A host of issues arose in the first year of MLS. Apart from the play on the field, problems with the rules, referees, and economics threatened its stability before it even had a chance to stabilize itself. However, to their credit, management and owners showed a willingness to listen and make changes on the fly in an effort to improve the product on the field.

Lalas: The quality of play gets a bad rap. When it came to depth, there were fewer teams back then and there was a level of competition that has become diluted as more teams have been added. It was a race to the moon. For instance, D.C. United jumped out, understanding its identity, having a good coach who could quickly put together a team in those circumstances, and established itself quickly. But even teams like Tampa Bay were good. There wasn’t much of a European influence but definitely a Central and South American influence, talking about players like Marco Etcheverry, Carlos Valderamma, and Jorge Campos. I would argue that some of those good teams back then would give some of the good teams now a run for their money.

Rothenberg: The league figured out pretty soon that there’s enough soccer-knowledgeable people and enough soccer fans in the United States that it didn’t have to change the rules to attract their attention. In fact, maybe we offended some of the purists because we were tinkering with a sport they know and love.

Wynalda: Our league is a maverick league. We do things different than everybody. There’s nobody who does it like we do, because we’re so hell-bent on being us. That’s what happens when you have a bunch of NFL guys who ask the simple question: “OK, we’re going to start a league. Now what?” We have a draft and our season starts when it starts [in spring, not aligned with the FIFA calendar] because a bunch of NFL guys didn’t know any better. When the league started in 1996, they thought, “The NFL is the most successful league in the world, so let’s base our business model off it.” Whether they were wrong or right wasn’t a concern to them, it was just what they were used to doing.

Lalas: We were winging it, both as teams on the field and organizations off it. Whether it was the training facilities that were either non-existent or completely strange, in terms of location, the middle seats on airplanes, explaining to people who you were, or the shootouts, it was a “Wild West” type of existence. I got thrown out of one game and, because we were on a West Coast swing and people had bought tickets [to see me play], a special decree came down from the commissioner that allowed me to continue to play even though I had gotten a red card [and technically should have been suspended a game]. It was almost necessary to have that flexibility. As a player back in the 1990s, you needed to have that ability to roll with the punches or you were not long for this league.

Logan: It’s a balancing act, and we ultimately made the wrong decision because it infuriated our base to a degree that it became untenable, and it didn’t make a difference in trying to capture the attention of the general sporting public.

Gulati: I don’t know if there were a lot of traditionalists put off [by the rule changes] or not. One could argue anything after the fact.

Ramos: It was par for the course. A perfect way to put it is to say that we were trying too hard. The game is a simple one, and that’s why it’s the greatest game in the world. We tried too hard to make it different and impress people who don’t like it anyway.

Wynalda: The guys who started the league, for all intents and purposes, don’t know soccer. The guys who founded this league, whom we should all be patting on the back, saying, “Thank you for making this happen,” screwed up in the most vital part possible, which is in how the game is presented. It wasn’t presented properly from the start.

Rothenberg: It probably wasn’t necessary in the first place, and some of the rule changes were maybe a mistake.

Lalas: It’s easy to look back now and say, “Why did you do this? Why did you do that?” but when you’re starting out not just a league but also a business, you have to be strategic. You want to have as big a tent as possible, that invites as many people in as possible, and a lot of those decisions were made with that intent.

Preki: At the end of the day, we could have come in and whined about this and that, but that wouldn’t have been right.