D.C. United coach Bruce Arena isn't known as a clairvoyant, but
maybe he should be. When D.C. traded Roy Wegerle to Tampa Bay for
striker Roy Lassiter on April 27, Lassiter was enduring a
nightmare season. Not only had he been dumped from the national
team, but he also hadn't scored in the Mutiny's first six games.
That skid made Arena's first words to Lassiter when he welcomed
him to Washington seem comically overblown: "Here's where you're
going to get your 30 goals."
Since then Lassiter has been transformed into Roy-naldo. He
picked up goal No. 1 in his first game with United, and by Sunday
he had scored 15 times in 16 games with D.C. to take the lead in
the MLS scoring race. Meanwhile, United has played its best
soccer of the season, building a 13-point cushion in the Eastern
Conference at week's end while pursuing a third straight league
title.
Blessed with turf-churning acceleration that helps him beat
defenders to open spots, Lassiter doesn't admit to being anything
other than a scoring savant. "I don't think people should
complicate their positions," he says. "Forwards are there to
score goals." For that reason he has always needed a talented
playmaker to serve him the ball. Two years ago in Tampa Bay,
Lassiter led MLS with 27 goals thanks mainly to the deft passing
touch of Carlos Valderrama. But last November, Valderrama was
sent to Miami, and Lassiter regained his scoring ability only
when he was paired with United's Bolivian midfield magician,
Marco Etcheverry.
"Marco and I communicate pretty well," says Lassiter, who speaks
fluent Spanish, a benefit of playing professionally in Costa Rica
from 1992 to '95. During games Lassiter and Etcheverry can be
heard yapping en Espanol. According to Arena, that's only one of
the things that make Lassiter a perfect fit with D.C.'s
multilingual team, to say nothing of the city itself. Says Arena,
"Here you have a black American born in Washington, D.C., who
comes back and happens to be fluent in Spanish. Plus he's been
scoring goals. If we had to write a job description for a forward
to match up with us, he'd fit the bill."
Issue date: August 3, 1998
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