Imagine the Mudville Nine taking on the New York Yankees in an all-or-nothing showdown at a suburban high school ballfield.
The soccer equivalent of that “Field of Dreams” scenario will play itself out Wednesday evening in the cozy football stadium of the old Forest View High School, 2121 S. Goebbert Rd., Arlington Heights.
The Chicago Sockers, the local fourth-division team of young hopefuls, will host this season’s top Major League Soccer team, the Kansas City Wizards.
World Cup veterans who have played before 100,000 chanting fans in the cathedrals of European soccer will put their national title hopes on the line for perhaps 4,000 spectators, against upstart opponents who refuse payment in order to retain their college-soccer eligibility.
The rare matchup is part of the U.S. Open Cup, a 76-year-old single-elimination tournament that gives a shot to all comers–from MLS champions D.C. United to squads representing the corner bar.
The Sockers play in a national minor-league circuit called the Premier Development League. They have won five straight cup matches to advance to the 6 p.m. Wednesday game against the MLS-leading Wizards.
The Chicago Fire, the 1998 MLS and U.S. Open Cup champions, will play the Division III Texas Rattlers in the second game at Forest View. Tickets for the double-header are $15.
Upsets are not uncommon in such cup tournaments, which are contested in virtually every soccer-playing country.
The second-division Rochester Raging Rhinos are the current holders of the U.S. Open Cup after embarrassing several highly favored opponents from MLS. And in the French Cup this year, an amateur team of stock boys, dock workers and gardeners made it to the championship game, captivating the country until a last-minute penalty ended their Cinderella streak.
Chicago Sockers owner Peter Richardson, who also owns the Soccer Enterprises indoor sports complex in Palatine, harbors no illusions about his team’s chances against the Wizards.
“You’ve heard of David and Goliath? Well, this is Son of David against Goliath,” Richardson said.
Regardless of the outcome on the field, Richardson’s primary goal in hosting the double-header is to spark interest in pro soccer among the throngs of suburban players. He lobbied the tournament’s organizer, the Chicago-based U.S. Soccer Federation, to have cup games played at the Sockers’ home turf at Forest View rather than at Soldier Field.
“I tried to explain to them how important it was for the growth of the game, to bring the mountain to Mohammed,” he said. “Soccer in this country is the greatest participant sport but the worst spectator sport.”
The low spectator turnout is because most parents today are at the tail end of the generation that did not play soccer while growing up, said Mary Jayne Bender, executive director of the Illinois Youth Soccer Association, based in Arlington Heights. She estimated that about 70,000 children in Illinois play soccer.
In the future, though, “father will be out there and will know how to kick the ball,” Bender said. “Participation will grow; it’s going to be a slow evolution.”
Under British-born Richardson, the Sockers club is one of the top incubators for young players in the country. Youth teams range from the under-8 level to an under-19 team. The squad that will face the Wizards includes unpaid college players mixed with some young pros, such as former Deerfield prep star Joe Carver.
“We’re developing local talent to hopefully play at the next level,” said Sockers coach Bret Hall. “This game will be a measuring stick.”
Six years ago, a 15-year-old Joe Jerele was in the stands at the Pontiac Silverdome watching Kansas City goalkeeper Tony Meola represent the U.S. at the World Cup. On Wednesday, he and his Sockers teammates will try to shoot past Meola. “This is a good opportunity to test myself against players I have watched my entire life,” said Jerele, a senior midfielder at Wheaton College.
Hall was a defender–scrappy on the field, humble off it–with the old Chicago Sting, and he has molded the Sockers in his image. During practice on a foggy, chilly Monday at Forest View, Hall tried to rally the team from a 2-0 loss the day before to the Des Moines Menace.
He urged his team to stay calm Wednesday and focus on playing well without worrying about the result.
“My guys are going to have to come up with a big game, to say the least,” Hall said, laughing.
Wizards coach Bob Gansler–who in 1990 led the U.S. national team to its first World Cup appearance in 40 years–said though his team has lost only one league game this season, it would not underestimate the Sockers. “That’s the part of the romance of the game around the world,” Gansler said. “I’m a soccer lifer. Wherever there’s a game, I’m comfortable. It will be a good event for the young soccer aficionados of the suburbs.”
