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Tampa Bay Mutiny 10 Questions: Dominic Kinnear | Coachspeak: Tim Hankinson
Posted: Saturday March 11, 2000 09:22 PM
Most pro sports teams shape their rosters through conventional methods: drafts, free agency, trades and the waiver wire. Then there's the Tampa Bay Mutiny. From the team's 1999 opening day roster, 48 percent of the Mutiny had changed by the end of the season -- and few of the moves were conventional. You want unconventional? Starting defender R.T. Moore retired on July 8 at the age of 23 to attend dental school. Playmaker Carlos Valderrama, an original member of the Mutiny, was unilaterally reassigned from the Miami Fusion to Tampa Bay on April 23 by then-commissioner Doug Logan (who himself would be unilaterally canned by the league's investors a few months later).
Valderrama had been benched by Fusion coach Ivo Wortmann partly because of his refusal to play defense, and Logan couldn't afford to have the league's most visible player collecting splinters on his behind. Of course, after watching Wortmann's Fusion get steamrolled in the MLS spring training tournament in February, it appears more reassignments might be in order -- the entire club wasn't playing defense. International strikers Jefferson Gottardi and Alejandro Sequeira were supposed to fill the scoring void left by perhaps the most lopsided trade in MLS history: all-time MLS scoring leader Roy Lassiter to D.C. for Roy Wegerle in 1998. Wegerle played 12 games in Tampa, scored one goal and retired at the end of the season. Gottardi and Sequeira didn't stick in Tampa much longer than Wegerle. Gottardi lasted until Aug. 11, when he was waived to make room for defender Joe Addo. Sequeira was waived in April to clear a spot for Valderrama, reactivated on June 3 when defender Jan Eriksson went out for the year with a knee injury, and traded along with a second-round draft pick to San Jose for Raul Diaz Arce on July 19. In other trades during the 1999 season, the club added midfielder Josh Keller, midfielder Manny Lagos and defender Ritchie Kotschau from Chicago; defender Steve Trittschuh from Colorado; and midfielder Daniel Hernandez from Los Angeles. In the offseason, the Mutiny shipped midfielder Mauricio Ramos to New England for an international allocation (expected to be a strike partner for Diaz Arce), and forward Musa Shannon left MLS for Maritimo of the Portuguese first division.
The massive turnover in Tampa hasn't been limited to the players. In January, general manager Nick Sakiewicz left the Mutiny for the MetroStars, and assistant coach Frank Yallop moved to the D.C. United staff. Bill Manning from the A-League's Minnesota Thunder replaced Sakiewicz, and former Belgium goalkeeper Luc Sanders will fill Yallop's spot. Manning brought Thunder defender Kalin Bankov and forward Amos Magee with him to Tampa. Bankov, 34, a former Bulgarian national team member, signed with the Mutiny as a discovery player on March 1. Now that most of the dust from 1999 has settled, what is coach Tim Hankinson left to work with? Remarkably, a club that could contend for the title in a tough Central Division that includes fellow 1999 playoff qualifiers Columbus, Chicago and Dallas. Up front, Tampa Bay evaluated several players to pair with Diaz Arce. It settled on Senegalese international striker Mamadou Diallo, who scored four goals in the second half of his first match with the club -- an 8-1 rout of the University of Tampa. The Mutiny had taken a serious look at Manuel "Tico Tico" Bacuane of Mozambique, who scored three goals as the team won the Copa Puerto Rico tournament. "Diallo is big, athletic and dynamic," Hankinson said of the forward, who could miss several games while waiting for his immigration paperwork to be completed. The club's midfield appears settled, with Valderrama running the show in the middle and receiving defensive support from Keller. Steve Ralston, the only member of the original 1996 Mutiny still on the team's roster, mans the right flank. Ralston, 25, led MLS in assists last season with 18. Other midfielders in the hunt for starting roles include Eric Quill, Lagos and Hernandez. On defense, the expected rotation includes Bankov, Chad McCarty, Chris Houser, Kotschau, Addo and team captain Dominic Kinnear. Trittschuh is also available to fill in for McCarty if the promising youngster is selected to play for the U.S. Olympic team this summer in Sydney. Goalkeeper Scott Garlick, obtained from D.C. before last season in exchange for two draft picks, led MLS in saves with 152 and posted five shutouts for the Mutiny in 1999. Garlick holds a career 1.43 goals-against average and a 42-23 record.
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