The Major League Soccer regular season is winding to a close, with league races heating up and each game becoming more important than the last.
So it is only fitting that:
– The Los Angeles Galaxy’s Eduardo Hurtado will miss Sunday’s game against San Jose, which is nipping at his team’s heels for the final playoff spot in the West. He will play for Ecuador in a World Cup qualifier Wednesday against Paraguay.
– D.C. United’s Marco Etcheverry and Jaime Moreno will play for native Bolivia on Sunday at Colombia in a South American qualifier. Colombia features Tampa Bay midfielder Carlos Valderrama and New York-New Jersey’s Anthony De Avila. All will miss their MLS teams’ weekend games.
– The MetroStars’ Shawn Bartlett and Columbus’ Doctor Khumalo will also be elsewhere, playing for their native South Africa on Sunday against Congo, hoping to earn a berth to France in 1998.
The fledgling American soccer league has caused enough head-scratching by potential fans just learning the names of MLS’ top guns. Now these same players are leaving to play for their countries in World Cup qualifiers at the most inopportune time.
Welcome to futbol, America. As the World Cup approaches, MLS players will get further and further away.
In all, 38 players on MLS preseason rosters this spring from 14 countries were involved with national-team pools–17 on the U.S. team.
On the Galaxy alone, Hurtado, Mauricio Cienfuegos (El Salvador), Martin Machon (Guatemala), Jorge Campos (Mexico) and Cobi Jones, Robin Fraser, Dan Calichman and Greg Vanney (U.S.) have had to juggle club and national-team commitments.
Because MLS is a summer league, its players and coaches have no choice but to play the game within the game. But, according to some, the league does.
“We’re a growing soccer nation,” U.S. National Team coach Steve Sampson said, “and we all need to get in the same room and plan these things so we don’t overwork the players.
“Tired players don’t entertain. Tired players don’t win games. Tired players don’t win games for the national team.”
And, if the elite players aren’t in the same hemisphere, they’re not winning games for their MLS teams.
Most leagues around the world take a break in the season schedule when the World Cup, its qualifiers and other international tournaments, like the European championships, are scheduled.
On Wednesday, Sept. 10, for example, England plays host to Moldova in a Group 2 qualifier. So the English Premier League, one of the top soccer leagues in the world, did not schedule games for that day (the league plays the majority of its games Wednesdays and Saturdays).
That way, the level of play does not fall with the stars away, the stars are not tired from trying to squeeze both matches in (if possible), and the fans are not disappointed when they come to the stadium to watch their favorite player.
It alleviates any strain on player, coach and fan. It also complies with FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, which says a national team can take its player five days before a scheduled international match.
Similar scenarios occur in Italy and Germany, but the structure and realities of MLS are different. The league learned in its first season that more fans attended games on weekends than weekdays, prompting this season’s schedule to be expanded two weeks so 90 percent of the games could be played on either Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
The current format forces teams at some point to play numerous games in a short time period, like the Galaxy’s past two weeks.
“We played three games in six days and overall we had a successful trip,” team captain Calichman said after Thursday’s 2-1 shootout victory in New England. “I think we could’ve had better luck, but I’m not disappointed.”
Nonetheless, the Galaxy will play its fourth game in nine days Sunday.
