Officially, Chad Barrett scored the first goal of the 2006 season. But the first goal(s) we all remember are the four strikes that Brian Ching erupted for against Colorado during the opening weekend.
During the season, the one goal people will remember a year from now was Ching's bicycle kick against D.C. United that was recently anointed the Sierra Mist Goal of the Year.
And as for the last goal of the 2006 season? Yep, Ching.
For good measure, he also scored the last penalty kick of the year, ran off with the MLS Cup MVP trophy, sipped some champagne while holding the Alan I. Rothenberg Trophy and two-stepping in Frisco, and he probably wrote the game report and sidebar for MLSnet.com late Sunday night.
So if we were to sum up the 11th season of Major League Soccer, it might be apropos to throw these two words out there: Brian Ching.
If we were to look at some themes for the past year, it'd start with the Old Men of MLS. While the spotlight is usually on the younger, more exciting players like Freddy Adu, Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan, the 30-something contingent put on quite a show in 2006.
Playing in his 11th season in MLS, 32-year-old Jaime Moreno scored 11 goals and registered 10 assists for D.C. United to remain as one of the best strikers in the league. Ante Razov bounced back from a slow 2005 campaign to score 14 goals for Chivas USA in his first year with the club. The last time the 32-year-old striker scored that many times was three teams ago. Speaking of Chivas USA, the soon-to-be 38-year-old Claudio Suarez was one of the best defenders in the league. He did this despite at times having to chase around a pair of youngsters -- Josmer Altidore and Freddy Adu -- who were not born when he started his professional career in 1989. And when you remember the final play of the season, keep in mind that the man who saved the penalty kick attempt of Jay Heaps is the oldest player in Major League Soccer (Pat Onstad turns 39 in January).
Though Houston won its first MLS Cup title in a new city, Dominic Kinnear's team was not the main story of the 2006 season. In fact, they barely slip into the top five - a list that looks like this:
1. Drink your Red Bull: Hello Red Bulls, so long MetroStars. The Austrian energy drink giants stormed into MLS and bought the New York club in one quick swoop from the Anschutz Entertainment Group back in March. It marked a new era for MLS, showing that overseas buyers had a major interest in U.S. soccer and were willing to invest boatloads of cash to see that it succeeds.
2. Arenaball returns: If you had asked someone back in January what the chances were of seeing Bruce Arena back in MLS, it would have been right up there with Ghana getting out of the "Group of Death" at the World Cup. Somehow, someway, both happened this past summer. The longtime U.S. national team manager brought his usual swagger to the New York Red Bulls and gave the new owners a team that had instant credibility because of his presence. And while the team's record was nothing to rave about during the fall, the Red Bulls did find their way into the postseason and gave Supporters' Shield winners D.C. United the scare of their lives in the conference semifinals. Needless to say, look out for the Red Bulls in '07.
3. Chelsea who?: The MLS All-Stars shut out Chelsea FC 1-0 in the 2006 MLS All-Star Game back in August behind a Dwayne De Rosario bomb in the second half. Whether or not the two-time EPL champions were in preseason mode, they did not come to the States to lose this match.
4. United we stand: D.C. United clinched the top seed in the East back in, what, July? Peter Nowak's side looked like a machine for most of the year. Many observers practically wrapped up the Rothenberg Trophy and FedEx-ed it to them before the playoffs ever began. That's what made it all the more eye-opening to watch them putter into the postseason, struggle against New York in the conference semifinals, and lose a game to New England in the conference championship that they seemed to control for 95 percent of the time. As has always been the case in MLS, you do not want to peak in July.
5. Houston here we come: Finally, we have the story of the 2006 champions. How would you have liked to be Dom Kinnear last December? His team was coming off a conference semifinals loss in the playoffs after winning the Supporters' Shield and now was losing central defender Danny Califf to the Danish Superliga. The phone call telling him that his team was moving from San Jose -- down the street from where he grew up -- to Houston must have been brutal. The timing of it all made it even more difficult as the team had to prepare for the MLS SuperDraft and training camps would be starting in a little more than a month. But rather than sulk, the Earthquakes moved their party down to Texas. And even after a strange name controversy further made the situation difficult to deal with, Houston came out of the blocks on April 2 in their debut performance at Robertson Stadium with a 5-2 victory behind Ching's four goals.
See, no matter where you turned in 2006, it all seemed to come back to Brian Ching.
Marc Connolly is the managing editor of ussoccerplayers.com and regularly writes for MLSnet.com. Marc can be reached at marc@oakwoodsoccer.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
