Wizards Win Their First MLS Title
W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 15 -- The Kansas City Wizards scored a clumsy earlygoal, survived some strange bounces and rode the play of goalkeeperTony Meola to their first MLS championship.
The Wizards won the MLS Cup today, beating the Chicago Fire1-0 with Miklos Molnar’s goal in the 11th minute and 10 saves fromMeola, who added the game’s MVP award to the season MVP trophy hewon Friday.
Meola made three tough saves in the final 10 minutes, divingright to stop John Wolff in the 82nd, cradling a close-rangeattempt from Dema Kovalenko in the 83rd and getting his chest inthe way of a 13-yard bullet from Hristo Stoitchkov in the 86th.
It was the record fifth shutout of the playoffs for Meola, theU.S. national team goalkeeper at the 1990 and 1994 World Cups whoonce tried out with the New York Jets. Meola also set leaguerecords with 16 shutouts during the regular season and a scorelessstreak of 681 minutes over eight games.
Best Offense vs. Best Defense
After the final whistle, Meola fell on his back, hands to hisface, while the rest of the team jumped on him.
“We came out determined to win,” Meola said. “We knew we had a team to win.”
The game pitted the league’s best offense against its bestdefense. Predictably, Chicago outshot Kansas City 22-6, but theFire couldn’t get a shot past Meola.
This was the first MLS Cup without three-time champion D.C.United, making RFK Stadium a neutral site. Still, the game drew39,159 fans.
Like many soccer finals, the game was mostly tight and tense andhardly a showcase of great plays. Molnar’s goal wasn’t exactly aclassic, while teammate Chris Klein botched a breakaway that couldhave made it 2-0 in the first half.
Meanwhile, one of Chicago’s best scoring chances resulted from amisfired shot, and another came on a funky bounce after a blockedfree kick.
Unusual Near Misses
Stoitchkov, the flamboyant Bulgarian star, called for the ballearly and often and argued with the referee when calls didn’t gohis way. Often heavily marked, he sometimes found space in thewings and rattled the left post with a left-footer from 12 yards inthe 25th minute.