08/31/05
Harkes plays, dresses the part in HOF Game
SOCCER HALL OF FAME NOTEBOOK
By Jeff Vella
Staff Writer
ONEONTA — John Harkes showed he still had some s
| | | Star photo by Julie Lewis
Hall of Fame inductee John Harkes played about 60 minutes for D.C. United in the Hall of Fame Game on Monday in Oneonta. |
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peed left at age 38.
And that was before he played in Monday’s Hall of Fame Game at the Wright National Soccer Campus.
Harkes didn’t arrive to the field until five minutes before the 1 p.m. kickoff. He was still wearing his dress clothes from the Induction Ceremony, which lasted longer than expected.
Harkes, though, ran behind D.C. United’s team bus on the sideline and changed into his uniform in time to start the game. He played for 60 minutes and had two shots.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]"The thing that wasn’t such a good idea was running out here changing outside the bus, then playing without warming up," said Harkes, whose team lost to the Colorado Rapids, 6-2. "At 38, man, that’s killing me right now."
Inductees Marcelo Balboa, 38, and Fernando Clavijo, 48, suited up for Colorado and combined on a goal, but Harkes looked the best of the three. He played central midfielder and didn’t seem out of place against guys 10 and 15 years younger. Harkes retired from Major League Soccer in 2002.
"You could see he still had some goods left," said United defender John Wilson, who’s 27. "I hope I can still do that when I’m his age."
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DON’T LOOK AT ME: Rapids coach Clavijo started at right defense and appeared partly to blame for both of D.C. United’s first-half goals. Shawn Kuykendall and Matt Nickell scored from Clavijo’s side of the field.
Were they his fault?
"Absolutely not," he said with a laugh. "I can always find someone else to blame. I’m there, but I cannot cover everybody.
"I knew it was going to be hard," he continued. "The physical part of the game was what made the difference. Brains and experience are always there, but you need your legs to keep the whole package together. If the legs are not there, you can’t run."
Clavijo retired after the 1994 World Cup, when he was the oldest player on the team at age 37. He said he’s glad he didn’t try to play any longer.
"I made it clear after the World Cup that that was it for me, and 11 years later, I made the right decision at the right time," he said.
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RAPID CAREER IN NEW YORK: MLS fans probably remember Balboa in a Rapids jersey, but he finished his career unceremoniously with the MetroStars of New York.
After spending six years in Colorado, he was traded to the MetroStars in 2002, but he blew out his knee five minutes into his first game and was forced to retire.
"Disappointment," he said. "That’s all I can say about the whole New York thing. That whole year was a disappointment. Not the fact that I went to New York, but that I couldn’t play for the fans there and show them that I really wanted to play. They traded for me to help the team and I wasn’t able to do that because of injury. That was very frustrating."
However, Balboa seemed happy to wear the Rapids colors one more time Monday and sounded comfortable with the future of the sport in the U.S.
"You always want to end your career in the jersey you started," said Balboa, who works as a soccer ambassador for the Rapids in addition to his color-commenting job for ESPN and ABC. "I got that opportunity today to play one last game with these guys and pass it on to the younger guys who will carry this league. I think we’ve done as much as we could do on the field, so now it’s time for a lot of these younger kids — the Eddie Gavins, Landon Donovans, DeMarcus Beasleys — to take the reins. We can work on the outside — become the coaches, the GMs, the guys who run U.S. Soccer."
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QUICK KICKS: Erin Harkes, John’s cousin, sang the national anthem before the Hall of Fame Game. ... Balboa, Harkes and Tab Ramos were honored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Soccer Kicks for Cancer before the game. The three were presented with the organization’s national chairman’s honor.
