Wizards Win MLS Title

Tony Meola has his first championship, and Lamar Hunt has another one to add to the 1970 Super Bowl.

Meola made 10 saves, including three in the final 10 minutes, and the Kansas City Wizards survived some strange bounces Sunday to beat the Chicago Fire 1-0 to win their first MLS Cup.

Miklos Molnar, one of three Wizards players to retire after the game, scored in the 11th minute, while Meola added the game's MVP award to the season MVP trophy he won Friday. His record fifth shutout of the playoffs was one of his busiest games ever.

"It's the best because we won the championship while it happened," Meola said. "I can't tell you how happy it I am. Today it worked for me."

Meola was the U.S. national team goalkeeper at the 1990 and 1994 World Cups and once tried out with the New York Jets. After a difficult stint with the New York-New Jersey MetroStars, he was traded to the Wizards last year and spent most of the season rehabilitating a knee injury.

This season, he returned to set league records with 16 regular-season shutouts and a scoreless streak of 681 minutes over eight games.

As Chicago lay siege around the Kansas City net in the waning minutes, Meola dived right to stop Josh Wolff in the 82nd, cradled a close-range attempt from Dema Kovalenko in the 83rd and got his chest in the way of a 13-yard bullet from Hristo Stoitchkov in the 86th.

"The extraordinary for Tony is every day," Kansas City coach Bob Gansler. "He makes these kinds of saves every day, perhaps a few more today."

Also in the locker room, wearing a Kansas City championship T-shirt and a gold medal around his neck, was Hunt. The Wizards owner passed up the Kansas City Chiefs-Oakland Raiders game to attend the MLS Cup. Hunt's Chiefs upset the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV to even the score between the AFL and NFL.

"There the sport was established. That made everything even, 2-2," Hunt said. "This is a different battle. The battle here is against the bill collector. Here, the battle is to sell tickets."

The money-losing MLS attracted 39,159 fans to the neutral site of RFK Stadium. It was the first MLS Cup without three-time champion D.C. United.

The game pitted the league's best offense against its best defense. Predictably, Chicago outshot Kansas City 22-6 and hit the post twice, but the Fire couldn't get a shot past Meola.

"We created a good number of chances," Chicago coach Bob Bradley said. "We didn't do well in terms of how we took those chances. Tony made a bunch of saves, but we also hit a bunch of shots right at him."

Molnar's goal came after Chris Klein made a nice run down the right wing. Klein's cross was fanned by Kansas City's Preki, then Chicago's Jesse Marsch had the ball on his foot but didn't clear. With the ball rolling in the box, Molnar finally half-pushed it off the right post and into the net for his fifth goaof the playoffs.

"I missed it, but I touched it a little," Molnar said. "I saw it go in, and that's the most important thing."

Stoitchkov, the Fire's flamboyant Bulgarian star, called for the ball early and often and argued with the referee when calls didn't go his way. Heavily marked, he sometimes found space in the wings and rattled the left post with a left-footer from 12 yards in the 25th minute.

He also went down after being sandwiched in the penalty box between Meola and defender Nick Garcia in the 60th minute, but no foul was called.

"Let's not blame the referees," Stoitchkov said. "It's a team loss."

Unusual near misses highlighted the rest of the game. Meola backpedalled as he pushed away a close-range shot by Kovalenko in the 30th minute, set up only because Chris Armas misfired on a wide-open 18-yarder on a set play.

Four minutes later, Chicago defender Diego Gutierrez fell trying to keep pace with Klein on the right wing, leaving Klein with only goalkeeper Zach Thornton to beat. Inexplicably, Klein waited, then passed up the shot for a weak cross that rolled out of bounds.

The weirdest play occurred in the 54th, when Stoitchkov's free kick from the top of the box hit the wall and took a strange bounce toward the net. Gutierrez chased down the ball and lifted it over Meola, but it hit the crossbar from just 3 yards out.

Three Kansas City veterans retired after the game: Molnar, captain Mo Johnston and Alex Bunbury.

The ceremonial coin toss was made by Johann Cruyff, the Dutch great and former North American Soccer League star.

"Little by little, you have to teach to the United States that this is the best game in the world," Cruyff said. "Otherwise, it wouldn't be so popular. But people here are the way they are."

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