New England Soccer Today

A Reason to Give Thanks

Photo credit: Kari Heistad/capturedimages.biz

Photo credit: Kari Heistad/capturedimages.biz

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – It’s not easy to envision nowadays, but two decades ago, the idea of a top-flight league succeeding in the U.S. was about as nutty as the pecan pie at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

For perspective, let’s flash back to Turkey Day 1995. At the time, there was no top-flight team for local fans to support. No tailgating. No tifo-making. No banter about designated players. Or any players, for that matter. Nothing, except the promise that the nascent Major League Soccer told anyone who cared to listen that they’d deliver someday.

With the league putting the final pieces together during waning weeks of 1995, a nine-year-old kid from Manchester, N.H. named Charlie Davies was ready to embrace the notion of getting to watch top-flight soccer 80 miles down the road at Foxboro Stadium.

“I think it was my fourth year of playing soccer,” Davies recently told NESoccerToday.com. “People started talking about how we were going to have a professional league and home team, so I’d be able to get to go to a couple of games here and there, and it was just exciting, for me.

“Everything was so new. I was a wide-eyed young child looking to see the best, and hoping to be a professional one day, that’s something I’d always dreamed of.”

Davies had reason to be excited. Between 1985 and 1995, a handful of leagues attempted to fill the void left in the wake of the original North American Soccer League. But none could rival the standard set by the high-flying league, which boasted players like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto and even George Best.

It was a dark time for American soccer after the NASL folded. In addition to the absence of a true national league, the U.S. Men’s National Team had spent the last three decades trying to return to the World Cup, and often fell well short time after time.

But seven years after U.S. Soccer promised FIFA that a top-flight league would be launched in the wake of the 1994 World Cup – which the worldwide governing body surprisingly awarded to the soccer-barren nation – the sport was finally starting to turn a corner.

Although skepticism grew when the league delayed its original Apr. 1995 start date, Davies and other American soccer fans remained resolute. So when the Revolution finally saw the field in spring 1996, Davies absorbed as much of it as he could.

“Watching those five-second shootouts, and (watching) Paul Keegan, Darren Sawatzky, Joe-Max Moore, these guys – and then the Zenga era – I’ve been a fan from the very beginning,” Davies said. “Wellington, Imad Baba – I could go on and on. We’ve come a long way.”

Interestingly, it was Baba who created one of the first Revolution-related memories for another local youth player who’d go on to star for the local XI.

A friend’s birthday party at a Revolution match was Chris Tierney’s introduction to the top-flight outfit, and among the highlights of that event was a moment that the Wellesley, Mass. native still vividly recalls.

“It was at a game in which the Revs scored in the first 30 seconds,” Tierney recently told NESoccerToday.com, “and it was Imad Baba who scored it. That was way back in the day.”

While plenty has changed since the early days of a league that had no shortage of ambition during its formative years, Tierney says that he’s seen plenty of growth since he entered MLS in 2008.

“When I first came in as a rookie to now, the difference is pretty huge,” Tierney said. “I think it’s great what the ownership has done with this team, and I think we’re going to continue to press ahead, and move things forward.”

Move things forward. Press ahead. In 1995, many predicted that those words would never be spoken of MLS 20 years down the road. But lo and behold, the league and one of its original clubs are thriving. In fact, the Revolution finished its 20th season with its second-highest average home attendance in club history (19,626).

“It’s an exciting time,” Davies said. “For me personally, just to see how far the club has gone and how the support has grown, it speaks volumes about how the club is run, so hopefully, we just continue to keep getting better, and bring an MLS Cup here and get that stadium.

“Everything seems to be progressing well, and I’m looking forward to the future here.”

The future. It’s amazing how much things have changed in 20 years. And for that, everyone from the likes of Davies and Tierney to the next Revolution star in the making has reason to be thankful that top-flight soccer is alive and well here in New England.

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