1993 American Professional Soccer League

History

In 1993, the league added three teams from Canada. The Canadian Soccer League had collapsed at the end of the 1992 season and the Vancouver 86ers and Toronto Blizzard along with a new club the Montreal Impact moved to the APSL. Vancouver topped the regular season standings, but fell in the playoff semifinals to the Los Angeles Salsa. In the other semifinal, the Colorado Foxes defeated the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Although the Foxes had a better record than the Salsa, the championship game took place in Los Angeles because the Foxes did not have an available home stadium. Their home venue at Englewood High School was planned to host a homecoming football game on the same day and an alternative venue, the Brooks Field in Golden, Colorado, was secured too late. The Foxes attempted unsuccessfully to move the championship to a neutral-site venue in Vancouver.

In 1993 before the USSF chose MLS as Division 1, a couple teams had significant capital backing, had local TV and radio deals, and many of the players were US national team hopefuls or Canadian internationals.

Regular season

The competition was a single table on the league principle with a balanced schedule home and away where each of the seven teams plays the other six four times. The league's regular season was played over twenty weeks, beginning April 30 and concluding September 12. The top four in the table qualified for a single-elimination tournament held in September. The league was a generally close competition, given the points system adopted all teams were still in the playoff race into early August or about 70% of the season. The points system included 6 points for a win, 4 points for a shootout win, 2 points for a shootout loss, and bonus points for goals to a maximum of three. If the game was tied, then instead of following FIFA rules of two 15-minute extra halves followed by penalty kicks, the APSL did two 7.5 minute extra halves followed by the NASL shootout. The shootout consisted of the player starting 35 yards from the net, goalkeeper in net, and five seconds for the player to score (essentially a timed five second break-away skills competition). Game day rosters had to have eleven of the eighteen as domestic players.

Playoffs

Bracket

| score-width=25 | team-width=195px | RD1-seed1=1 | RD1-team1=Vancouver 86ers | RD1-score1=2*(1)* | RD1-seed2=4 | RD1-team2=Los Angeles Salsa | RD1-score2=2***(3)***

| RD1-seed3=2 | RD1-team3=Colorado Foxes | RD1-score3=1 | RD1-seed4=3 | RD1-team4=Tampa Bay Rowdies | RD1-score4=0

| RD2-seed1=4 | RD2-team1=Los Angeles Salsa | RD2-score1=1 | RD2-seed2=2 | RD2-team2=Colorado Foxes | RD2-score2=3

Semifinal 1

date = September 18, 1993 5:05 PM PST| team1 = Vancouver 86ers (BC) | goals1 = Domenic Mobilio Dale Mitchell | goals2 = Danny Pena Paulinho | score = 2–2 | report = https://www.newspapers.com/image/328955407/?terms=APSL | team2 = Los Angeles Salsa (CA) | stadium = Swangard Stadium, Vancouver, British Columbia Dale Mitchell Rick Celebrini
Domenic Mobilio Rich Ryerson Paulinho Thor Lee

Semifinal 2

date = September 19, 1993 8:00 PM MST | team1 = Colorado Foxes (CO) | goals1 = Brian Haynes | goals2 = | score = 1–0 | report = https://www.newspapers.com/image/325271177/?terms=Rowdies | team2 = Tampa Bay Rowdies (FL)| stadium = Englewood Stadium, Englewood, Colorado

Final

date = October 2, 1993 5:05 PM PST| team1 = Los Angeles Salsa (CA) | goals1 = Philip Gyau | goals2 = Ted Eck
Taifour Diané
Robert Lipp | score = 1–3 | aet=yes| report = https://www.newspapers.com/image/151328960/?terms=APSL| team2 = Colorado Foxes (CO) | stadium = Titan Stadium, Fullerton, California

Points leaders

Honors

• MVP: Paulinho
• Leading goal scorer: Paulinho
• Leading goalkeeper: Jim St. Andre
• Rookie of the Year: Jason De Vos
• Coach of the Year: Ken Fogarty
• First Team All League
  • Goalkeeper: Paul Dolan
  • Defenders: Robin Fraser, Danny Pena, Mark Watson, Patrice Ferri
  • Midfielders: Paulinho, Ivor Evans, Paul Dougherty, Ted Eck
  • Forwards: Taifour Diané, Paul Wright
• Second Team All League
  • Goalkeeper: Ian Feuer
  • Defenders: Jason De Vos, Steve MacDonald, Kim Roentved, Mark Santel
  • Midfielders: Chad Ashton, Bryan Haynes, Pierre Morice, Steve Trittschuh
  • Forwards: Domenic Mobilio, Hector Marinaro

References

References

1. (October 2, 1993). "Foxes become road warriors in title defense". [[The Denver Post]].
2. Pearce, Alan. (September 21, 1993). "Homeless Foxes hit road for final". [[Rocky Mountain News]].