By William Gildea
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 21, 1996; Page A1

FOXBORO, Mass., Oct. 20—Major League Soccer’s sunny inaugural season concluded this afternoon with a title game played in 30- to 50-mile-per-hour winds and cold, torrential rain at Foxboro Stadium. It was the most beautiful day in the brief history of D.C. United, Washington’s newest championship team.

Washington’s lads didn’t merely win MLS Cup ’96. Down 2-0 to the Los Angeles Galaxy with 17 minutes to play and bitter darkness settled in, they defiantly continued splashing and slogging across a water-soaked field. Stunningly, they tied the game with two goals in a span of 10 minutes in regulation, then won the title, 3-2, in the fourth minute of sudden-death overtime on a masterful, multi-cultural play—a long, lovely pass from Bolivia’s Marco Etcheverry to American Eddie Pope, who powerfully headed the ball into the upper left corner of the goal.

"It was a wonderful experience," said D.C. United Coach Bruce Arena, understating the moment he and the team had worked toward since April. Arena was dripping wet moments after the dramatic game-winning header by Pope, but already was wearing a black championship cap and white championship T-shirt.

"The fans stayed with us until the end—to see that, it was a beautiful feeling," said United’s John Harkes, after kissing the champion’s trophy. "It just shows how much progress we’ve made in soccer in the United States. Soccer is here to stay."

To that, the drenched 34,643 spectators, including about 5,000 who trekked here by bus and car from the Washington area, would agree. At the end, United’s partisans waved flags harder, shouted more loudly than they had all day—and all day they never stopped cheering. Said Arena: "We felt like it was a home-field advantage."

Compelled by loyalty and a growing fanaticism, many in the Washington legions wrapped themselves in the fabric of a sport they had experienced to this degree only in their homelands. At one of the highest corners of the stands, some of the most avid United loyalists—known as "Barra Brava"—proudly displayed their banner.

Oliver Mendez, from Washington, wore a sinister-looking devil’s mask—as a tribute to Etcheverry, United’s captain and midfield wizard who is known as "El Diablo,"—"The Devil." But Mendez had himself draped in a blue-and-white Salvadoran flag. "I am Bolivian," he said, "but I like [United forward Raul] Diaz Arce. So I wear his flag."

"United has Etcheverry and [forward Jaime] Moreno, very good players, the best in my country," Mendez said.

Spectator Gabriel Gosalvez also made the trip from Washington. He was soaked.

"I don’t care if it is raining," he said. "I don’t care if it is snowing. I like it at a soccer game. All the fans who come from D.C.—thousands—feel that way."

The clouds cloaking the wide-open stands gave the game the look of a high-powered contest in the countryside of England on its bleakest of days. But Harkes, a former University of Virginia star who played six seasons in England, rejoiced. "This was a great day, a terrific day."

"The big objective was to play the game and try to give some type of lesson to soccer here in the United States," Etcheverry said through an interpreter. "We made a promise to our fans to become champions—and for me to learn English."

Etcheverry spoke as an impromptu representative of the world’s most popular sport pioneering in America, a fertile new frontier potentially rich with commercial enterprise. As horrendous as the elements were, a day not for the curious but the passionate, the rhythm and the beat and the noise of the pro-Washington crowd built and built until the thrill of United’s victory and the spirit-stabbing depth of the Galaxy’s defeat seemed to match the emotion of some of the best major league events abroad.

The biggest advantage MLS has over the departed North American Soccer League, which crested about 15 years ago, is the greater availability of skilled American players, many of whom are familiar to the general public as well as soccer purists.

So it was that neutral New Englanders, many of them fans of the local Revolution or simply attracted by a title game, made up the majority of the crowd. Mo Biron, of Walpole, N.H., brought four young boys—although he paused on the windy concourse to watch the New England Patriots football game on television.

"I’m more of a football fan," he said. "But it’s catching on with the kids. On the way down, all they talked about was the United. They’ve watched them on television, especially during the playoffs. They definitely are rooting for the United."

Despite the weather, MLS Cup ’96 capped as fine a season as possible. A midseason all-star game at Giants Stadium drew 78,000. ESPN2 carried the games, and ABC televised today’s title match even though it bucked NFL programming. Late today, Washington players and fans alike danced together in the pouring rain on a day both miserable and delightfully enchanting.