1993 American Professional Soccer League

American Professional Soccer League -1993 Season-
Season1993
ChampionsColorado Foxes
(2nd title)
PremiersVancouver 86ers
(1st title)
1994 CONCACAF Champions' CupLos Angeles Salsa
Top goalscorerPaulinho
(15 goals)
1992
1994

Statistics of American Professional Soccer League in season 1993.

History

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In 1993, the league added three teams from Canada. The Canadian Soccer League had collapsed at the end of the 1992 season and the Vancouver 86ers and Toronto Blizzard along with a new club the Montreal Impact moved to the APSL. Vancouver topped the regular season standings, but fell in the playoff semifinals to the Los Angeles Salsa. In the other semifinal, the Colorado Foxes defeated the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Although the Foxes had a better record than the Salsa, the championship game took place in Los Angeles because the Foxes home stadium of Englewood High School had a homecoming football game the night of the championship.[1]

In 1993 before the USSF chose MLS as Division 1, a couple teams had significant capital backing, had local TV and radio deals, and many of the players were US national team hopefuls or Canadian internationals.

Regular season

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The competition was a single table on the league principle with a balanced schedule home and away where each of the seven teams plays the other six four times. The league`s regular season was played over twenty weeks, beginning April 30 and concluding Sept. 12. The top four in the table qualified for a single-elimination tournament held in September. The league was a generally close competition, given the points system adopted all teams were still in the playoff race into early August or about 70% of the season. The points system included 6pts for a win, 4pts for a shootout win, 2pts for a shootout loss, and bonus points for goals to a maximum of three. If the game was tied, then instead of following FIFA rules of two 15-minute extra halves followed by penalty kicks, the APSL did two 7.5 minute extra halves followed by the NASL shootout. The shootout consisted of the player starting 35 yards from the net, goalkeeper in net, and five seconds for the player to score (essentially a timed five second break-away skills competition). Game day rosters had to have eleven of the eighteen as domestic players.

Place Team GP W L WN WE WS LN LE LS GF GA GD Points
1 Vancouver 86ers 24 15 9 11 2 2 8 0 1 43 35 +8 126
2 Colorado Foxes (C) 24 15 9 12 0 3 6 3 0 40 34 +6 121
3 Tampa Bay Rowdies 24 12 12 10 2 0 10 1 1 53 47 +6 118
4 Los Angeles Salsa 24 12 12 8 1 3 9 0 3 41 37 +4 109
5 Toronto Blizzard 24 10 14 8 2 0 11 1 2 35 41 -6 97
6 Fort Lauderdale Strikers 24 9 15 8 0 1 11 1 3 39 52 -13 94
7 Montreal Impact 24 11 13 9 0 2 11 1 1 28 33 -5 90

Playoffs

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Bracket

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Semifinals 1993 APSL Final
      
1 Vancouver 86ers 2(1)
4 Los Angeles Salsa 2(3)
4 Los Angeles Salsa 1
2 Colorado Foxes 3
2 Colorado Foxes 1
3 Tampa Bay Rowdies 0

Semifinal 1

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Semifinal 2

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Colorado Foxes (CO)1–0Tampa Bay Rowdies (FL)
Brian Haynes 74:25' Report

Final

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Los Angeles Salsa (CA)1–3 (a.e.t.)Colorado Foxes (CO)
Philip Gyau 67' Report Ted Eck 87:38'
Taifour Diané 104:50' (Lipp)
Robert Lipp 110' (Diané)

Points leaders

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Rank Scorer Club Goals Assists Points
1 Paulinho Los Angeles Salsa 15 7 37
2 Paul Wright Los Angeles Salsa 13 7 30
3 Paul Dougherty Tampa Bay Rowdies 8 11 27
4 Zico Doe Fort Lauderdale Strikers 12 2 26
Hector Marinaro Toronto Blizzard 7 12 26
6 Taifour Diané Colorado Foxes 10 5 25
Pierre Morice Tampa Bay Rowdies 9 7 25
8 Domenic Mobilio Vancouver 86ers 10 3 23
9 Scott Benedetti Colorado Foxes 10 1 21
10 Fernando Aguiar Toronto Blizzard 9 1 19
Ted Eck Colorado Foxes 8 2 19
Carlo Corazzin Vancouver 86ers 7 5 19
13 Alvin James Fort Lauderdale Strikers 7 4 18
Steve Trittschuh Tampa Bay Rowdies 7 4 18
15 Jean Harbor Tampa Bay Rowdies 5 7 17
16 Brad Smith Tampa Bay Rowdies 6 4 16
Ivor Evans Vancouver 86ers 4 8 16
Dale Mitchell Vancouver 86ers 4 8 16
Amadeo Gasparini Toronto Blizzard 4 8 16
20 Grant Needham Montreal Impact 6 3 15
21 Eddy Berdusco Toronto Blizzard 5 3 13

Honors

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References

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  1. ^ Foxes become road warriors in title defense The Denver Post - Saturday, October 2, 1993
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