 | |
| Season | 1985 |
|---|---|
| Champions | Season canceled |
| League Cup winner | South Florida Sun |
| Matches played | 13 |
| Goals scored | 42 (3.23 per match) |
| Top goalscorer | Josue Portillo (8 goals) |
← 1984 Final → Matches played includes 12 League Cup and 1 regular season | |
The 1985 USL season was the United Soccer League's second and final season. The season was abruptly canceled after the pre-season League Cup and one regular season game.
The United Soccer League played its first season in 1984 as the de facto United States second division. The previous second division, the American Soccer League, had collapsed in 1983 and the United Soccer League intended to establish itself as a fiscally sound replacement for the failed league. The USL played the 1984 season with nine teams in three divisions. In February 1985, the North American Soccer League and USL began negotiations to merge the two leagues. [1] On March 5, USL President William Burfeind announced the merger would not take place. [2] The NASL cancelled its 1985 season shortly afterwards, and five of the USL franchises (the New York Nationals, Charlotte Gold, Jacksonville Tea Men, Buffalo Storm and Rochester Flash) folded while the Houston Dynamos withdrew to become independent. [3] This left only the Dallas Americans, South Florida Sun (formerly Fort Lauderdale Sun), Tulsa Tornado's (who had previously been the Oklahoma City Stampede but had moved in December) and the expansion El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks committed to a 1985 season.
The season was scheduled to run from May 19 through August 24. [4] By mid-May, league officials had extensively revamped the schedule. In hopes of attracting a few more members before the second half of the season, they decided to open with a "USL Cup" tournament, which would begin with round-robin format pool play followed by a championship between the top two teams. After a short break, the league planned to continue with a twelve-game regular season. Burfeind resigned as league president and Kalman Csapo replaced him. [5] Almost immediately, there were signs that multiple teams were in serious financial distress. The Tulsa Tornado's owners were facing lawsuits related to payment for stadium rent, and after one round of paychecks bounced, they started missing pay periods for players and coaches altogether. The unpaid squad refused to play in a scheduled home exhibition on June 6th or travel to Dallas for a USL Cup match on June 8th, and the head coach and several players left the team. [6] [7] At the same time Dallas had to grant its players a stock participation program and pay back-salaries to keep their team afloat. [8] By the end of the six game cup schedule, the league scrapped the USL Cup championship and announced that the Sun, who had the best record, were cup champions (though no physical trophy was presented to the team). Within days El Paso/Juarez owner, Pedro Meneses, announced that he was dropping out of the league. He paid all debts through the end of June and released his players. Only the thin possibility of a new ownership group taking over the Gamecocks tenuously kept the team in the league.
In what should have been the start of the 1985 USL regular season, the Sun rallied to defeat Dallas, 3–1, on Saturday, June 22, 1985, at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. [9] Instead, it turned out to be the USL's swan song. Tulsa players had refused to play their match later that night against the Gamecocks because they had not been paid in six weeks, and stadium rent issues remained unresolved. South Florida were scheduled to host El Paso/Juarez on June 26. Instead on the evening of June 25, the league voted to suspend the remainder of the season. [10] [11]
| South Florida Sun (FL) | 3–1 | Dallas Americans (TX) |
|---|---|---|
Rongen  20:19'Bandov  74:34', 90:45' (Cubillas)Neeskens (Saldana) 83:57'Christensen 90:10' | Report | 12:42', 29:29' Nazari 90:10' DeRouse |
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | T | L | GF | GA | PCT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Florida Sun | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1.000 |
| 2 | El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2 | Tulsa Tornado's | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 4 | Dallas Americans | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | .000 |
Even after the league folded team officials from the Sun tried in vain to carry on as an independent squad by staging exhibitions matches. It was also a last ditch effort to offset their payroll debt. In the end only one match, versus the Haiti national football team, ever materialized. The Sun rallied to win what was to be the final game involving a USL squad, 4–3, on July 4, 1985, before a Lockhart Stadium crowd of 3,529. The match's proceeds were divvied up among the players. [12] [13] [14] [15]
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | T | L | GF | GA | PCT | Avg. Att. [16] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Florida Sun | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 8 | .667 | 2,195 |
| 2 | Dallas Americans | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 9 | .500 | 2,400 |
| 3 | Tulsa Tornados | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 7 | .500 | 500 |
| 4 | El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 15 | .333 | 1,430 |
| Rank | Scorer | Club | GP | Goals | Assists | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Josue Portillo | El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks | 6 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| 2 | Mark Schwartz | South Florida Sun | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Hassan Nazari | Dallas Americans | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| 4 | Boris Bandov | South Florida Sun | 6 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| 5 | Teófilo Cubillas | South Florida Sun | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 6 | Zequinha | Tulsa Tornados | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 7 | Wolfgang Rausch | Dallas Americans | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 8 | Miguel Carcamo | El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks | 5 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| 9 | Tom Fazekas | Dallas Americans | 5 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 10 | Arnaldo Correa | El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 11 | Tony Crescitelli | South Florida Sun | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Player | Club | GP | W–L | Min | SH | SV | SO | GA | GAA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delroy Allen | Tulsa Tornados | 5 | 3–2 | 434 | 60 | 17 | 0 | 6 | 1.24 |
| Jim Tietjens | South Florida Sun | 6 | 4–2 | 540 | 75 | 21 | 1 | 8 | 1.33 |
| Randy Phillips | Dallas Americans | 5 | 2–3 | 470 | 62 | 16 | 1 | 9 | 1.72 |
| Juan Carlos Villalobos | El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks | 5 | 2–3 | 470 | 73 | 17 | 1 | 13 | 2.49 |
| Leroy Alexandre | El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks | 1 | 0–1 | 90 | 9 | – | 0 | 2 | 2.00 |
Lockhart Stadium was a stadium used mostly for soccer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. It was used in a variety of sports, particularly soccer and American football.
Fort Lauderdale/South Florida Sun was a professional U.S. soccer team which played two seasons in the United Soccer League.
The United Soccer League was a professional soccer league in the United States in 1984 and 85.
The Fort Lauderdale Strikers were an American professional soccer team based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida founded in 2006, that last played in the North American Soccer League (NASL), the second tier of the American soccer pyramid in 2016. The majority of their home games were played in Lockhart Stadium. The Strikers were named after the original Strikers, who played in the old North American Soccer League from 1977 to 1983.
Dallas Americans was an American professional soccer club based in Dallas, Texas. The team played in the American Soccer League in 1983 and the United Soccer League in 1984 and 1985. Both leagues unofficially served as the second division of professional American soccer at the time. The team's home games were played at John Clark Stadium in Plano, Texas.
The Oklahoma City Slickers was the name given to two different American soccer clubs based in Oklahoma City. The first team competed in the second American Soccer League in 1982 and 1983. The club was re-organized and re-branded in 1984 as the Oklahoma City Stampede and again in 1985 as the Tulsa Tornado's to play in the short-lived United Soccer League. The second Oklahoma City Slickers competed in the USISL from 1993 to 1996. Home games were played at historical Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City.
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Mark Schwartz is a retired American soccer forward who played in the United Soccer League and the third American Soccer League. He was the 1984 USL Rookie of the Year.
The El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks were a professional soccer team that played one season in the United Soccer League. They played 6 games in the USL's 1985 League Cup before folding. The entire league collapsed after only one regular season game had been played. For their part, the team paid off all debts, and the player's salaries through the end of the month before releasing them all from their contracts. The Gamecocks were owned by Pedro Meneses, who also founded Juarez City's first television station, XEJ-TDT.
The Tulsa Tornado's were a professional outdoor soccer team from Tulsa, Oklahoma. They played in the 2nd division United Soccer League during the partially completed 1985 season.
The 1984 USL season was the United Soccer League's first and only full season.
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