Slobo Warns Of Perils
By Arnold Irish (3/23/1984)St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Don't be surprised, when the Steamers play the Wichita Wings on
Saturday night in Wichita, Kan., if Slobo Ilijevskl runs onto the Kansas
Coliseum field in full battle regalia and digs a moat in front of the goal he
protects. "Every game is a 60-minute war, but games in Wichita are a different
kind of war," said Ilijevskl, the Major Indoor Soccer League's premier
goalkeeper.
It's a big crowd in a small building, and the fans are so loud they keep the
referees under constant pressure. On
their small field, you see a lot of 50-50 calls go for Wichita and against us.
Wichita's style is different from ours, too. They have a lot of very good
passers, and they know how to work the ball around until they get easy
shots."
Ilijevski, whose 3.39 goals-against average is the MISL's best and well
under the league record 3.85 he posted two years ago, never has any
trouble getting up for games against Wichita because he suspects some of
the Wings take cheap shots at him. He singles out All-Stars Andy Chapman
and Omar Gomez as the culprits
"You have to respect both for their skills, but they try to hurt you bad,"
Ilijevski said. At the All-Star game, Chapman
acted like we're friends - 'Hi, how are you?' and all that - but it's
different when we're on the field. He's
hurt me bad twice. Once he got my knee - I was lucky I didn't need
surgery for that - and another time he pushed me into the boards and
dislocated my fingers. Gomez has never hurt me, but he's
tried. He's a mean person inside. Maybe the meanest in the league. This
is not just something I say, but something everybody knows."
Chapman, the Wings' leading scorer (40 goals and 17 assists for 57
points), won't hurt anybody in Saturday's 7:35 game. He'll watch in
street clothes as he serves his automatic one-game penalty for
having drawn his 20th penalty minute.
Ilijevski refuses to be intimidated, no matter who plays for Wichita or
who doesn't. "I can't stop racing anybody for a
ball along the boards just because he may be trying to hurt me," the keeper
said. "I can't let a player rope off parts of the field and keep me out. I must
have the right to go anywhere, into any corner, without being afraid. And
I do. If a player scores a goal against
me, I say good for him. Sometimes, though, I get burnt by
unsportsmanlike players. This is not
right. Soccer is for artistic plays - for
magic moments - not for broken legs. If people want to see fights, they
should buy tickets to boxing matches or hockey games.
If players try to hurt opponents, then the referees should punish those
players with red cards."
The Steamers (21-17) lead the Western Division with 10 regular-
season games remaining. The Kansas City Comets (who played Thursday at
Pittsburgh) are second and Wicitita (18-19) is third.
"If we win, that would put another big game between Wichita and us,"
Steamers Coach Dave Clements said. "We'd be 3 1/2 games up with only nine
games left, so a win Saturday would be almost like a division title game. But,
then, any game between the Steamers and Wichita is like a cup final, even in
regular season."
Kansas Coliseum, inhabited by an "Orange Army" several thousand
strong and sold out almost without fail, is the MISL's most notorious
snakepit.
"It may not be the toughest building to play in, but it's one of the toughest to
bring a win out of," Clements said. It's always hot and steamy. And
the noise is a factor in that the players can't hear each other even when they
shout. Then there's the field, which is more compact than most in width as
well as length. That makes it more of an end-to-end game than it already is.
Wichita will miss Chapman, but Jeff Bourne (41 goals, nine assists)
and Kim Roentved (20 goals, 22 assists) are both strong goal scorers,
and when (goalie Mike) Dowler gets hot, you can't put the ball past him."
Dowler has a 4.25 goals-against average.
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