An MLS History Project: 1998, An Expansion Team Among Expansion Teams

Not the main subject, but a key sentiment of this post....

First, I have to get this off my chest. Look at the 1998 final standings. (Look at them!!) Who the hell has two different kinds of wins and losses? Who does that?

Moving on, 1998’s was the first set of final standings that I really looked at – as in, saw where each of the (now) 12 teams (wait for it) finished and a couple data points really take me back…far enough that I’m going to dip my toe into some research.

Until recently as…shit, 2019, the ’98 Los Angeles Galaxy team held the single-season record for most team goals scored: they banged in 85, and they had two fewer games in which to do it than Toronto FC would in 2019. While that record and the team that held it has always lurked around the back of my mind, I couldn’t have placed it in time with a gun to my head. I knew it was back in the day, but…damn. A quick scan of that roster (or just its leading scorers) gets you to “god-damn” pretty fast – not just because that’s a massive brick in the building of Cobi Jones’ reputation (19 goals, 13 assists?!), but also because Welton, a wiry whippet of a player (if I remember right) who stuck in LA for a few seasons, plus a(nother) career season for OG-legend Mauricio Cienfuegos (13 goals, 16 helpers) – but the larger point was that this team had a lotta ways to hurt. The Galaxy was just as solid on the other side of the field, with a backline made up of Robin Fraser, Dan Calichman, Greg Vanney, and Steve Jolley (or Paul Caligiuri) – and that’s before I get to the fullbacks (e.g, Ezra “EZ” Hendrickson). Between front and back, they had this great one-two between Daniel Hernandez – a really strong d-mid in his day, and I think he’s still remembered – and another player named Danny Pena. The latter played more box-to-box, but he had some real sharp ideas on the attacking end for a guy in that role. Pena didn’t last long, but he was hella fun for as long as he did and those two were great to watch when they clicked. Taken together, that team managed a 2:1 between goals for/against. Impressive, obviously…

…but the one name I see that really caught my eye in that data-pile was Carlos Hermosillo. People, myself 1,000% included, sometimes talk about Mexican National Team players as if they’re coming to MLS for the first time over the past couple seasons. Hermosillo does and doesn’t disprove that. He remains among the top scorers in Mexican National Team history, and his numbers for Cruz Azul for the 90s qualify as a big step past bat-shit; he was massive in his day…those just happened to come one or two before signing to MLS, and I guess that answers the question. Still feels notable that he had twice as many assists as goals…

A few more memories came to mind as my attention drifts down the standings. For one, the New England Revolution was just fucking awful for the first several years; fairly or unfairly, I long placed their ceiling at Darren Sawatsky. Maybe a couple super-strong early seasons could have, say, helped them overcome that long drive to that bed-pan of a stadium in the middle of bum-fuck New England that separated them from their fan-base. (Yeah, probably not. Bob fucking Kraft.) Another detail (e.g., where they finished, and how) reminds me that I used to either say at or write to other people that I’d watch any game MLS decided to air every weekend, but it was San Jose versus Kansas City that always made it harder.

It’s kind of a mush after that: DC United hadn’t stopped being good – in fact, they hit the all-time third-place mark for team goals at 74 the same year LA set the bar (see: "they banged in 85" above) – so, of course they reached the MLS Cup Final for the third year running. The Dallas Burn probably started fast before fading down the stretch, and so much of the rest of the field played the same role they’ve played in so many seasons since – i.e., the MLS version of “mid-table,” which includes the Columbus Crew, the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, the Colorado Rapids and, again, Dallas. For what it’s worth, Dallas has long struck me as the exemplar mid-table team in MLS history. Always a bridesmaid, but also never the maid of honor.

The competition got trickier when, in just its third season, MLS added its first two expansion teams: the Chicago Fire and the Miami Fusion. Everyone knows Chicago – not because they won MLS Cup at the end of their expansion season, but also because they’re still around, you just have to look around the recent…successful…re-brand – but, if one thing fell through the cracks between 1998 and today, it’s that Chicago weren’t the little darlings of 1998: it was the Miami Fusion…

…and, no. Hold the phone. I just realized I was writing about soccer online by 1998. Gawd, can that be right? I remember having to drop in team logos when I wrote posts for someone or another (or, worse, did I do that to myself?). More significantly, and also in total violation of the spirit of this project, I just poked around Miami’s history** and realized that I was two years early on the whole “league darlings” call, so, fuck it, let’s talk about Chicago!

[** Ed. - Before doing that, it’s worth announcing what’s probably already apparent: the simple fact that I’m looking backwards at all these teams and/or players through a bunch of history and context creates all kinds of distortions, projections and, probably, some mythologizing. Why does that caveat seem so specific? Because I’m about to argue that the Chicago Fire’s inaugural team might have been an MLS 4.0 (or thereabouts) team in the MLS 2.0 era (back when the numbering system was clearer). Also, because I hate giving bad information, like, a lot, I’ll be doing some more fact-checking for these posts going forward. End of digression.]

The key detail lies in the foreign players Chicago brought in. Going by memory, I’m pretty sure the foreign player rule limited teams to five per team, and the Fire bet heavily on Poland when building their attack: Jerzy Podbrozny, Roman Kosecki and, most of all, Piotr Nowak gave Chicago as powerful an attacking capability as any team in MLS. Fun detail: Nowak is damn near the same age as Hermosillo, and both players posted the exact same goals/assist numbers in ’98, but, swear to God, there’s a point in here (uhhhhh). Nowak had the high-torque, high-mile engine and line-breaking close control that MLS wouldn’t see until Darlington Nagbe signed for the Portland Timbers, only Nowak directed the attack, maybe even drove it, more than Nagbe ever showed any interest in doing. I only remember Podbrozny’s name (and…his nose, I think), but he scored the Fire’s game-winning goal in MLS Cup 1998; I remember liking Kosecki better as a player, but I can’t really picture him.

At any rate, Nowak had those two to play to, plus Ante Razov (who would go on to be one of the all-time leading scorers in MLS history) and Josh Wolff (reliable, at worst, capable of blinding moments at best). Chicago had solutions, in other words, and they had a biting, bristling midfield back-stopping them in Jesse Marsch, a 90s-00s-best plug-‘n’-play player in Diego Gutierriez (seriously, anywhere but forward and ‘keeper; he played left back for MLS Cup ‘98), and one of the league’s all-time great No. 6s (or thereabouts) in Chris Armas. Behind them….wow, how did I get this far without talking about Lubos Kubik?

The best 2019 analog I can come up with for Kubik would be Michael Bradley, only Kubik played at centerback, while Bradley’s a deep-lying mid. They could hit the same kind of line-breaking long passes that could fuck a whole team up inside a second. I don’t recall Kubik being either bad or great as a defender (so, better than Bradley on that score), but he had Francis Okaroh (Nigerian) as a partner and long-time Fire defensive anchor C. J. Brown at right back and (again) Gutierrez at left back, and that gave them a defense that gave up just one more goal all season than LA, who had the league's best defense in '98.

This team made history for the same reason the DC United did two seasons before: Chicago was an expansion team among, more or less, expansion teams. At that point in the league's history, building a team as good as the Fire’s Year One outfit meant having the literal sky and/or the first domestic double in U.S. history as the limit. To underline it, look at the standings again and you’ll see it: both DC and LA ran away with their respective conferences, but Chicago finished 11 points over the next closest team (Columbus, fwiw); once you cross off Colorado, or even the MetroStars, you’re looking at an almost 20-point gap between Chicago and Dallas…and, I’ll be damned if that doesn’t brings up a fun memory called The Brimstone Cup. For those wondering, yes, the attempts to foster, or even concoct rivalries (I’m pretty sure “Burn” and “Fire” was the only relevant connection) go way back in MLS…

If I forgot anything about the first three years in MLS history, it was how good those first few championship teams were. I’m not about to get into the whole game of whether LA’s 1998 team would have beat…literally any subsequent MLS Cup and/or Supporters’ Shield champion because, who cares? It didn’t happen, it can’t happen, and it never will…all the same, I freakin’ loved the Pena/Hernandez central midfield pairing, but Diego Chara + 1 could probably hold it down against them, so maybe I have an answer, even if I don’t have all of them (that’s more a comment on Chara’s…particular set of skills than those players, but, as a default, I assume everyone back in the day ate worse and drank/smoked more than today’s high-achievin’, clean-livin’ athletes, also, I miss the 1970s in a way that I really shouldn’t by now).

As I seem to do with each of these posts, I’m going to drop some names before I close out. Some of them burned white and hot in league circles for a short time around this time, while others either started or continued to be among the best players in MLS history. To start with the former:

Stern John: I think he played two seasons for Columbus (yep!), but he set one hell of a pace during that time: 44 goals in 55 games, aka, as close to “holy shit” as you’re ever likely to see. I mostly remember him scoring with his feet, often from range. One of the first truly special “pop-up” players (as in, he came outta nowhere, and left just as fast) in league history.

Roy Lassiter: aka, the player John couldn’t catch (26 goals in 1998 to Lassiter’s 27 in 1996), if I lost track of anything with the man who held MLS’s single-season goal scoring record for over 20 years, it’s how goddamn reliable he was, for how long, and for how many teams (actually, just two). The record should have spoken for itself, but I can be slow…

El Salvador: Because I think this chapter ends fairly early in MLS history, I just want to acknowledge that, for a time, Salvadoran players rated among the best in the league. I mentioned Cienfuegos above, but Raul Diaz Arce bagged 81 MLS goals before he retired, while Ronald Cerritos led San Jose’s line (55 goals in 118 appearances) in their earliest seasons. While it’s both sad and what it is, I can’t remember the last time El Salvador played a big role in the region. Suffice to say, they’ve been going through some shit, and for a long time, and here’s to hoping it ends soon (odds = bad).

Diego Serna: Seeing his name in the ’98 numbers is precisely what caused me to misplace Miami’s best season in time. He’ll re-appear in future chapters…along with a side-kick.

Ben Olsen: I had to dig into Olsen’s past a little to remember how he came into MLS, but there it is: Project-40 was the mechanism. That feels like a great thing/concept to end on because the whole Project-40 (sponsored by Nike!) thing was the league’s first crack at getting young American players into the professional game as early as possible. It later picked up a new sponsor, hence Generation Adidas, and its purpose evolved a little as well: “Originally intended to improve the U.S. national team player pool, American national team eligibility is no longer required for program entry.”

Project-40 actually started in ’97, with Carlos Parra as the first player signed. While he, and most of the other players in his class, now file under “who?” and/or a name you remember from early versions of FIFA (Eric Quill was my boy!), it wasn’t all future nobodies who signed, even early on – e.g., Brian “Dunny” Dunseth came in with Parra’s class and he has a better-than-decent playing career behind him. The 2000 class was arguably the first “Project-40/Generation Adidas” class that passed the test of history: it featured league mainstays/icons like Kyle Beckerman, Carlos Bocanegra, Danny Califf, Bobby Convey, Nick Garcia, Nick “Fucking” Rimando, and, to pull a personal favorite out of obscurity, Rusty Pierce (go Revs, if back in the day…).

The classes got better and worse from there, but some actual MLS legends got their start in the program, including a handful of the league’s best attacking players – e.g., there was Wolf (also Class o’ ’98), Eddie Johnson (2001), Brad Davis, Justin Mapp, Kyle Martino (2002), Mike Magee…uh, Eddie Gaven(? both 2003). Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley came through the same class as Freddy Adu (2004), for all that anyone noticed, and the same year saw Clarence Goodson and Chad Marshall go through; the next class included Michael Parkhurst and Drew Moor, so, yeah, First, Project-40, then Generation Adidas connected a major pipeline of talent into Major League Soccer.

Did the program have a ceiling? If looked at through the lens of the U.S. Men’s National Team – which peaked somewhere between 2002 and 2008 - yeah, one could make a decent case for that argument. Conversely, one could argue that this glut of American players contributed to whatever success the U.S. had during that peak, and maybe it’s the late influx of stronger attacking players from abroad that lead to the U.S. Men’s falling off during the 2010s.

It made the league better. Even if it didn’t make the league better, it made the league we all know today. Ben Olsen was a pioneer, in other words, before he became the coach of borderline unwatchable teams.

That’s all for 1998. See you “next year” (and, ideally, on the other side of this goddamn quarantine. Stay safe out there!).