A WINNER OF A BEGINNER
Wynalda’s second-half goal led San Jose Clash to victory in first game in MLS history
SAN JOSE >> One of the most significant moments in American soccer history began with some of the players throwing up after lunch in downtown San Jose.
It had nothing to do with the food served at Il Fornaio, which in 1996 was one of the South Bay’s fine dining establishments.
Members of the San Jose Clash had frayed nerves ahead of Major League Soccer’s inaugural game played April 6, 1996, at Spartan Stadium. Those involved in the game against D.C. United understood the ramifications.
“Guys had never played in a professional game and were just starting to feel the magnitude,” recalled Eric Wynalda, the U.S. national team star who returned from Germany to help start the new league.
As MLS embarks on its 25th season this year drawing big crowds to soccer-specific stadia, it’s difficult to imagine it all began in San Jose. Of the league’s
10 original teams, San Jose did not seem like the ideal launching pad at a time it was transforming from its agricultural roots into the center of technology. New York and Los Angeles were the nation’s major media markets.
Former U.S. Soccer Federation president Alan Rothenberg said executives picked San Jose because the Bay Area had been supportive of soccer with the 1984 Olympics and 1994 World Cup holding games at Stanford. He said they wanted to start the domestic league with good spring weather, leaving San Jose and Los Angeles as the best choices.
San Jose had the advantage over the Los Angeles Galaxy, which played its first seven seasons at the Rose Bowl. In 1996, the Pasadena stadium had a capacity of 104,595 people.
“We were confident we’d get a sellout in San Jose,” Rothenberg said. “We’d rather have people shut out than a bunch of empty seats.”
The next week, the Galaxy defeated the New York/ Jersey MetroStars 2-1 in front of 69,225 spectators at the Rose Bowl.
But no one involved has looked back with regret.
“At that time, it wasn’t like, ‘They were going to give that to San Jose?’ No, of course, they were,” said Clash defender John Doyle who became the Earthquakes general manager for nine years. “The Bay Area really embraced soccer.”
The game kicked off on a sunny 85-degree afternoon with 31,683 ecstatic fans in an austere college football stadium whose field was much too narrow by soccer standards.
U.S. soccer can thank the Bay Area fanbase or Peter Bridgwater, the Clash’s president and general manager who orchestrated the affair.
But this moment belonged to Wynalda, the outspoken U.S. star of the 1994 World Cup.
“Eric saved our lives by that beautiful curling shot,” said Rothenberg, the man who brought the 1994 World Cup to the United States.
Oh, yes, the shot that ended a dissatisfying scoreless game with 2 minutes 58 seconds left in regulation. Before Wyndala’s boot gave the Clash a 1-0 victory, the game appeared headed to a dreaded penalty kick shootout.
Nothing worried the American soccer community more than a scoreless draw. A start-up that began with a soccer bag full of doubts and uncertainties could little afford to give the skeptical public ammunition to ridicule the game.
In typical American fashion, MLS did not use the world’s soccer playbook back then. Officials created a 90-minute game without extra time. The clock counted down like other North American pro sports but unlike soccer everywhere else. Ties were settled by penalty kick shootouts because American culture demanded a clear result.
Wynalda, who manages the Las Vegas Light of the United Soccer League, put on a cape and played the superhero. It happened almost nonchalantly.
After gathering in a sweeping pass from teammate Ben Iroha outside of the penalty area, Wynalda exhibited the kind of bravura that made him one of America’s best players.
He dribbled to his left to seemingly float into the penalty box. Then Wynalda slipped the ball through the legs of D.C. defender Jeff Agoos. As the stunned Agoos turned back, Wynalda regained control of the ball. He momentarily looked up and gracefully sent the ball into the upper corner of the far post well past the outstretched left hand of goalkeeper Jeff Causey.
Goalkeeper Joe Cannon, then a Santa Clara University student, attended the first-ever MLS game that was played April 6, 1996 at Spartan Stadium. Three years later, he became a member of the Earthquakes.
“It’s a memory that I have a fondness for in a certain way,” said Agoos, a five-time MLS Cup champion and now the MLS’ Vice President of Competition. “The worst outcome was a 0-0 game.”
Agoos, by the way, won two of those titles in San Jose playing for the Earthquakes, the name of the team since 1999.
Wynalda has said he chose to play in San Jose over his hometown team in Los Angeles because he wanted to be part of the first-ever game.
“In the beginning, there was such an unknown component to it,” Wynalda said. “Nobody knew who we were until after the game was over. Once that game happened and it got the attention that it did, it really kick-started a lot of things.”
Wynalda recalled how difficult it was to keep teammates focused on the game in the big build-up. Kevin Payne, then the president and chief executive of D.C. United, also remembered the chaos.
“None of us knew what we were doing,” he said. “We were making things up on the fly.”
That seemed evident when the league had team logos stenciled on the field at Spartan Stadium. Payne said he asked if FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, had approved the markings because it generally did not permit them.
No one had considered it. Payne said workers spent the night before the game removing the logos.
Wynalda recalled an ESPN producer engaged in a heated discussion with Bridgwater while the team practiced. The men were arguing about the black-colored light poles at Spartan Stadium that would have been a distraction for the national broadcast. They eventually were painted green before kickoff.
“We were still building the airplane while it was taxiing down the runaway,” Payne said.
In the end, none of it mattered. The way the home team won the first game left strong impressions on the fans, including Joe Cannon and Chris Wondolowski, who would develop into MLS all-stars.
“It wasn’t just a celebration of the San Jose Clash, it was a celebration of the sport - it was beautiful,” said Cannon, a Santa Clara University goalkeeper at the time.
Cannon, 45, joined San Jose three years later and enjoyed a brilliant 15-year professional career. Wondolowski, MLS’ all-time leading scorer who plans to make this season - when it resumes - his final year -was 13 at the time.
“We were making an impression on the next generation and we didn’t even know it,” Wynalda said.
Phil Schoen, the ESPN game announcer that day, said much the scene was a blur because of the commotion.
“It is all one big Jackson Pollock of a painting rather than a portrait of anything in particular,” Schoen said.
Since that first game MLS has grown into one of the world’s better domestic leagues that will open the 2022 season with 30 teams, including three in Canada. MLS has made tremendous strides in the past five years while still a step below the Bundesliga in Germany, the English Premier League, La Liga in Spain and Serie A in Italy, among others.
America still aspires to become a men’s soccer power but failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. It hopes to advance to the 2021 Tokyo Games to make its first Olympic appearance in 13 years.
But in 1996, the possibilities seemed endless with fans and leaders drunk with optimism.
After the satisfying finish, Rothenberg said that he turned to Hank Steinbrecher and Sunil Gulati, two of America’s top soccer leaders, and said, “This is great. Now tell me how we’re going to win the World Cup.”