08/25/06
MLS leaves Soccer Hall hanging
Red Bulls, Crew pull out of annual Hall of Fame Game
NATIONAL SOCCER HALL OF FAME
By Rob Centorani
Staff Writer
The National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta and Major League Soccer decided late Wednesday night that no exhibition would be better than a bad exhibition.
And it had nothing to do with the New York Red Bulls and Columbus Crew owning the worst records in the MLS this season.
The 2006 Hall of Fame Game — an exhibition between New York and Columbus that was to follow to Monday’s Induction Ceremony — was canceled, the Hall announced Thursday. The teams cited injuries and scheduling conflicts as reasons for pu[an error occurred while processing this directive]lling out four days before the match.
The inductions of Alexi Lalas, Carla Overbeck, veteran Al Trost and builder Philip Anschutz will continue as planned at 10 a.m. Monday at the Soccer Hall.
"The last thing any of us want to do is put a game on the field that we don’t want to watch," Soccer Hall director of communication Jack Huckel said. "There’s a great amount of disappointment in being put in this position."
The Red Bulls (5-7-10) placed midfielders Mark Lisi (right groin) and Shawn Kuykendall (torn left ACL) on their injury list Wednesday and recently completed a stretch of five games in 14 days.
Columbus (5-11-8) has six players on its injury list: goalie Jonny Walker (low back); defenders Jed Zayner (left ACL) and Frankie Hedjuk (right ACL); goalie Jon Bush (right ACL); and midfielders Danny Szetla (broken left foot) and Jacob Thomas (left calf strain).
"One of the things was if we couldn’t put a first-rate product on the field — with injuries being the primary reason — the game up there wouldn’t be of the highest quality and may have left the fans disappointed," said Will Kuhns, the MLS’s director of communications.
Recent history supports Kuhns’ point. Last season, more than 2,300 fans packed into At-A-Glance Field at the Wright National Soccer Campus in hopes of seeing D.C. United star Freddy Adu.
Not only did Adu not show up, but many of United’s starters and its head coach, Peter Nowak, did not make the trip to Oneonta. Colorado defeated Washington, 6-2, in last season’s game.
"Two things could happen," Kuhns said. "We could bring teams that were less than their best or put them in a position to jeopardize their players for this weekend’s (regular-season) games."
Oneonta State men’s soccer coach Iain Byrne said he planned to take his team to Monday’s exhibition.
"That happens with these types of exhibition games," Byrne said. "The coach of the team is more focused on his competitive match. It’s not uncommon for them to show a lack of enthusiasm for the match.
"It’s disappointing because it’s good opportunity to promote the sport," he continued.
Huckel said one of the reasons to have the exhibition that coincided with the Hall of Fame weekend was to promote the game in America.
"One of the grand challenges is to develop the fan culture and we’re all in that together — the National Soccer Hall of Fame, Major League Soccer and U.S. Soccer," Huckel said. "We’re still in the developmental stage. ... We haven’t developed the fan culture for soccer."
The future of the exhibition seems uncertain.
"The MLS was not something we were wedded to," Huckel said, "but they’ve been supportive of us."
Byrne, who had canceled Monday’s practice so his players could attend the game, said it would help if the Hall of Fame Game counted in the standings.
He also said it would have been a good opportunity for his players to see the game played a high level.
"It’s an eye-opener for them," he said. "You can sit quite close there and see the speed of the game and quality of the players."
