Alan Rothenberg is so secure with his place and legacy in U.S. soccer history that he could joke about his induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in front of 5,000 spectators.
During induction ceremonies last Sunday, Rothenberg noted he and former New York Cosmos defender and U.S. international Bobby Smith would be the Walt Wesley's of the soccer Hall in the wake of the extremely popular Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy also getting enshrined.
Rothenberg was referring to reserve center Walt Wesley, who also was mentioned as an asterisk in the trade that brought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the L.A. Lakers from the Milwaukee Bucks in 1975.
"I can take that company and I can take that asterisk," he said.
But Rothenberg will be more than just an asterisk or a mere footnote in U.S. soccer history.
If it wasn't for Rothenberg, you might not be reading this column today or have 13 teams to cheer for, his impact was that great off the field.
Thanks to his vision, two World Cups -- the 1994 men's and the 1999 women's -- were huge successes.
"You know what's left behind when the circus leaves," he said. "We want to leave a legacy."
The legacy is still alive and kicking today, thank you. So, it should not be surprising one iota that the MLS Cup trophy is named after the man -- the Alan I. Rothenberg trophy -- or that he was voted into the Hall as a builder.
While introducing Rothenberg on Sunday, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati noted that the the Los Angeles attorney's vision was uncanny.
"All those decisions were on target," he said. "He got every one right."
Indeed. In fact, when Rothenberg's second four-year term as U.S. Soccer president was up in 1998, many soccer observers wanted him to run for a third term. But he couldn't, because of term limits.
"It's a wonderful chariot ride that we're on," added Gulati, who acknowledged that Rothenberg started the ride.
"I came to the U.S. Soccer/World Cup scene on the crest of a wave," Rothenberg said. "It's a wave that had been building."
Rothenberg connected the dots of U.S. Soccer history. He was the vice president of the Los Angeles Wolves back in 1967 and president of the Los Angeles Aztecs back in 1978.
"A lot of people say the North American Soccer League was a failure," he said, noting the critics were wrong. The North American Soccer League helped crowds at the 1984 Olympics -- which Rothenberg was in charge of the soccer competition. The huge turnout for the Olympic tournament helped FIFA decide to award the 1994 World Cup to the United States in 1988. That, in turn, helped pave the way for MLS.
Of course, Rothenberg was quite proud of his baby. When the concept of the league was revealed at the 1994 World Cup draw in Las Vegas in December 1993, many of its critics claimed the new league wouldn't last a year.
"It continues to get stronger all the time," Rothenberg said at a post-induction press conference in the museum. "MLS is in its 12th year."
Originally, MLS was supposed to start in 1995. But Rothenberg and the league's owners and investors decided to wait a year. That is a lesson that he hoped that the owners and investors in the second women's professional soccer league will do and not kickoff until 2009.
"Hopefully, they're being smart by waiting," he said. "Back when we started MLS, people criticized us for not starting in 1995 so we could capture all of excitement from the '94 World Cup. We weren't ready. There was a big concern on our part that if we started and stumbled we would never ever recover. It was better to take that extra year. Do it right and hopefully overcome the problems arise with any new venture. I think that was a wise decision.
"Also, by the way, we probably had to let time pass so people's expectations would be more realistic. Starting on the heels of the 1994 World Cup -- huge stadiums, great atmosphere -- there would be a lot different obviously from (that)."
Rothenberg reminded the media that the idea of soccer-specific stadiums wasn't an after-thought, but part of the original plans for the league.
"The original draft had the business plan of Major League Soccer, and it said that we needed to build soccer-specific stadiums because playing in 80,000- or 90,000-seat stadiums, 20,000 would be a nice crowd."
But the atmosphere would be terrible, the field questionable and teams could not control its playing dates.
"So you don't really have much flexibility," he said. "The initial evaluation by some of the investors was that they were a little reluctant to spend extra millions on a single purpose piece of real estate at a time when you were just starting a league and you were not even sure if the league would be successful."
But soccer-specific stadiums today are mandatory if a club is to thrive, let alone survive. The Columbus Crew built the first one, followed by the Los Angeles Galaxy (Chivas USA is a tenant at The Home Depot Center), FC Dallas, Chicago Fire, Colorado Rapids and Toronto FC. And there are plans for similar stadiums for other teams.
Not surprisingly, the topic moved onto David Beckham, who joined the Los Angeles Galaxy in July.
"Obviously, the Beckham arrival has been a huge shot in the arm," he said. "To me, the difference of Beckham arriving as opposed to Pele, Beckenbauer, Cruyff and Best is there is a solid foundation for the sport in this country.
"Its success doesn't depend on the arrival or one or two big names or superstars. What happened, unfortunately with the NASL, when the big names left there was no foundation under it."
Beckham's impact was been off the scale for the league, Rothenberg said.
"He is a media marvel," he said. "We have gotten attention and by the likes of which -- who knows how true the figures of what he's being paid -- we probably couldn't have bought all the publicity for all that money.
"It isn't just a one-time phenomenon. ... It's really interesting that when he finally played a full game and did well, it was one of the lead stories on CNN, NPR and not just ESPN, not just Fox Sports. It crossed over to the general media. So his impact has been enormous."
He felt the league and U.S. Soccer was in good hands. Today at the age of 68 Rothenberg considers himself a "senior statesman" in U.S. soccer, after stepping down as a CONCACAF vice president earlier this year.
"I don't have to run anything any more," he said. "They're doing it very, very well. There are really a lot of good people out there who are doing a great job."
OK, so how well will this new generation run things in the United States? Rothenberg was asked, in an ideal future, what 20 years from now would look like for soccer in the USA.
"Ideally, we have outgrown the soccer-specific stadiums and we will add to them or have 40,000-seat stadiums instead of 20,000-25,000," he said. "Major League Soccer is clearly established. And I will get myself into trouble with my friends from the National Hockey League, but moving to fourth from fifth about established leagues. The U.S. men's national team will be quadrennially among the favorites going into the World Cup."
Rothenberg then spoke about Project 2010, a 1999 report from U.S. Soccer, authored by former MetroStars and current Manchester United assistant coach Carlos Queiroz on the state of soccer today and where it would or should be in 2010.
"I was misunderstood when we created Project 2010," he said. "Everybody said we were predicting that we would win the World Cup in 2010. We were very careful to say, even going into a World Cup, even Brazil can can't be that confident that they can produce a victory in any World Cup. All our goal was to be in a position where we would be at least a contender. We still have a ways to go obviously for 2010. We may have fallen off a little bit on that."
But Rothenberg and the rest of the U.S. soccer community could be surprised in three years time. After all, Alan Rothenberg hasn't disappointed too many people over the last two decades.
Michael Lewis wrote about Rothenberg's election and the 1994 World Cup, covers the sport for the New York Daily News and is editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He can be reached at SoccerWriter516@aol.com. Views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
