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Home  Articles 99/00 Season Marinaro the unknown superstar
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Marinaro the unknown superstar |
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Written by Canadian Press
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Monday, 20 December 1999 |
The stocky striker from Toronto may be the best player in the history of professional indoor soccer, a game that has never quite established itself in the crowded world of North American team sports.
He is the 10-year-old National Professional Soccer League's all-time scoring leader, a seven-time first-team all-star, a six-time scoring champion and a five-time most valuable player.
League commissioner Steve Paxos says he is to indoor soccer what Wayne Gretzky was to hockey, or Michael Jordan to basketball, but in a sport with no national television exposure and crowds often under 5,000, he is far from being a household name.
"They know me a little bit in the States, but that's not why I play," the 35-year-old Marinaro said this week. "I play because it's fun and they pay me to play it.
"I'm getting paid to do something I love. You'll never hear me complain about my job."
A crowd of about 2,000 turned out on Sunday to watch Marinaro's Cleveland Crunch lose 12-11 to the Montreal Impact, despite a goal and two assists from the Cleveland star who upped his record to 1,714 career points.
"A lot of what brought the indoor game down was the instability of franchises," added Marinaro, who recently returned from a groin injury. "They're coming and going all the time, so it's hard to build a fan base.
"We also don't have a major TV contract. But I tell people in Cleveland all the time: 'Come to a game. Even if you don't like soccer, come to one game and you'll like this.'"
Indoor soccer is played six-a-side on hockey rinks covered with a green carpet and, unlike the outdoor game, features blizzards of goals and scoring chances. There are line changes on the fly as in hockey and a three-point line like basketball.
It's entertaining and affordable, but does not look ready to bump any of the four major team sports from prime time in North America.
Impact chairman Joey Saputo said plans are in the works to try to win more continent-wide exposure.
He said talks were in progress to merge the 12-team NPSL, which is based mainly in the east, with the eight-team World Indoor Soccer League, whose teams are in the west.
"We're talking about next year," Saputo said. "If you have a league that's in both the east and the west, then you can go after national TV and national sponsors.
"That's when it will take off. That's when you create stars. We can create them locally, but you can only create national stars with national TV."
Like Marinaro, who grew up playing hockey and soccer and found a perfect blend in indoor soccer.
"I loved hockey," he said. "I wanted to be a (Toronto) Maple Leaf."
The hockey helped him learn to play the ball off the boards, a key part of indoor soccer which may partly explain why Canadians have done particularly well in the NPSL.
Another reason is that Canada lacks a viable outdoor league.
The Impact, which has only one non-Canadian player, Cuban Eduardo Sebrango, leads the American Conference at 9-5 while the Edmonton Drillers lead the West at 10-3.
The league's current scoring leader is Gino DiFlorio of Toronto, a striker for the Harrisburg Heat, and Dominic Mobilio of Vancouver is a scoring star with the Philadelphia Kixx.
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