When the first outdoor first-division pro league soccer match in over a decade kicked off in front of 31,683 fans — the largest crowd in San Jose, Calif., sports history — there was a lot of excitement, but also some trepidation. The date was April 6, 1996, and the first Major League Soccer (MLS) match between the San Jose Clash (now Earthquakes) and D.C. United was about to take center stage.
It was the first major league soccer game in the U.S. since the North American Soccer League folded in 1984 and everyone was hoping the new league would fare better.
Seems it would be safe to say nobody wanted a scoreless draw in the first MLS game as critics and naysayers complained loudly about the lack of scoring in what they called a “boring” sport.
As the match progressed, it was a bad scene in California as neither squad could get anywhere close to drawing first blood. The dimensions of Spartan Stadium didn’t help matters either — too tight for strikers allowing them no space, as it looked like things would be kept on an uneven keel for the whole match.
Despite the unpleasant rhythm, the Clash’s Paul Bravo kept up and guarded D.C. star Marco Etcheverry to the point where he could have told you what kind of chewing gum he used.
“You could slide-tackle somebody on the sideline and actually end up going into the wall,” Bravo commented. “This was not a great game.”
For the men in charge of the game, they were also very aware of what was at stake and how difficult the playing field was for scoring. At referee was Esse Baharmast, perhaps the most decorated referee in the U.S., who went on to work the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France.
“This was a very narrow field,” Baharmast said. “I placed myself outside of the field to give the players more room in the middle. I had to adjust.”
Working alongside Baharmast were Levon Baladjanian and Reginald Rutty (who died from cancer in 2010).
While Spartan Stadium was the smallest venue in the league, it was picked by league administrators because they felt the venue would provide the most excitement on opening day.
Besides uneven play, there was poor passing and other mishaps that might have been partly caused by the setting.
“I checked the field beforehand, making sure everything was correct,” Baharmast said. “They were painting this giant logo in the center circle, and I asked, ‘What is this?’”
One of the stadium executives explained to him they were painting a large logo on midfield to celebrate the occasion.
“We can’t have this here,” Baharmast told the administrators. “We can only have our pin markings. It would have to be a special occasion to have it (the logo).”
Baharmast naturally won the argument, and the artists had to paint over the center circle with green paint where they had been working.
The change was made and the players, officials, attendees and a national television audience were excited to see soccer on U.S. soil again.
“Spartan Stadium was like my second home, only two-and-a-half hours away,” Baladjanian said. “I refereed quite a few international matches there, even some games in the old Western Soccer League. I was well known to most of the San Jose players because they all pretty much came up through the ranks of the amateur leagues.”
Baladjanian said he thought overall the players would be on their best behavior because of the nature of the event.
“Of course, during the heat of battle, stuff happens, but we’re kind of used to that,” he said.
“It was a very big game. It’s not so much the game, it’s the hoopla around it that gives you more cause to worry because you have a lot of people in your ear telling you this, telling you that. The game is the sanctuary. Get me on the grass in the field.”
Baharmast was also excited for the opportunity to showcase soccer in the U.S. at the highest level.
“I was looking forward to being a part of the history,” he said. “We finally had a professional league coming in. It was an honor and gave me a sense of jubilation and enjoyment to make a little bit of history.”
And while everyone at Spartan Stadium was filled with anticipation for the match, the players, coaches, administrators, and even the referees, were worried about the potential of a 0-0 tie. Baharmast said he got “sick and tired” of newspeople complaining about soccer being a low-scoring game.
“A 0-0 game is OK if there’s good back and forth with lots of nuances, keeping people on the edge of their seats,” he said. “I was hoping this game didn’t finish in a 0-0 tie. Somebody, anybody, score a goal, please!”
There were plenty of scoring opportunities, but the defenders were making some great saves. And as the game progressed, the pressure was on the teams to try to get a goal and win the game. That pressure could have boiled over if the referees didn’t step in.
“We had a mix of players from different parts of the world,” Baharmast said. “You must make sure you keep control of the game — these were all physical players.”
Baladjanian added that the pressure wasn’t on just the players, but on the referees as well.
“We were carrying the flag of U.S. soccer referees and if you mess up, that doesn’t look good, especially since you’re on television,” he said.
About 75 minutes into regulation, Baladjanian said he was running down the sideline, thinking, “Just give us one goal, just one that could be added.” He didn’t know if they heard him or not or if he was talking to himself, but he told the players, “You just better score something here, this is not going to be good at 0-0!”
Clash striker Eric Wynalda finally put everyone’s fears to bed with just two minutes left in regulation by avoiding two defenders and hammering a 35-foot kick through the corner of the net past goalkeeper Jeff Causey, scoring the first goal in MLS history.
Wynalda was the U.S. National Team’s leading scorer. He said his goal was “the most important goal I’ve ever scored.”
“My elation was probably only second to him (Wynalda),” Baharmast said. “It was a beautiful goal,” which turned out to be the Goal of the Year in MLS.
The new league was scheduled to launch in 1995 after receiving positive buzz from the 1994 World Cup. But the league’s premiere was delayed a year, having lost some of the good publicity.
“If we missed another year, that buzz goes away and we go back to having soccer in the normal frame that we’ve always had,” Baladjanian said. “It was a nail-biting time for getting that game and the whole league starting out on the right foot.”
The new 10-team soccer league in the U.S. was on its way, but if not for that late goal by Wynalda, it could have turned out much differently.
Randy Louis Cox is a writer from Lilburn, Ga. He is the author of 715 at 50: The Night Henry Aaron Changed Baseball and the World Forever.
