but not many.
Roberto Donadoni certainly didn't embarrass himself while playing in all 32 games for the 1997 MetroStars. He was 34 by season's end -- and still doing a pretty good job on a pretty poor team.
On the other hand, Marco Etcheverry never even started a season at age 33. He had just reached that age -- and was in a sharp decline -- when he played the last of his 191 regular season games for D.C. United in 2003.
Leonel Alvarez played three seasons after turning 33, but managed to get on the field just 58 times in that period (an average of 19 matches a season). That's hardly prodigious production, and Alvarez didn't have Reyna's history of injury.
Chris Henderson averaged 28.4 games per season before reaching age 33. That dropped to 22.5 per campaign once he reached 33, although the prototype flank attacker did get into all 32 matches last year for three New York Red Bulls managers.
Ian Bishop was 35 when he began the 2001 season for a terrific Miami Fusion side. He managed just 23 games as a holding (and largely static, although very effective) midfielder.
Tab Ramos? He participated in three full seasons after turning 33, getting into 20, 18 and 14 games in that period.
Reyna would do well to match Thomas Dooley, perhaps the MLS all-time king of longevity. The former U.S. international was 36 before he ever stepped on the field for Columbus (and later New York). Playing mostly in defense by then, he served for 83 games, an average of 21 matches over four seasons. Then again, Dooley was a late starter in his career, and did just about everything later in life by conventional standards.
OPTIONS FOR HERNANDEZ: Defensive midfielder Daniel Hernandez, entering an option year with New England, says he might be heading back to Mexico. Hernandez, who started for the Revolution in the MLS Cup Final, would like to return to Steve Nicol's outfit. But he winces at the thought of a potential pay cut and says he can do just as well financially in Mexico, where he spent two seasons with Necaxa before a return to New England in 2005.
MLS clubs must exercise players' contract options by Dec. 1.
Hernandez also owns a home in suburban Dallas, about an hour or so from his hometown, Tyler, Texas.
So FC Dallas is an equally attractive option for the 30-year-old midfielder, who played in just seven games during an injury-abbreviated 2006 season. Then again, the FC Dallas roster is pretty thick with defensive midfielders, having recently added the Houston Dynamo's versatile Adrian Serioux.
EJ BEING COUNTED UPON: Eddie Johnson concludes his brief training spell with England's Reading on Friday. He'll soon be back in Kansas City, where new Wizards manager Curt Onalfo will be quick to sit down with the U.S. international.
He wants Johnson, who scored just twice in 2006 and fell from grace at season's end under interim boss Brian Bliss, to understand exactly how much the organization still values him.
"I don't care about things that happened in the past," Onalfo said late Wednesday, working into the evening in Kansas City. "I only care about what happens in the future. I want to make sure he understands that he's a big part of what we're doing around here."
Onalfo says he has a good relationship with Johnson from their time together on Bruce Arena's national team. Ironically, Onalfo believes Johnson's desire to gain a place on the World Cup team was among the roots of the striker's unproductive campaign.
"I think maybe he got a little distracted, and that had a lot to do with it," the manager said.
ONE VACANCY LEFT: Now that Onalfo is in place at Kansas City, FC Dallas remains the only club without a manager. Steve Morrow, the top assistant under recently deposed Colin Clarke, continues to scout and be active in personnel decisions. He is among the four finalists just named by GM Michael Hitchcock, who will apparently roll the dice a bit with his most important decision to date.
None of his finalists have professional head coaching experience. In fact, three of them are only recently removed from their own playing days.
Either Jeff Agoos, Schellas Hyndman, Tom Soehn or Morrow will be named -- perhaps by next week -- as Clarke's replacement.
Morrow, 36, played his final match in 2003. Agoos, 38, played the last of his 244 MLS contests in 2005. (FYI: FC Dallas made a big play for Agoos' defensive services before the 2005 season. "Goose" wanted to play in his hometown, but family concerns and prospects of a bigger payday drove him to New York instead.)
Soehn, 40, has six years of experience as an assistant since he stopped playing in 2000. Hyndman, 57, is the veteran of the finalists bunch. He has spent all of his coaching years at the college level, the last 23 down the road from Pizza Hut Park at SMU.
BRANCHING OUT AGAIN: Should Soehn become Hitchcock's choice, then add another branch (well, an extended one) to the Bruce Arena coaching tree.
Soehn never played under Arena, nor did he serve as an assistant under The Bruce. But he did work under Bob Bradley in Chicago, and Bradley was schooled under Arena at Virginia and D.C. United.
The list of MLS coaches who worked directly under Arena continues to grow with Curt Onalfo's hiring at Kansas City. The others: Bradley, John Ellinger, Dave Sarachan and Sigi Schmid.
THE BACHELOR NO MORE: Sorry, ladies. A certain, hunky midfielder for the Los Angeles Galaxy is officially off the shelf.
U.S. international Landon Donovan will cap the year with a Dec. 31 wedding. Los Angeles Galaxy officials confirm that he will marry longtime girlfriend Bianca Kajlich in a ceremony in Santa Barbara.
So, January is shaping up to be an eventful month for Donovan, who will certainly want to put a roller-coaster 2006 behind him. He'll have a new U.S. national team boss to impress as the Yanks launch their 2007 schedule with a friendly at The Home Depot Center (assuming Donovan is selected to the squad.) Soon after he'll begin the Galaxy's first preseason training under Frank Yallop. And his new wife will see her new comedy "Rules of Engagement" make a January debut on CBS.
Kajlich most recently has been seen in a recurring role on FOX's "Vanished."
NORTH OF THE BORDER: Toronto FC manager Mo Johnston says the artificial turf at BMO Field, which remains under construction, hasn't been a detriment as he "recruits" players to Major League Soccer's newest city.
On the contrary, he says, no one seems concerned at all. Canadian international Jim Brennan, one of 11 now on Toronto FC's roster, practiced consistently on a similar synthetic field last year at Southampton in England.
And on the subject of Toronto FC, if you're a fan of Fox Soccer Channel's nightly highlight shows and haven't seen Michelle Lissel for a while, here's the reason: She is Toronto FC's new PR director. So, Lissel exchanges the studio in Winnipeg for the faster pace of diverse, cosmopolitan Toronto.
The club has had little trouble drumming up media support so far. Lissel says it helps to have players now after recent acquisitions and the expansion draft. To mix Johnston's thick Scottish accent with Ronnie O'Brien's motoring Irish inflection makes for irresistible sound bites, she said.
Steve Davis is a freelance writer who has covered Major League Soccer since its inception. Steve can be reached at BigTexSoccer@yahoo.com. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
