Memories Of The 1996 New England Revolution
Stories from the players that experienced the Revolution's inaugural season.
In honor of the New England Revolution's 30th season, we want to remember those who first represented the club. The Revolution were one of ten teams participating in MLS's kickoff in 1996, two years after the 1994 World Cup on U.S. soil.
Coached by Frank Stapleton, a former Irish international who was 39 years old, the Revs were built around allocated players such as Mike Burns and Alexi Lalas. Joe-Max Moore emerged as the team MVP, Francis Okaroh won Revolution Defender of the Year, and Welton joined Lalas on the MLS All-Star team.
The club drew impressive crowds at Foxboro Stadium, averaging 19,025 fans and reaching a high of 38,633. They didn’t have the hoped-for success, finishing 9th in the league with nine wins, six shootout wins, and 17 losses.
Still, the inaugural season provided many memories for those in the stands and on the field. Below is a compilation of memories from players on that team.
Enjoy.
Alexi Lalas
Alexi Lalas takes great pride in helping launch the league. In a 2015 interview with “The Musket,” he explained, “It was very exciting. You don’t get many chances in life to be a part of something from the start that, if it goes right, will not only outlast your career but also your lifetime.”
Lalas still has love for New England and its supporters, noting, “I was disappointed that we couldn’t give the fanbase that supported us a better team to cheer right off the bat.”
Now, 30 years after that inaugural season, Lalas reflects on working with Stapleton, with whom he often clashed.
In 1996, MLS was a newborn and there was plenty of teething, on and off the field.
The Revolution’s first coach was Frank Stapleton. Frank was a legendary striker for the Republic of Ireland, Arsenal, and Manchester United…among others. He had only just retired from playing the year before.
Frank and I did not see eye to eye on many things and our relationship was rocky from the start, to say the least. Lots of ego and testosterone flying around.
To say that Frank and I approached our profession (and lives) differently would be an understatement. My lifestyle and personality were very different from what Frank saw for a player.
Frank, like many new coaches, struggled to come to terms with having to explain things as a coach rather than simply do things as a player. This frustration manifested in his insistence on often participating in training with the team. He would step into serious drills and scrimmages. He even got his ankles taped before training! But this only served to undermine his efforts to lead and be respected.
We, as players, saw it as a passive-aggressive move designed to show us up. We saw it as him thinking he was as good (or better) than us despite being retired and 40 years old. It was disrespectful and ultimately produced the exact opposite effect he intended.
Looking back at an older age, I have more sympathy for Frank's actions. He was doing what he thought was best by doing what he knew best. There’s a good chance I may have done the same thing if put in the same position.
You gotta remember that MLS in 1996 was the Wild West. We were often making it up as we went along, and we certainly had no idea that it would be going strong into its 30th season in 2025.
While we were just an average Revolution team in 1996, I had a wonderful time in Boston and seeing the city embrace the team and league is something I will never forget. I was one of the fortunate players returning from Europe who was given an opportunity to choose where to play in MLS.
There was only one place I wanted to go…New England. I had had so much fun and such great experiences, on and off the field, in Boston, and I wanted to live that on a daily basis. The great Guinness that flowed through the countless cozy dark-wooded Boston bars that I had frequented also may have played a part!
Admittedly, I was a romantic when it came to Boston. And while we didn’t win a lot of games, we had a lot of fun and we nurtured that Revolution baby that has grown up into an adult. I take pride in that and I don’t regret my choice of coming to The Revolution, not for a moment.
Zak Ibsen
Selected in the Supplemental Draft, Ibsen made six appearances for the Revolution before being traded to the Dallas Burn.
The defender, who played internationally for the United States, recalls working with Stapleton, as well as eating delicious sandwiches.
I can't remember all of the names, but there was a group of 8-10 of us who used to go to "Little Italy" almost daily to eat panini sandwiches at some amazing Italian restaurant because they loved the Italian player on the team and, of course, Alexi too. That was true/real team bonding!!
I feel like our team was a classic early American pro soccer team, a mishmash of players from all walks of life and quite the ‘melting pot.’ Unfortunately, our fearless leader, Frank Stapleton, couldn't quite make sense of it all and basically threw his hands in the air and declared we weren't good enough to compete :)
So he spent most of his time preparing to play in the day-after-game training sessions/scrimmages he set up with the players who sat on the bench or didn't get enough playing time. I believe he wanted to show us that he was (still) better than us and this led to some heated games. I remember slide-tackling him in one of these games as well as two-foot tackling him :)
This probably wasn't the best way to earn playing time from the reserve group but I did NOT care!
Aidan Heaney
Aidan Heaney almost didn’t have his MLS moment because a club didn’t initially select him despite winning a pair of USISL titles with the Greensboro Dynamo.
A trial with the Revs turned into an opportunity, which led to a contract. Heaney ultimately made 18 starts during that inaugural season.
While the results didn’t always go their way, Heaney has many fond memories from his time with the Revs, including a trick played on Welton.
“I remember distinctly that one time the players had a bit of fun with Welton,” Heaney recalled in our 2015 interview. “Welton asked what to say if someone says to you, ‘How are you doing?’ Basically, they told him to use a swear word. That was funny until he responded to someone high up in the Patriots organization who shall remain nameless.”
Now a coach at UNC Wilmington, Heaney is happy to have contributed to the game in many ways, saying, “I feel privileged to have been part of helping this sport grow, having been in the college game for so long.”
It's funny how you get an opportunity, right?
The Revs drafted a guy [Jim Adams] who was meant to join the team, but he was with the Cleveland Crunch, an indoor team, and he was still in the playoffs.
I was at UNC Chapel Hill as an assistant at the time. I was playing with the Greensboro Dynamo, which was in the USISL. We'd won a couple of national championships. MLS was just starting off and I hadn't been picked up.
And then I got this call when I'm at Chapel Hill and they said, “Hey, would you like to come down to preseason with New England in Florida?” So I go in to see my boss and say, “Hey, I got this call. I'd love to go down for the week. It's spring. We're doing routine training with the college guys.” And he goes, “No.” And I'm like, “Okay.”
So I went back to my office. I was sitting there, stewing for about half an hour, and then I went back in. I said, “I would really like to do this because I’d like to test myself and see where I'm at with the level.” So he agreed.
I went down and played a couple of scrimmage games during the week. Then, it was the first week of MLS, and they asked, “Would you be on the bench?” So I had to ask my boss. And he said, “Yeah, I'll let you do that.”
I flew back down to Tampa. I was on the bench, and as you probably know, Jim St. Andre got sent off in like the 89th minute. So I'm on. They took a free kick, it got blocked, it went out of bounds. I took a goal kick, and that was it. It was literally a minute on the field.
When we go back to the hotel, I can see Brian [O’Donovan, general manager] and Frank [Stapleton, head coach] having discussions in the corner during a meal.
Brian and Frank come over, and they’re like, “Hey, we would like you to play next week for the opener against MetroStars at Meadowlands.” So I'm like, “Sure, no problem.” I could tell they were panicking. And to me, I'm like, “Oh, this is great.”
So I go back to Chapel Hill and my boss says, “I saw you got on.” And I said, “Yeah, they want me to come and play at MetroStars, but they want me to come to Boston and train for the week. Can I do that?” And he's like, “Yeah, Okay.”
So I fly to Boston and train for the week, and then we go down to play MetroStars. If you look at the history of it, it's tied. And they scored an own goal, maybe with a couple of minutes left in the game. We won the game 1-0.
We're having a post-game function after, and I'm chatting with Alexi [Lalas]. This guy is there, and I'm just chatting away. He'd been in the locker room and I could hear talk that he's a musician.
So after the game, it's me and this guy and Alexi, and we were chatting and I was like, “So what do you do?” He goes, “Oh, I'm in a band.” I went, “All right, that's great, man. What do you do in the band?” He goes, “I play the guitar and I'm the lead singer.” I was like, “Oh, wow, that's fantastic.” I was, “What's the name of your band?” He says, “Metallica”. And I was like, “Oh my.” But he looked so plain there. He just had a plastic bag and he was just casual. You wouldn’t have thought.
The upshot was that I went back to Chapel Hill, and my boss was like, “Okay, we can't keep doing this. They're either going to sign you, or you’re going to come back and continue as the assistant to Chapel Hill.” I said, “Yeah, I agree. It's fair.”
So, I went up to Boston again to train and get ready for the home opener. On the day of the game, I met with Sunil [Gulati] literally before kick-off and ironed things out to come on full-time with them.
And then we went out and played the home opener. It was tied 1-1 at the end of the game, and it went to the 35-yard shootout. It went to a sudden death shootout. And who steps up to take a shootout? Eddie Pope.
The background that people didn't know was I coached Eddie at Chapel Hill. I was his coach. And he gets up to take it, and I'm like, “Oh, my God. No way I'm letting Eddie score. He's a center back.” And sure enough, I saved the sudden death kick and we won the first home opener. So it was just all this little inside stuff that people didn't even realize.
Great times. There were some wonderful memories. It was definitely an opportunity. I was happy and grateful for the opportunity that I had and very much enjoyed it.
Rob Ukrop
As the player scored the first and second goals in Revolution history, Ukrop will forever be remembered in club lore.
Ukrop landed in New England after playing for various indoor and outdoor soccer teams, including the Richmond Kickers, Baltimore Spirit, and Dayton Dynamo.
The striker had a brace against the Tampa Bay Mutiny in the season opener. Silencing a crowd of 26,473 was an incredible moment, but it’s not what sticks out the most to him.
“My most vivid memory was that we lost the game,” Ukrop reflected in 2015. “If you score two goals and you lose, it doesn’t really matter. The final was 3-2, and I remember that I missed a header late into the game. I just missed the inside of the post. It went wide a little bit, and that would have evened the game up.”
A few months later, Ukrop was called to the locker room. He remembers Alexi Lalas predicting what was to come.
“Just being naïve and having no clue, I looked at Alexi and Alexi was like, ‘Where are you going?’ I go, ‘They want to talk to me in the locker room for a second.’ Then all of a sudden he drops an expletive and he goes, ‘Holy beep, you’re getting cut!’ I was like, ‘Oh my Gosh, I’m getting cut’.”
Ukrop eventually found his way back to his hometown club, the Richmond Kickers. He has since ascended to the role of Chairman. Below are some memories from his time in Foxboro.
Our first game was in Tampa and during the day, I used to travel around with my Sony Camcorder. We just documented the day, walking around the mall doing nothing super exciting but laughing and staying loose for our first game in MLS. I still have the video on little cartridges but haven’t watched them in many years. I think it was Darren Sawatzky, John DeBrito, Ted Chronopolous, and a couple of others just walking around in the mall in Tampa.
For the home opener, Darren and I parked and walked to the stadium, where we signed some autographs as the fans waited outside. We met Scott Zawadzki and his son. We signed an autograph and spoke to them for a couple of minutes.
Fast-forward many years. I was playing on a co-ed indoor soccer team in Richmond, and Scott was the referee. He told me he appreciated me speaking to his son on opening day in 1996. Currently, his daughter is engaged to one of our key Richmond Kickers staff members who runs our stadium and F&B program. Soccer is a small world and has a cool way of strengthening communities.
The same game that Aidan [Heaney] got sent off, my parents had flown up to the game with some family friends who were excited to see me play. I believe I tapped the opening kickoff and it was my only touch of the game. Once Aidan got sent off, we needed to make a substitution, and I was the forward who was taken off.
Two things happened. First, I went into the shower and Aidan looked at me and said, “What are you doing in here?” And I said, “We had to sub a keeper on since you got sent off.” He then apologized.
The second was about my parents, who were there. My dad understood what was happening instantly and knew it is part of the game, but mom didn't take the news so well. She went to the concession stands and in an act of kindness to counteract her frustration with my early sub, treated some fans to concession items!
AOL Messageboards/Chatrooms were the way to communicate with fans in those days. I had my Compaq Presario computer in my apartment and from time to time, would jump into rooms to see how the Revolution fans were feeling.
Alexi Lalas also would check them out, and we both found ourselves in a room where the fans weren’t so kind after a loss. Since Alexi was our highest-profile player, they went after him pretty good in the room, and in a moment of awesomeness, Alexi revealed himself to be Alexi.
When that happened the entire room changed their tone and began apologizing and making excuses for going after him. He typed a message that was something like this: I respected you a lot more when you shared your real opinions. Now that you changed because you know I am in the room, I have less respect for you. It was a good reminder of authenticity which is what we valued in Alexi as a teammate and a human being.
Darren Sawatzky
Sawatzky called New England home in 1996 and 1997. Today, he coaches the Richmond Kickers, which is chaired by Ukrop.
When the Revolution released a retro-inspired jersey in 2020, I contacted Sawatzky to ask how it compared to the one worn in 1996. His response was classic.
“I would have worn a toga if I needed to in order to get the opportunity to be part of that first season of MLS,” he said.
Five years later, Sawatzky recalls some of his favorite moments, including a two-goal performance that his grandparents watched on national television.
I am so grateful for this game and the opportunities I have had as a player and coach in this country.
It is really rare to be part of the ~150 domestic players who launched MLS along with the amazing international players. Truly, you could plug Carlos Valderrama, Marco Etcheverry, Roberto Donadoni, Tab Ramos, Joe-Max Moore, and others right into current teams, and they would be stars to this day.
I have so many fond memories of that first year, I will give you a few.
1. Combine: In the late fall of 1995, MLS pushed a glutton of players into hotels and made us all train and play games in California for a week. From that, the inaugural draft beckoned, and the majority of those domestic players came from this soccer symposium of mainly college no-name players to make up this new league. Brian McBride, Tony Sanneh, Jason Kreis, and so many more sat around tables together in a cafeteria to eat lunch, then shuttle out to a small college and play games each day coached by the top coaches at that time. Some of these coaches became the inaugural MLS head coaches a couple of months later. Real cool experience that will never be replicated.
2. Pre-season: When we all got drafted, we launched into pre-season, mainly on two coasts. The east teams all went to Boca Raton and the West teams went somewhere in California. Teams were all in low-end hotels, training daily and playing against each other to try and get ready for the first-ever game between San Jose and DC. The craziest two parts of this were the fact that we all played against each other to get ready (true single entity helping each other out) and the end of the pre-season ambiguity.
We had so many players come in and train and get cut, then another set of players would come in, get cut, and this cycle went on for 6-8 weeks. When we finally ended preseason, the staff let us know we made the team and were going to be playing the 1996 season (as long as we made the semi-guaranteed date of July 1).
So, here we are in Boston, and 6-7 of us find out that we are on the team permanently. We were told to go find housing on our own and we had a week of hotel stay until we had to pay for it ourselves! We literally looked at each other and said, "You need a roommate?” And off we went to find an apartment together. This turned out to be a really cool experience also and my roommate was Rob Ukrop, who I now work for in Richmond 30 years later. Those bonds were made with the start of the league.
3. July 20, 1996: I was a workmanlike player with pace and I made no bones about my level in the game. I did, however, play games and I was productive in MLS. I see a lot of players in the league today that are very similar to the type of player I was when I played in MLS.
On July 20, 1996, we played a home game against DC United at Foxboro Stadium. This game was different because back then we did not have nationally televised games every week. We had to build the league and it took a very long time for TV deals to reach a point where you can watch every game on Apple TV like it is now.
So, in this nationally televised game on ESPN, I started the game, and my grandfather and grandmother in Yakima, Washington were able to tune in (my parents also watched this game in Federal Way, Washington). For my grandparents, I was just this kid from a humble background who was always running around with a soccer ball, perplexing a working-class family who did not really understand why I spent so much time chasing a sport none of them ever played.
I scored two goals in this game and we won the game 2-0. I celebrated each goal like it was the last goal I would score (I always have). It is hard to score goals, especially at the professional level, and goals deserve to be celebrated. My grandparents, my parents, and pretty much everyone I knew throughout my life seemed to have watched that game. It was another amazing experience from the 1996 season and the launch of MLS. I have the game ball from that day and to be honest, no one knows the significance of the ball except me, not even in my house. What a fun day to be an American soccer player.
I will always be, and I am, a big Revolution supporter. Even though I have played on other MLS teams and coached for others, the NE Revolution is my MLS team.
Teddy Chronopoulos
Chronopoulous was playing for Panionios in Greece when MLS was forming. Drafted 45th overall in the Inaugural MLS Draft, he was excited about the opportunity to play in front of friends and family.
Chronopoulos ended up playing for the Revolution between 1996 and 2002 and still remembers fans enthusiastically singing, “Oh, when the Revs!”
In 2015, Chronopoulos told a fun story about Welton, saying, “He was one day away from being released and then one training session changed everything. We were a day away from leaving pre-season camp to return to MA. We had to stay an extra week because of the snowstorm up north. We had a training session at a local park (that's what we had to deal with back then), and Frank Stapleton had us doing 1v1 to goal from a good distance. Let's just say Welton arrived from Brazil. He was explosive, creative, and Brazilian! From that moment on we saw his talent.....then of course we traded him.....Lol!
Ten years later, Chronopoulos talks about finding his first New England apartment.
My first experience in 1996 was surreal. We had to travel down to Florida with the rest of the MLS teams and ended up staying an extra week because Boston got hit with a snowstorm. When we finally returned, none of us knew where we were going to live. Not everyone on the team had a car, so we carpooled from one apartment complex to another, following each other around. Once one group found a place, everyone else followed. It was pretty crazy!
The other part that stood out was the fan base. Even after a 3-4 game losing streak, we’d still have 40,000 fans in the stands. The support was incredible—something I’ll never forget.
Tom Lips
Tom Lips started his career in Switzerland before coming to the United States to play for the North Jersey Imperials and New York Fever of the USISL. The Revolution selected the defender in the Inaugural Player Draft.
Lips made eight appearances in his only Major League Soccer season. While his stint was brief, it was certainly memorable.
I don’t have a single moment. I had many moments, whether it was playing in games, going to preseason, or playing in California.
My fondest memory is having the boys over–Geoff Aunger, Alexi Lalas, Coach Stapleton, and some others–and cooking dinner with them. I would make fresh sauce and all types of Italian food. Just breaking bread and having a great time.
That was my favorite time—when the training and hard work were over, and you got to go break bread with everyone. Or when I got to go out with Zak Ibsen. That guy loved to dance. I went out, and I couldn’t even walk the next day because I was so tired from standing all night dancing. He was a fun kid like that.
It was a plethora of fun times. I enjoyed it from the first minute to the last minute. I just wish I could’ve played in Major League Soccer earlier in my career, as my body was a little broken in the latter stages.
My fondest memories were breaking bread, Lexi playing his guitar, and going for our afternoon coffee in the beautiful city of Boston.
Great story! Having been a season ticket holder since 1997 and attending all of the 1996 home matches, I remember those guys. Those were great times. Got hooked at the 94 World Cup
These are the types of stories I love to read. For fans like me much of the history pre 2008 is unknown. I really appreciate this article.