Two steps backward

	Storylines Bandwagon The Patriots They Said It

By Jeff Green, CNNSI.com

Early this week, with Major League Soccer teams set to begin training for the 2002 season within days, contraction seemed increasingly unlikely. Then Tuesday, the league announced the folding of both Florida teams, with the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion ceasing operations.

On Friday, the league will give teams that are due allocations the first chance to choose Fusion or Mutiny players. Immediately following that allocation round, MLS will hold a dispersal draft for the remaining players.

Meanwhile, Fusion and Mutiny fans -- all too few of them, apparently -- mourn the passing of their professional soccer teams. Elsewhere, fans of the San Jose Earthquakes and Dallas Burn would be forgiven for sweating the fates of their teams.

According to the MLS press release announcing contraction, "the MLS Board of Governors determined that all teams must have an investor-operator to manage and fund local operations."

Neither Dallas nor San Jose has one, but MLS commissioner Don Garber said in Tuesday's media conference call that he was confident both would soon.

"We are in continued negotiations with several entities to invest in MLS," Garber said. "We hope to be able to announce prior to the start of the season the assumption of the operating rights to the Dallas Burn and the San Jose Earthquakes."

However, given the league's past record in acquiring new investors, this is hardly a sure bet.

MLS made significant changes to its operating relationship with its teams, providing enhanced revenue opportunities at the local level. These changes, Garber said, "will stimulate interest in the league from a number of entrepreneurial sports investors."

Garber said he expected progress on a stadium proposal in suburban Dallas to spur investment interest in the Burn.

For the Mutiny, contraction was blamed on the inability to attract a local investor-operator for the team. But Garber said the league remains in contact with potential investors who could operate a team in Tampa in the future.

"We need a soccer-specific stadium in Tampa if we are going to go back there," Garber said.

In South Florida, the MLS Board of Governors and investor-operator Ken Horowitz "determined that the local market is not capable at this time of providing the support necessary to effectively sustain a Major League Soccer team," the league said in its press release.

That did not sit well with some in the local soccer community, where much of the blame was placed on Horowitz's mismanagement and shoestring budget.

"What was conspicuously absent from Tuesday's conference call was Horowitz taking any responsibility for his failures," columnist Jeff Rusnak wrote in the Sun-Sentinel. "Anyone who lays all the blame on the ticket-buyers isn't taking responsibilities for his own failures, and the Fusion's failure has more to do with Horowitz than South Florida soccer fans."

He was not alone in his sentiments.

"[Horowitz is] the one that needs to look in the mirror," local soccer promoter Eddie Rogers told the Miami Herald.

"They made every wrong decision that you could possibly make," another local soccer promoter, Tom Mulroy, told the paper.

"Other sports teams down here didn't even look at the Fusion as a threat," said Mulroy, who has successfully promoted an amateur tournament, February's Copa Latina, in Miami for the last 10 years. "They just looked at them as a bunch of bozos tripping over themselves."

Horowitz took issue with the criticism.

"There have been a lot of critics of me in recent weeks, and I think it's unfair," he told the Herald. "We tried everything we could to keep the team here. But nobody was stepping up for corporate sponsorships; nobody was calling for season tickets."

Horowitz, who made his fortune as a founder of Cellular One, said his investment group had sunk nearly $50 million into MLS and Lockhart Stadium since the Fusion began play in 1998.

Right start for Rongen The U.S. under-20 men's national team continued to ride a solid defense and the offense of Mike Magee, topping Canada 1-0 in Thomas Rongen's first international match as coach on Thursday. Magee's goal in the third minute was his fifth in his first four under-20 games. The match was also the first international for the newest group of under-20s and ends the team's first training camp, which saw the team post four consecutive shutout wins. The under-20s will regroup in late February for a foreign tournament.

Revs coaching staff set Former Scottish international Steve Nicol is joining the coaching staff of the New England Revolution as an assistant to Fernando Clavijo, who received a contract extension this week. Nicol leaves the Boston Bulldogs after guiding the A-League team to a USL Northeast Conference title and a spot in the national semifinals. Nicol played professional soccer for 14 years in Europe and was a member of Scotland's team in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

The Beat moves on The Atlanta Beat is expected to play its home games next year at Morris Brown Stadium, according to the college. During its inaugural season in 2001, the WUSA side played at Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium, which will be undergoing renovation during the 2002 season. The Beat have reportedly been negotiating with Morris Brown College for a lease agreement at the stadium, which was constructed as the field hockey venue for the 1996 Olympics and seats 15,000. The Beat will pay to replace the artificial turf field with grass, according to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

Fire eyes suburban stadium The Chicago Fire are close to a deal to play the next two seasons at North Central College in Naperville before returning to a renovated Soldier Field, according to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times. Pending final approval, the Fire would expand the Naperville stadium from 5,000 to 18,000 seats. Fire general manager Peter Wilt told the paper his team expects to return to Soldier Field in 2004 "under economic terms significantly better than our previous agreement." The Fire would reportedly have the flexibility to get out of the long-term lease at Soldier Field if it is able to construct their own medium-sized stadium.

Adu joins U.S. residency program A third U.S. under-17 men's national team has entered U.S. Soccer's full-time residency program in Bradenton, Fla. Twenty under-17s moved away from family and friends to enroll in private school and train daily under the guidance of U.S. under-17 head coach John Ellinger and longtime assistant Peter Mellor, who doubles as the goalkeeper coach. "The residency program has given some of our elite players the opportunity to train in a professional environment and to develop in a way they would not otherwise be able to develop," Ellinger said. All of the players were born in 1986, with one exception: forward Freddy Adu, whose birthday is listed as June 2, 1989.

MLS youth MLS said Thursday that five U.S. youth national team standouts have signed with the league and the Nike Project-40 developmental program. The quintet of attacking midfielders includes 16-year-old Craig Capano and 17-year-old Justin Mapp, in addition to three former U.S. under-20 selections in Virginia's Kyle Martino, Portland's Kelly Gray and Brad Davis of St. Louis. More Horowitz Horowitz remains an investor in MLS, with an option of returning as an operator in South Florida or an expansion market. He said he was interested in expansion "somewhere on the East Coast." That could include the Winston-Salem area, where the MLS changes "bode well both for the league and for the Carolina Soccer Foundation's efforts to bring a MLS team to the Piedmont Triad," that group said. Whether or not he is looking at the Triad, the organization should not turn to Horowitz as a primary investor. He failed once. He should not be given the opportunity to fail again. L.A. stadium progress According to a report in the Carson Daily Breeze, the Los Angeles Galaxy cleared a hurdle to the construction of their new stadium on Monday when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled against opponents claiming the project's environmental-impact analysis was insufficient. It was the second of two legal challenges overcome for construction of the $112 million soccer stadium and sports complex at California State University, Dominguez Hills. The facility is to be privately financed by Galaxy operator Phil Anschutz and will serve as U.S. Soccer's national training center.

More news from the U.S. national teams The U.S. men's team will play Honduras in a friendly at Seattle's Safeco Field on March 2 as part of the Americans' preparation for this year's World Cup. The U.S. team is expected to be missing many of its regular starters, who are based in Europe, for the game against Honduras. The Americans didn't recall any of its Europe-based regulars for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean, which starts Jan. 19. The U.S. women's national team players arrived in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday in preparation for their match vs. Mexico on Saturday, at 7 p.m. ET (live on ESPN2). They hit the practice field that night for training at Blackbaud Stadium, the 5,113 facility that is nearly sold out for the match.

"I've gone through a divorce and now I've met another beautiful girl." --Newly appointed D.C. United head coach Ray Hudson, whose hiring was announced just hours after his previous team, the Fusion, was folded. (Washington Post) "It's going to be awful, like a group of vultures picking at a carcass. I don't even want to think about it because I'll get choked up." --Hudson, asked about selecting his former Fusion players in the dispersal draft. (Washington Post)

CNNSI.com wire services contributed to this report.

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