time – this would be the last “golden goal” in MLS history – and by a team that had relied on its defense more than I remembered (* That link takes you to the highlights, and they're fun, for the Jones/Franchino battle alone; also, seeing the winner again...and it's been years...it hurt). To pick up another thread to the ultimate, achingly-awaited triumph: when the Los Angeles Galaxy broke its MLS Cup duck, they borrowed the playbook from the 2000 Kansas City Wizards (and, for the record, Blazing Saddles has forever ruined me for any phrase that begins with “Kansas City”; WARNING, not PC, but very effective in its message), and brought in a ringer: Carlos Ruiz, a Guatemalan forward/diver/con-artist/street-genius. It was no surprise at all to see him score the winner; Ruiz had already scored over half the Galaxy’s goals during the regular season (seriously, 24 goals of 44 goals). To hang an analogy on it, the Galaxy was only able to win an MLS Cup by going from Scandal to Patty Smyth and Scandal.

Truth to tell, New England’s attack wasn’t much deeper: they relied on Taylor Twellman – a former college star, Euro-league bounce-back, now MLS rookie – almost as much as LA relied on Ruiz. When it came to goals and how they created, the only difference between LA and the Revs was that one player, Steve Ralston, a high-quality escapee from Tampa Bay’s collapse, provided assists for Twellman’s goals at nearly one-to-one (e.g., 23 goals for Twellman and 19 assists for Ralston), while Ruiz had two players supplying helpers – e.g., Cobi Jones (again) and, unjustly forgotten Kiwi legend, Simon Elliott. The consequential difference showed up in defense: LA was a league-best, stingy-AF – just 33 goals allowed over 28 games, to the Revs’ 49. To return to the analogy, Patty Smyth scored the goal, but Scandal won the game…

In a year defined by defense, and in a cosmic justice sense, the right team won. I mean, LA had been so steady for so long – i.e., the bridesmaids at three MLS Cups in seven seasons – only to see another team walk out with the trophy. At the same time, that makes them a less interesting story: the foundation had been laid, mostly on the defensive side, so what they really needed was a player to, 1) help/surpass Jones, and 2) get them over the goddamn hump. Ruiz did that, and with nine assists from LA’s other new kid, Elliott (who was genuinely likeable, and I’ve always hated the Galaxy; yes, more than the Sounders). New England, though, that’s an entirely different and better story, one that has far more to say about MLS’s early days, contraction, and how crazy rigid parity once was.

To continue a conversation started in the…1999 post in this series, New England had never really had a good season before 2002, never mind mattered in the grand scheme (the team sucked, their entire aesthetic was worse, etc. etc.). When contraction forced MLS into what was probably the biggest per-capita fire sale in league history – e.g., the 2002 Expansion Draft – the Revs consistent awfulness finally paid off. By which I mean, they did transformatively well during the Florida Team Estate Sale. Here’s a taste:

“During the 2002 preseason, the club acquired several players from the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion in trades and the Allocation Draft following the contraction of the two clubs, including league MVP Alex Pineda Chacón, forward Mamadou Diallo, midfielder Steve Ralston, and defender Carlos Llamosa.”

To start with the irony, Chacon and Diallo, both legit stars just a year or two prior, never did much for the Revs; the Miami Fusion’s all-time great forward, Diego Serna, even joined the Revs, but only briefly and to chip in a journeyman’s numbers (fwiw, I’m saying heartbreak caused that one; see his stats). Cullen had already come up from Miami the season before, but he joined a Revs team that’d run out of ideas. The real change agents proved to be Twellman, Ralston (and, to a lesser extent, Llamosa), and, a personal favorite and/or a guy who, swear to God, plays as a two-way No. 6, Daniel Hernandez. Having stared at the Revs’ 2002 roster for the past couple days, I’ll confess that I have no damn idea who they started in defense, where, and how often, but, I’d argue till the sun goes down that they had a championship midfield and attack for the MLS 2.0 era. That also explains why I’m not surprised they lost in MLS Cup to a team with a rock-solid defense (1.18 goals per fucking game, people), and a forward with a killer instinct.

That’s the top-line stuff and, for what it’s worth, I’m happy with how I expanded the research for this post – even just as a break from talking about the MLS Cup for the relevant season and dropping some names. Now that I’ve got seven posts’ worth of content under my belt, the context for all this feels a little closer. Moreover, now that I’ve put some flesh on my recall of most names (Faria excluded, as well as Antonio Martinez for the Dallas Burn, who had a good season, and yet I remember Joselito Vaca from the same team? Just…why? How does that work?), I feel better prepared to talk about team narratives – e.g., the secret to New England’s rise – which reminds me, I skipped a big change for the Revs. Former Scottish international, Steve Nicol replaced Fernando Clavijo as the Revolution’s head coach 7-8 games into 2002. Spoiler Alert: he’d be in New England and/or a face of the franchise for a while.

Now that I’ve reacquainted myself with some names and the patterns of those first several seasons, I feel more comfortable both looking at and explaining a roster, and in a way that goes beyond spitting out some numbers. To go broader (and in a fresh fit of madness), I spent some time on the rosters for every team who played in MLS in 2002 to see what shook loose. Teams in MLS had started developing patterns, personalities and, in some cases, tics by 2002. I don’t mean in the sense of having a fixed, permanent identities – i.e., these aren't fucking sitcom characters – but teams started developing the narratives that would become their history and, no less significantly, their team culture. Some of this was stuff I either never knew nor fully appreciated – e.g., the comparative ambition of the Revolution in the league’s earliest seasons – but most of it is just stuff I forgot – Simon Elliott, for example.

With that, I want to close out this post with establishing baseline identities for each of the 10 MLS teams who survived from 2002 forward, more or less (e.g., the San Jose Earthquakes will become the Houston Dynamo in a couple seasons, but the Earthquakes will later return and, hell, yes, build the world’s longest outdoor bar, and what now, motherfucker?).

Before talking about each team, I want to put a little more time into context – specifically, how little the world seemed to care about any of this. The first part of that starts with why the two Florida teams folded:

“The Miami Fusion F.C. ceased operations after only four years in existence due to low attendance and an unfavorable stadium deal. The Tampa Bay Mutiny also ceased operations due to the lack of local ownership.”

[Ed. – Read my post on the 2001 season for a far better version of what happened from Ray Hudson; and I think it's probably more accurate, between a note below and Occam's Razor.]

If you look at the attendance through the 2002 playoffs, you’ll see the “unfavorable stadium deal” as the real driver of Miami’s devise, because if the decision turned on low attendance, the entire league should have folded. (The regular season numbers were higher, but also over-counted and, often, goosed – e.g., the Rapids annual game/fireworks 4th of July celebrations, because the consistently drew in the four digits overall.) I won’t pretend to remember any games besides MLS Cup, but it’s also fairly likely that I – living as I did in a non-MLS market – saw, at most, one of those playoff games per round. To pick a parenthetical all the way back third paragraph, I’m pretty sure that over-expansive cable packages made it possible for me to follow the Revolution – i.e., if you paid enough, you could get channels like Fox Sports New England (FSNE) or MSG (can’t remember that acronym, but it served the MetroStars market) - but one had to know where to find things (and pay for them). While I can’t say this with any confidence, I think I was able to see nearly all of New England’s games, even from Portland, Oregon. I mean, fact-check that as the spirit moves you…then think about how you spend your spare time…

Oh, and there’s one more fun corporatist wrinkle to the 2002 MLS Cup. New England’s regular venue – re-dubbed CMGI Field for the 2002 season – hosted MLS Cup in 2002 for the third time in the league’s seven-year existence. Why? Because the Revs owner, Bob Kraft, had just opened it. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, etc.

Qualifying for the playoffs was also a little wacky in 2002 – and better, I’d argue – but I’ll get to that after walking through the ten teams that fought for the eight available spots. And I’m going in alphabetical order, because that’s how they lined up.

Chicago Fire

Since their break-in/breakout MLS Cup-winning 1998 campaign (discussed here), the Fire had devolved into something more pragmatic; defenders like Jim Curtin (how coaching Philly) and C. J. Brown had stepped in for sweeper/drop-it-on-a-dime threat Lubos Kubik (though Brown put up good assist numbers). They still had Ante Razov and Josh Wolff, two solid forwards, and also Piotr Nowak, if less of him, plus a good midfield engine between Jesse Marsch and Dema Kovalenko. The thrill was gone, but only the competence lingered.

Colorado Rapids

I coming around to the idea that the Rapids have been the league’s money-ball/dark-horse team from the beginning – and 2002 only underlines it. Calling it Scottish international John Spencer counts as the biggest stretch, they built this team with MLS regulars – e.g., Mark Chung (rescued from KC and NYC), Chris Carrieri (who had his best year ever), Chris Henderson (back from KC), plus Carlos Valderrama (who did better than fine) and, again, Kyle Beckerman and Pablo Mastroeni. This team builds rosters the way a Zen master approaches late-stage Jenga.

Columbus Crew

I’d call them another surprisingly fun team, a team that tends to have a “special guy” or three. For 2002, that included the hydra-head attack of Jeff Cunningham, Edson Buddle, Dante Washington and Brian McBride. They had a lot of ways to hurt a team (if in an offense limited season), plus Kyle Martino and Brian Maissoneuve pulling the strings. The Revs only beat them in the East on a tie-breaker.

DC United

Stagnating, at this point, and badly. A very young Bobby Convey was their leading scorer in 2002 (5g, 3 a), because they bet a lot on players like Santino Quaranta and Eliseo Quintanilla to take over for Jaime Moreno and Marco Etcheverry (among others). The defense, lead by Eddie Pope, was fine; the attack managed just a shade over 1.0 goals per game.

Dallas Burn

One of the few teams with only one or two identities over its history in MLS. The big picture wasn’t much different back in 2002 – solid, reliably made the playoffs, only without going anywhere – but they’re also always unearthing talent that would later explode – e.g., Irishman Robbie O’Brien and, especially, Eddie Johnson. Jason Kreis carried them to their normal, with assists from Martinez and Vaca, but Dallas has always had a ceiling.

Los Angeles Galaxy

I feel like I covered them above, so I’ll just note that they won the Supporters’ Shield in 2002, and with six points to spare…and there’s a story behind that too (see: San Jose Earthquakes).

New England Revolution

See above, but the 2002 was a real pivot for New England. The foundation they added going into 2002 turned them into one of the best and/or least fortunate teams of the 2000s. More, and Pat Noonan, later.

New York/New Jersey MetroStars

I’d lump the MetroStars in with Colorado and Dallas when it comes to having a long-term historical identity in MLS. They always have both talent (Diallo and Faria) and a flaw, especially as the MetroStars – it looks like defense killed ‘em in 2002. They got better footing when Red Bull took over (quite literally), but they’ve never won the trophy fans care about – e.g., MLS Cup. [Ed. – For the record, yes, I’m a Supporters’ Shield stan.]

San Jose Earthquakes

They didn’t have a bad season – they came closer to catching LA during the regular season than anyone – but every one besides Ariel Graziani (acquired from Dallas) slipped enough between 2001 and 2002 to let "Carlos Ruiz & The Galaxy" lap them. They’d be back, even if between two different cities.

Kansas City Wizards (they file under "Sporting Kansas City" on MLS's stat page; good source, btw)

Just two years after their hideous MLS-Cup-winning season (see above on the formula LA borrowed), the Wizards became the same joyless team they’d always been. Miklos Molnar – aka, their Ruiz – packed up after 2000, and they struggled to find a replacement. Not even Preki coming back fixed it (because he was…shit, 39 by then; for late MLS fans, the best current analog for Preki is Ilsinho).

Incredibly, I've listed every team that was in the goddamn league above. [Ed. – Which means I’m not sure how I’ll handle this approach in the future, if at all, but it’ll clearly have to be shorter.] And, to wrap things up, with just 10 teams competing, MLS went all-in on competitiveness in 2002, because the top eight teams made the playoffs that season, regardless of conference. While that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme, that arrangement shielded the Wizards from their incompetence (seriously, 9-10-9, and with a -11 goal differential, in the playoffs?), while punishing the MetroStars for an only slightly-worse version of the same (e.g., 11-15-2 (see note about their defense), and a -6 goal differential).

For what it’s worth, I’d go back to that. Hell, I’d also go back to a three-conference league, and you can bet your bottom dollar* that I’ll never be for a playoff field larger than 12 teams – and that’s under ANY circumstances besides a 36-team league team, which I hope that MLS will never attempt…unless they turn U.S. domestic soccer into, say, four regional competitions, followed by a national competition for the best teams in that group, and a promotion/relegation battle that goes on under that national championship (and, for the teams that make neither…well, that’s just more time to plot your revenge, innit?).

When it comes to league history, 2002 was only a massive season in that the Galaxy finally won an MLS Cup, and that the Revolution stopped being irretrievably awful. Both teams would keep that momentum; LA just kept it longer. And that’s the story of how they passed the “Buffalo Bills of MLS” torch to New England.

Back for 2003 by…eh, Tuesday at the latest.

* It took well past my 30s, maybe even into my 40s, to realize that "bottom dollar" probably meant the last dollar you have, instead of a dollar from somewhere around your butt, and for whatever reason.