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| Friday, September 14, 2001 24:17 EST |
They're still the Miami con-Fusion
By Jamie Trecker
[Special to ESPN.com]
MIAMI -- With the sacking of coach Ivo Wortmann -- a man once thought to be one of America's best developmental prospects -- Fusion management has at last closed the door on a disastrous era that began with the tenure of ex-GM Leo Stillitano.
Since Stillitano's ouster, three or four others (depending on how you count) have filled the role, and all have been proven to be essentially impotent at the hands of the micro-managing, spend-nothing owner, Ken Horowitz.
Now, in a classic save-money maneuver, the team has appointed someone already on their payroll, Ray Hudson, a former NASL star with the Rowdies, and saddled him with that most onerous of labels: interim.
Poor Mr. Hudson.
Miami is a funny place. It has recently been described as a sort of fiefdom that revolves not around the rest of America but around its neighbor to the south, Cuba. It has a famously militant population that loves baseball and partying and has a well deserved rep for a kind of cultivated and crazy sleaziness that somehow seems very attractive against the Art Deco backdrop of the city.
Miami is also a place that remains immune to the Fusion in just about every form, and that is largely due to the organization's ineptitude.
Monday's move will not help heal the many rifts the Fusion have already created in the business community. Nor will it put butts in seats. The fact is, the Fusion franchise is a sinking ship, and nothing short of a radical overhaul can make it viable.
Let's start with poor Mr. Hudson, a decent gentleman who inherits the unenviable task of getting his players to not only start playing on the field, but stop fighting on the field as well. Twice in the past two weeks I have seen players bark at each other during games, and one memorable moment during the Haiti friendly came before the game even started. That was when Eric Wynalda said something to Jim Rooney, who promptly came at him as if to take his head off his shoulders.
Says Hudson: "I think the spirit had been sapped. The camaraderie is there, but disenchantment had set in. Disappointment with the performance had spread through the locker room. Ivo and the staff could not find the spark. I think the boys lost their way, but not their belief in themselves. The challenge I will throw down to them is that they have to prove they are the players we think they are, both to us and to the fans. I think the players are willing to accept that."
He had better hope; I have little else to offer him.
The fact is that this team plays like two five-man squads, with the defense adamantly opposed to helping out the offense. So bad was the Fusion in their match last weekend against the Fire that even my normally sweet-tempered wife described them as looking like a bunch of high-school players. She was being kind.
How did Wortmann go so far astray? Well, ditching Carlos Valderrama didn't help, for starters. But the loss of leader Cle Kooiman has had an even greater effect: There is simply no one willing to pick up the reins and run forward. And, when you consider that these guys didn't play for a coach without the word "interim" in front of his name, what makes anyone think that they will play for one that does? Poor Mr. Hudson.
And, of course, this move does nothing to address the other glaring problems: That Lockhart stadium is rapidly beginning to look like a dump; that the stadium is situated in Broward, not Dade County, and all the advertisers who signed up assumed a team with the word "Miami" in it meant that the team actually was in Miami; that the fan base the Fusion is trying to reach isn't really interested in soccer in the first place -- they prefer baseball.
What a mess this franchise is. It encapsulates just about everything that is wrong with MLS, with its small-time seamy feel and unwillingess to spend dime one on talent or solid, workable advertising.
Poor Mr. Hudson.
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