Atlanta will start a new chapter in its interesting soccer history Wednesday when the new MLS expansion franchise, led by Arthur Blank, is introduced.
The welcoming ceremony is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. at Ventanas downtown and will be preceded by a fan festival, named Celebration of Soccer, that starts at 3 p.m. at a parking lot near the intersection of Marietta and Baker streets.
To tide you over, here you are five things that you may not know about Atlanta and soccer:
Atlanta has MLS, and MLS has Atlantans: There are at least 14 players or coaches who have ties to metro Atlanta currently with MLS teams. The most recent is Michael Nwiloh, formerly a defender at Georgia State, who signed with Chivas USA earlier this week. Goalie Sean Johnson (Chicago), midfielder Ricardo Clark (Houston), forward Jack McInerney (Montreal) and defender Chris Klute (Colorado) have made appearances or worked out with the U.S. men's national team. Coaches include Clint Mathis (assistant with Chicago), arguably the greatest player from metro Atlanta, and Josh Wolff, who is an assistant with Columbus.
First title: Most people think the Braves were the first Atlanta team to win a professional championship when they took the World Series in 1995.
That’s not true.
The Chiefs won the North American Soccer League championship in 1968, defeating San Diego 3-0 to take the title in their first year in the league. The Chiefs were runners-up in 1969 and ’71.
The Chiefs eventually folded, and the Silverbacks, a new franchise, joined the league in 2011. They lost to New York in last year’s championship game.
Big game, big names: The same year that the Chiefs won the NASL title, they knocked off arguably one of the top club teams in the global game of soccer: Manchester City.
The Chiefs, stocked with talented players but unknown by Manchester City, won the exhibition game 3-2 in front of more than 21,000 people (that may not seem like much, but the metro population was less than 2 million then). Manchester City coach Malcolm Allison arrogantly said after the game that the Chiefs “couldn’t play in the fourth division in England.”
No matter, that night they knocked off the kings of English soccer.
“They had been quoted saying so many things like that this was a poor-standard league and that the Chiefs were nothing to worry about,” said Vic Rouse, the Chiefs goalkeeper who now lives in London, told the AJC in 2010. “They were a bit laid-back, and that did wind us up a lot, especially the English players. I don’t think they gave us any respect at all, and they paid for it.”
Big name, big signing: One of the highest-profile signings in U.S. soccer history was announced in Atlanta.
Oguchi Onyewu was considered one of the United States’ best players five years ago. A tall, strong defender, Onyewu helped the U.S. knock off Spain 2-0 in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup in June 2009.
A month later, A.C. Milan announced that they had signed Onyewu, marking the first time the storied club had signed an American.
His introduction came at the Georgia Dome before Milan’s exhibition game against Club America.
Things quickly deteriorated for Onyewu. He suffered an injury that sidelined him. He eventually went on loan and has played for several clubs. He currently plays for Sheffield Wednesday in England’s League Championship (the equivalent of Triple-A baseball).
Waiting is expensive: Blank began considering an expansion franchise in Atlanta in 2004. Had he made the move then, his bank account may have thanked him.
MLS expansion franchise fees in 2005 were $7.5 million. Now, it will likely be somewhere around $75 million.
The fee may seem outrageously large, but the value of franchises has been steadily climbing, as noted by Forbes. The magazine reported last year that it estimates the average value of each franchise has increased by 175 percent over the past five years to $103 million.
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