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Zavagnin steps back to step forward
Updated: Monday October 16, 2000 8:53 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Last year Kerry Zavagnin performed a career move that was the equivalent of a back pass or a square pass. He voluntarily moved down from Major League Soccer to the A-League. Now, that's worth repeating. He decided to take a step down on his own. "I made a tough decision to go down to the A-League," Zavagnin said. Others might have called it a gamble or even a potential career suicide. When you take yourself out of sight, there's always the fear of being buried in the minor leagues. "I was only there for one reason," Zavagnin said. "If I got 25-26 games and accomplished my goal to become a better player, I'd have a better chance of playing regularly in MLS. "You always want to be at the highest level. Not many players would want to do that."
Incredibly, against all odds, his unorthodox strategy worked. Today, Zavagnin is a defensive midfielder for a team -- the Kansas City Wizards -- that is only one win away from capturing MLS Cup. The Wizards play the Fire for the title at RFK Stadium on Sunday. Before this year, Zavagnin, like it or not, forged a reputation for having for the worst red card to minute ratio in the league for one season, having been sent off twice in only 754 minutes of action as a physical defensive midfielder in 1998. "It was a combination of my role and frustration," he said of the uncharacteristic red cards. "For the amount of minutes I play, it was inexcusable." After two frustrating seasons with the MetroStars, Zavagnin saw the writing on the wall. He wasn't playing enough with a team that was becoming the laughing stock of MLS as his game started to deteriorate. "If you don't play games, you're not showing any improvement," he said. "I was a very good player in practice. But the games were different. . . . I showed up every day. I came to work. It was a difficult time." He decided to do something about it. In late February, 1999, he talked with then coach Bora Milutinovic about getting his release. "If things don't work out, I'll pursue something else," Zavagnin said. "The mentality is that I won't retire from soccer when I retire from playing." The better less said about Zavagnin's Lehigh experience. "It was probably the most difficult thing I've ever done in my career," he said. Because he wasn't about to relocate from northern New Jersey, he and Jeff Zaun commuted three hours to practice and games virtually every day. The Steam's first 12 games were on the road because the team didn't have a stadium. The Steam wound up calling five stadiums home before folding after its first and only season. "I was always getting directions to a new home stadium," Zavagnin said. "Some of the fields we played on were atrocious. Some were barely 55 yards wide." Zavagnin admitted he sometimes asked himself what he was doing there. "There was no question that I thought to myself that I can be doing better things with my life," he said. But it was worth it. "I gained more confidence," he said. "I felt more comfortable taking a leadership role. I was doing the things I did in college." No one was happier for Zavagnin than former Steam coach Daryl Shore , who is now the Fire goalkeeping coach. "Knowing what his goal was I am very happy for him," Shore said. "I want him to do the best that Kerry can do. If that means that they have to beat us, then I will be happy for him. I won't be happy for ourselves. I want what's best for Kerry. He's got a bright future." Zavagnin eventually found an MLS team after contacting several teams. Wizards coach Bob Gansler , who was rebuilding an awful 8-24 side, already knew about the 26-year-old Zavagnin as a 16-year-old player from Michigan's Olympic Development Program He flew in to Kansas City on his own money for a tryout this past winter and stayed with a future teammate for a week. He impressed Gansler enough that he was selected in the third round of the SuperDraft. "I just wanted to make the team," he said. "I wanted to be a regular. I also wanted to be on a winning team. . . . If you told me at the beginning that we would be in the MLS Cup and I would have played 31 games, that even exceeded my expectations." And Gansler's as well. "He and Brandon Prideaux have the overachievers if you like," Gansler said. "They have come on beyond what we thought they might. Kerry is a very smart player. He anticipates so well both sides of the ball. He is keenly aware of what he has to do to make the people around him better. He does that on a consistent basis." Ironically, Zavagnin's specialty is his possession passes, which can range from back to square to forward passes. "He had become very much more two-footed. He's very good on making those in-between passes, those possession passes, the ones that don't any get the oohs and ahs. But without them, Preki won't get his opportunity for oohs and ahs. . . . I must say I am pleasantly surprised that he has helped us to a greater extent than I thought." After that 1999 season from hell, few MLS observers or media was giving K.C. much of a chance at winning anything. "It was remarkable they had such a positive attitude when I came in here," Zavagnin said. "After 12 games without a loss, we developed an attitude that we weren't going to go down losing." For example, in their last regular-season match, the Wizards rallied from a two-goal deficit to tie the Tampa Bay Mutiny, 2-2, to clinch the overall point total. "That shows our resiliency," Zavagnin said. Zavagnin showed his as well. He wound up starting and playing in 31 games, missing only one due to yellow card accumulation. "I made a mistake in the first game. I took him out at halftime," said Gansler, who pulled Zavagnin with a 3-1 lead that turned into a struggle of a 4-3 victory. "I never made that mistake again." Zavagnin will never forget the first time he played the Fire -- back in 1998 when the team was an expansion team. The MetroStars stumbled to an 0-3 start and needed a win in the worst way. The MetroStars played in the worst way. They seemingly hammered Fire midfield leader Peter Nowak every time he touched the ball in midfield. Zavagnin was awarded one of six yellow cards the MetroStars were awarded, mostly for fouling the former Polish international. He also was whistled for six of the team's 29 fouls. "We respected his ability," Zavagnin said. "We didn't play good soccer in that game. It was frowned upon us." Ironically, Zavagnin set up the lone goal of the match on his only free kick of the season, swinging in the ball from the left side that Alexi Lalas headed home past goalkeeper Jorge Campos . Zavagnin knows the Wizards won't have to resort to those sleazy tactics to win upend the Fire on Sunday. "We need to control their key players - ( Hristo) Stoitchkov and ( Ante) Razov ," he said. "We need to limit their ability to get behind our defense. We need to be composed and we need to pressure them. And finally, we need to have the ball. We can't play defense the entire game." It could come down to how the defensive midfielder for each team fares. This year it could be Zavagnin's turn to step up. Fire midfielder Chris Armas took center stage in 1996 and 1999, marking D.C. United's midfield maestro Marco Etcheverry out of the match. United's Richie Williams performed the dirty task last year on Los Angeles's Mauricio Cienfuegos . Zavagnin doesn't know if he will be covering Stoitchkov or Nowak, who has been nursing a strained hamstring. "Probably both," he said. "Stoitchkov likes to drift into the midfield and spring people free. They're such a good team because they're so mobile. You always have to keep an eye on him. If I look the other way, he's going to be gone with the ball." A healthy Nowak will be a task as well. "You cut out the source, you cut the whole problem," Zavagnin said. "As you read the game, you notice when the ball is flowing through them. You have to force them to make a square pass or play the ball back." Square passes and back passes. Now, that's something Zavagnin knows all too well. Just look where he is today. Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News. His third book, Soccer For Dummies, was published earlier this year.
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