The term “milestone” gets passed around like a collection plate when it comes to pro sports. Every week it seems as if some player has reached some new massive number in the stats or some team has surpassed a previous high. As such, it’s often hard to know what the big deals are in our game.
Todd Dunivant playing in his 200th MLS game? A big deal. Kevin Hartman crossing 100 career shutouts on top of an MLS record 169 victories? Huge deal – those might never be surpassed.
When these benchmarks are approached, it’s worth pointing out the really big ones. As such, there are a few coming at us this week that say a lot about the longevity and prolific achievements of some of the bigger personalities in our league.
Here are two such milestones — granted, with a bit of a Galaxy bias attached to them — that can be reached during the Galaxy's match against Vancouver on Saturday at The Home Depot Center.
Bruce is boss. It’s beyond dispute that Bruce Arena is one of the greatest coaches in the history of the American game: two MLS Cups, two Supporters’ Shields, a US Open Cup, two MLS Coach of the Year awards, two CONCACAF Gold Cups, a quarterfinal finish at the 2002 World Cup and four NCAA Championships.
With a win over the last-place Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday, Arena can also move past his US national team successor Bob Bradley into second place on the list of all-time coaching wins in MLS. His 125th career victory will put him second only to Sigi Schmid’s 152 and counting.
That may not seem like such a big deal at first — after all, Arena should be among the all-time leaders, right? But consider that Bruce Almighty also took a little, um, hiatus from MLS to coach the USMNT for eight years. That’s literally half of the league’s existence in which Arena was busy in the most prestigious role there is for an American coach. That’s truly remarkable.
Keeping busy. When the LA Galaxy host Vancouver on Saturday night, it will be a milestone event for The Home Depot Center. Saturday’s match will be the 241st regular-season MLS game in Carson, surpassing RFK Stadium for the highest total at any venue in league history. RFK Stadium is the only field that has spanned the entire 16-year history of Major League Soccer, and 109 regular-season games were played there before the opening of The Home Depot Center on June 7, 2003. Chivas USA joined MLS in 2005, so two clubs have played their home games in Carson for the past seven seasons.
Some other facts and figures on The Home Depot Center: Landon Donovan has played more regular-season league matches there than any other MLS player (93), and he has scored more goals there (53) than the next two players combined: Edson Buddle (28) and Ante Razov (24). Kevin Hartman has kept the most clean sheets (19). RFK Stadium has still hosted more MLS postseason matches than any other venue (21). But The Home Depot Center has already staged as many MLS Cup Finals as RFK (3), and the 2011 Cup is scheduled for the stadium on November 20.
