Misl

Outdoor soccer fans at Wembley Stadium in London and the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro are known for their colorful, boisterous and sometimes outlandish behavior. Now, the Americanized indoor game can claim the San Diego Sockers' fans. Never a quiet group, the 10,059 fans at Tuesday night's 7-0, series-clinching win over the Minnesota Strikers were particularly vocal, involved and even unruly.

The Clippers used to complain when the roof leaked at the San Diego Sports Arena. San Diego State basketball players feel lonely when only 2,000 fans show up to see their home games at the arena. Poor acoustics and distracting echoes have forced more than one rock musician and thousands of concert-goers to suffer through long evenings at the house on Sports Arena Blvd. The Sockers have complained about playing on a field that has ice under it when the ice show is in town.

Regardless of circumstances, nothing has stopped the Sockers over the past four years. They have won championships whether healthy or hurting, whether there has been team unity or not. Yet, they have never won a game in Baltimore's Civic Center, and that is the challenge at hand. In the past two years, they have visited six times and come away with six losses.

The difference between shouts and whispers was Claudio De Oliveira. The Brazilian midfielder darted to steal the ball from Socker defender Ralph Black, scooted up the carpet and around defender Kevin Crow and sent a shot singing into the right corner 8:05 into overtime Monday night to give St. Louis a 4-3 victory over the Sockers.. With the victory, St.

Socker forward Juli Veee had perhaps the best description of the Sockers' 6-5 overtime loss to the St. Louis Steamers Sunday afternoon at the Arena. "It was a wide-open MISL game," said Veee, whose second goal of the game at the 12:54 mark of the fourth period gave the Sockers a 5-4 lead and an apparent win. "With two minutes to go and a goal ahead, I expected to win and I thought it was over. But we kept trying to run with them in the second half and that killed us." St.

In the same way that a mammoth home run can rattle and stun a pitcher, Socker midfielder Branko Segota scored a goal that turned the complexion of San Diego's 6-4 win over the Baltimore Blast Sunday night. The Sockers trailed their Major Indoor Soccer League rivals, 2-1, with 2:43 to play in the second quarter when Segota, marked tightly by Paul Kitson, dribbled the ball deep into the left corner and lined a right-footer with the outside part of his right toe.

If you thought Sunday's game between the Sockers and Wichita Wings was little more than just the 309th and final game of the Major Indoor Soccer League regular season, consider: --Socker midfielder Juli Veee and Wing midfielder Dave Hoggan were ejected in the first quarter after a bench-clearing incident in the Sockers' 7-3 victory in front of a Fan Appreciation night crowd of 9,623 fans at the San Diego Sports Arena.

An indoor soccer game is supposed to last 60 minutes. If it goes into overtime, teams have 15 minutes to decide the game. But if a shootout is required, the game is supposed to be decided after each team takes five shots. The Sockers and Minnesota Strikers threw all of the normalities out of the window in Game 4 of their Major Indoor Soccer League semifinal series Sunday night.

It began with a few simple sentences, 271 words that seemed innocent enough at the time. They turned out to be ruinous. Before it was over, a 30-year officiating career had been destroyed and the question of freedom of speech for those who officiate sports events had been brought into question. The cast of characters is small, just five persons. But the ramifications of their recent action could be felt for a long time.

In what Coach Peter Wall said may have been "our best performance this season as far as dominating the game in all aspects," the Lazers got two goals and two assists from Willie Molano, two goals from Batata and some timely defense to defeat the Wichita Wings, 6-4, in a Major Indoor Soccer League game Saturday night at the Forum. With a crowd of 5,441 looking on, the Lazers turned a close game into a relatively easy win with three goals in the third quarter.