It was a day that, for a time, even the Redskins took a back seat to soccer . 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. 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. 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. Spectator Gabriel Gosalvez also made the trip from Washington. He was soaked.