Friday, July 23, 2010

Videos:1996 Major League Soccer Clips

I'm was feeling a bit nostalgic for the early days of MLS this morning so I thought I'd find some clips from the Inaugural Season in 1996. It turns out that most of the clips on youtube from that season involve the NY/NJ Metrostars so many of the clips involve NY/NJ.

For those that haven't followed MLS since the start, here are a few of the quirky rules that were in place for that season (from wikipedia)

...the use of a countdown clock, rather than a standard progressive clock, with time paused for dead ball situations at a referee's discretion. Halves ended when the clock reached 0:00, rather than at the whistle of the referee as was customary elsewhere.

Also implemented was the use of shootouts to resolve tie games. These best-of-five contests placed a player 35 yards from goal with five seconds to put the ball past the opposing goalkeeper; if needed the shootout progressed into extra frames. A winning team received one standings point (as opposed to three for the regulation win).

While IFAB rules allow teams to substitute three players during games, MLS allowed a fourth, goalkeeper-only substitute.


Bizarre....although I must say I did enjoy that format of shootout (just not to decide regular season games)



Top 10 Goals 1996

Tab Ramos

MLS Inaugaral Game

DC United v New York Playoff Highlights

Roberto Donadoni

Eric Wynalda - First ever MLS Goal

Giovanni Savarese

Nicola Caricola Own Goal with 15 seconds left

1 comment:

  1. About Soccer You gave you readers a very good blog, thanks for it. by the way the video of Nicola Caricola Own Goal with 15 seconds left is amaizng . i watch it again and again.

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