Recalling the inaugural MLS All-Star game, a most American spectacle

Anyone who remembers the 1994 World Cup will not need reminding of the pure, unadulterated American-ness of it all. Well, the MLS All-Star game of 1996 ran it close.

The early years of MLS were stuck in that no man’s land in between serious league and sports entertainment, combining international stars with a unique penalty shoot-out format designed to avoid tied games.

The first ever All-Star game, held in the summer of 1996, was no different,

The mere existence of an All-Star game might sound like the most American thing possible, but only until you actually see what it looks like. It turns out there’s always a way of turning it up to 11.

There’s no harm in doing things differently, but the sense of spectacle can quickly go from ‘ramping up excitement’ to ‘oh, is this still going’.

That’s exactly what we got when, instead of both teams entering the field of play in unison, the players from the East and West entered one by one. We’re not saying they didn’t rehearse this, but a full five minutes of men jogging out onto a field one at a time might be enough for a few fans to wonder when they were going to see the actual sport.

We do get some nice little easter eggs during this period, though, from Jorge Campos’ introduction as a ‘Goalkeeper/Forward’, wearing a custom-made fluorescent No.9 shirt and goalie gloves, and Brian McBride doing something different with his hair for the first and last time.

The biggest cheer, though? That was for Alexi Lalas, deep into his goat-fallen-into-a-vat-of-curry-chic era.

The concept of East v West as an actual game is curious in its own right. It’s something we often discuss on Twitter with regards to a North v South Premier League clash, but the Americans actually made it happen.

Averag