Roy Wegerle

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Roy Wegerle (born March 19, 1964 in Pretoria) is a South African-American soccer player, who played for the United States in the 1994 and 1998 World Cups. He is one of two players who played in both the NASL and MLS, besides Hugo Sanchez.

[edit] Early career: U.S.

Although born in South Africa, and having a trial with Manchester United in 1980, Wegerle chose to play college soccer in the United States. He spent two season with the University of South Florida in 1982 and 1983 and holds the school's single season scoring record with 21 goals. The Tampa Bay Rowdies of the North American Soccer League drafted Wegerle in the first round of the 1984 NASL college draft. He would play 21 games and score 9 goals, adding 17 assists, during the last year of the NASL's existence in 1984, being named league's Rookie of the Year. More significantly, Rodney Marsh coached him at Tampa Bay. This association would be integral to Wegerle's future move to England. When the league folded, Wegerle moved indoors with the Tacoma Stars of the Major Indoor Soccer League for two seasons.

[edit] England

In 1986, Marsh, a former Queens Park Rangers star, worked his contacts in England to get Wegerle a tryout. While QPR passed on Wegerle at the time, Chelsea was sufficiently impressed to offer Wegerle a contract. However, Wegerle never played consistently for the Chelsea first team and on March 24, 1988, Chelsea loaned Wegerle to Swindon Town for the last 7 games of the season.^[1] At the end of the season, Chelsea sold Wegerle to Luton Town for £75,000. In his time with Luton, Wegerle became the team's leading scorer and was sold in December 1989 to Queens Park Rangers for £1 million.^[2] He would finish the 1990-1991 season third on the First Division's scoring table, including having the honour of receiving the ITV 'Goal of the Season' award for that season (against Leeds at Elland Road). Wegerle continued to thrive at QPR until the arrival of new manager Gerry Francis who had little use for Wegerle and sold him in March 1992 to Blackburn Rovers for £1.1 million. The 1992-1993 season saw yet another transfer for Wegerle as Blackburn sold him to Coventry City for £1 million after only 22 games. Wegerle played the last 6 games of the 1992-1993 season for Coventry, his third of the season. Wegerle remained with Coventry until his return to the United States in 1996. However, he was beginning to have injury difficulty, a recurring theme for the rest of his career.

[edit] MLS

In 1996, Wegerle signed with Major League Soccer (MLS). At the time, the newly established league was signing known players and allocating them to each of the league's teams in order to ensure an initial parity of talent. As part of this process, MLS allocated Wegerle to the Colorado Rapids. However, he enjoyeed little success in MLS. He played a season and a half for Colorado before the team traded him to D.C. United for Steve Rammel 14 games into the 1997 season. Aside from scoring all of 4 goals over 36 games with the Rapids, Wegerle also served a single game as caretaker head coach after Bobby Houghton was fired. When Wegerle arrived in D.C., he joined a team on its way to the league championship. While his scoring pace increased slightly, 5 goals over 19 regular and post-season games, Wegerle failed to produce as United coach Bruce Arena expected. As a result, Wegerle became part of what is considered the most lop-sided trade in league history, when D.C. sent him to the Tampa Bay Mutiny for Roy Lassiter on April 26, 1998. Lassiter was MLS's all-time leading goalscorer; Wegerle played the rest of the 1998 season for the Mutiny, scoring a single goal, then retired.

[edit] U.S. national team

Wegerle gained his US citizenship in 1991, after being eligible through his American wife. He made his national team debut on May 30, 1992 against the Republic of Ireland, and would go on to record 41 caps and score 7 goals for his adopted country. In January 8, 1994, Wegerle injured his knee and underwent numerous arthroscopic surgeries, but he was able to recover in time to become a key player for the U.S. in the 1994 FIFA World Cup. By 1998, his repeated injuries had hobbled Wegerle. He enjoyed a brief resurgence leading up to the 1998 FIFA World Cup, but never became the key player he had been in 1994.

[edit] Personal life

Roy has a son that was born in 1987 whose name is Joelen. After his retirement, Wegerle has been trying to make it as a professional golfer. He had a brief stay as a co-host of MLS Extratime on ESPN2.

[edit] References

• Excellent account of Wegerle at QPR

v • d • e United States squad - 1994 FIFA World Cup 1 Meola • 2 Lapper • 3 Burns • 4 Kooiman • 5 Dooley • 6 Harkes • 7 Perez • 8 Stewart • 9 Ramos • 10 Wegerle • 11 Wynalda • 12 Sommer • 13 Jones • 14 Klopas • 15 Moore • 16 Sorber • 17 Balboa • 18 Friedel • 19 Reyna • 20 Caligiuri • 21 Clavijo • 22 Lalas • Coach: Milutinović

v • d • e United States squad - 1998 FIFA World Cup 1 Friedel • 2 Hejduk • 3 Pope • 4 Burns • 5 Dooley • 6 Regis • 7 Wegerle • 8 Stewart • 9 Moore • 10 Ramos • 11 Wynalda • 12 Agoos • 13 Jones • 14 Preki • 15 Deering • 16 Sommer • 17 Balboa • 18 Keller • 19 Maisonneuve • 20 McBride • 21 Reyna • 22 Lalas • Coach: Sampson