Time for the old man to get nostalgic.
For the 14th time, we kick off a new MLS season. This time, it's in a venue new to the league, Qwest Field, Thursday night as the Red Bulls take on the expansion Seattle Sounders FC. Memories of First Kicks past (and just plain, old Opening Nights, too) come flooding back to me.
We've pretty much seen it all.
Pardon me for scrapping the traditional First XI format this week (and perhaps altogether, we shall see), I want to wax poetic.
There was, of course, the first time we ever saw MLS, and there was Eric Wynalda, blonde bowl-cut whipping in the wind, faking Jeff Agoos right out of his scrunchy in the final minute of the match, and curving one to the far side-netting. Thirteen years later, I'm a much older man, but that goal will never leave my memory bank.
And the inaugural game was not the only great opener in 1996. I was, of course, in the Rose Bowl where 69,000 fans watched Jorge Campos in neon leading the Galaxy (also in neon!) past the MetroStars, who were waiting on the arrivals of Roberto Donadoni and Tab Ramos and therefore fielded a team of indoor players and recent college grads. There was the pony-tailed Tony Meola in net for the Metros and Melrose Place star Andrew Shue getting a cameo for LA, and the result was predictable, a 2-1 win for the Galaxy.
We moved on through the Shootout Era, still seeing good openers. I was in the Big Sombrero in Tampa in '97, where Beppe Galderisi scored in the final minute to lead the Tampa Bay Mutiny past the MetroStars, 2-1.
And in 1998, who can ever forget the sun-drenched Lockhart Stadium, where the paint on the seats was still wet, and D.C. United, back-to-back MLS Cup champions, beat the Fusion behind a kid named Tony Sanneh, who had a goal and an assist in a 2-0 victory for United. Good as that was, it would've been hard for anyone to top the first-ever MLS game at Soldier Field, where Chicago-born Frankie Klopas scored both goals in a 2-0 victory for the Fire. That was the stuff of fairytales.
If you're a fan of high-scoring games, then '99 was a great year for MLS Openers. You had Rocket Roy Lassiter playing for D.C. United, against his original team from Tampa, and scoring a couple of goals to help United roll, 5-2, at the Sombrero. You had Real Salt Lake head coach Jason Kreis firing for a hat trick as the Dallas Burn beat up on the Kansas City Wizards, and a poor last-second goalkeeper named Cesar Delgado, 4-0. You also had a youngster named Ante Razov tallying a pair for Chicago in a 3-1 road victory over the San Jose Clash.
From 2000, I'll always remember the ageless Hristo Stoitchkov getting off a plane and scoring a couple of goals on a hot afternoon at the Cotton Bowl, only to be upstaged by Ariel Graziani, who scored a pair for Dallas as the Burn won a 4-2 game. And, of course, there was Lothar Matthaeus, debuting for the MetroStars, the team he called "a chaos club," in a 3-1 loss at Miami. Of course, the Metros (who later acquired Clint Mathis) would go on to have their greatest regular season ever.
I also look back on openers that provided insight for entire seasons.
Remember 2002, and a young Guatemalan striker named Carlos Ruiz scoring a pair of goals to lead LA to a 2-1 opening night victory over D.C. United? Ruiz would go on to lead the Galaxy to their first MLS Cup, scoring late, game-winning goals for fun ... all season long.
If we look down up on the Shootout Era, how did we feel about the Overtime Era? In 2003, the Wizards and striker Chris Brown were feeling pretty good about it. They took out D.C. United at Arrowhead Stadium on a golden goal. Of course, a year later, OT was history and two of the five First Kick clashes ended in draws. That's soccer.
The year 2005 can only be remembered for one thing, and that's the monsoon. Not sure I have much more to say about the 0-0 draw between the MetroStars and expansion Real Salt Lake, but if you want some laughs, check it out here.
Words don't do it justice.
In 2006, FC Dallas brought a big, young striker named Kenny Cooper off the bench on opening night, and all he did was score the game-winner, as FCD came from behind to beat Chicago, 3-2, at Pizza Hut Park.
Opening Weekend '06 also saw a thriller at RFK between old rivals D.C. United and the Metro ... errr ... Red Bulls. Yeah, not long before Opening Day, the team known since 1996 as the MetroStars took on a new identity. The first-ever Red Bull New York game saw Youri Djorkaeff his an amazing free kick and the Bulls run out to a 2-0 lead only to see their oldest rivals come back to earn a 2-2 draw.
Just as Kasey Keller and Seattle will begin a new era Thursday night, in '07 Toronto FC got it all started. They traveled west to play a Chivas USA team that was about to roll to a regular season Western Conference title. Tough way to start things. Chivas, behind Razov (did we call him a kid a few paragraphs back?), who scored goal No. 99 of his career as CDCUSA rolled to a 2-0 win over the boys from North of the Border.
Which brings us to last year and a sign of the league's evolution. The home clubs just beat up on the road clubs in four of the six 2008 openers. As MLS has forged on through the years, home teams have become tougher and tougher to take down. Will Seattle, with 20,000 season-tickets sold and an enthusiastic supporters group ready to sing 'til they're hoarse, be ready to put on a show Thursday night?
This is what so many of us live to find out.
Jeff Bradley is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. Send your comments and complaints (200 words or less, please) to Jeff at jbradleyespn2003@yahoo.com and he promises to read (but not respond to) all of them. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
