The Chicago Fire, built with other teams' castoffs and a handful of players imported from Eastern Europe, didn't take long to become champions.
Try one season.The expansion Fire beat favored D.C. United 2-0 Sunday to win the MLS Cup.
"When we started building a team, we never thought we weren't supposed to be a good team," Chicago coach Bob Bradley said. "We worked hard all year and as the season progressed, we began believing in ourselves.
"We knew if we worked hard, we could compete for a championship."
Not only did the Fire compete, they beat the team that was the class of major league soccer in its first two seasons.
Bradley was a part of that success as well, winning championship rings as an assistant to United coach Bruce Arena.
Jerzy Podbrozny of Poland and Diego Gutierrez of Colombia scored goals 16 minutes apart in the first half and goalkeeper Zach Thornton and the Chicago defense did the rest before a crowd of 51,350 at the Rose Bowl on a warm, sunny day.
Midfielder and captain Peter Nowak, also a native of Poland and one of four "Eastern Bloc" players for Chicago, also had a big day, assisting on both goals and being voted the game's MVP.
"This is a very special day for me because I've never won a championship," said Nowak, one of the league's best playmakers.
Arena, considered a leading candidate for the vacant U.S. national team job, may have coached his final game for United.
He would not address that possibility, saying, "My only comments today are with this game."
And he had lots of those, particularly about the officiating.
"I'm very disappointed with a couple of controversial calls in the game," Arena said. "It's hard for me to believe we are not champions. The breaks went their way. A couple breaks go our way and maybe we're champions again.
"It seemed like we weren't given a chance in some way to defend our championship, with the number of cards dealt against us."
He contended that the Fire's Ante Razov should have been called offsides on Chicago's second goal.