A quarter-century ago, Kansas City’s Wizards were the talk of Major League Soccer

Major League Soccer will crown a first-time champion in Saturday’s MLS Cup final in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It’s Lionel Messi and the star-studded Inter Miami squad against the upstart Vancouver Whitecaps, now led by German legend Thomas Mueller.

But 25 years ago, MLS’ first-time champion looked a lot different than today’s teams. The Kansas City Wizards — a team that went from worst to first overnight — were the toast of the league.

Tumult of 1999 gives way to joy of 2000

The 1999 Wizards had the second-worst record in the league that season. They also set franchise low-water marks for fewest points in a season (20) and points per game (0.63) — and those records remain to this day.

A year later, the Wizards underwent a complete turnaround and ran the table and win both the Supporters’ Shield and league title. This year, in July, many of the players and staff from that championship squad returned to Kansas City to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a most improbable run.

“Some people said, ‘Maybe you guys got a chip on your shoulder,’” the Wizards’ coach at that time, Bob Gansler, told The Star. “I said, ‘One chip? Excuse me. There are two shoulders, right?’”

If Gansler and company could identify with one of the two present-day MLS finalists, it might be Vancouver. The Whitecaps hired a new head coach and brought in players deemed surplus by other teams, including Tristan Blackman, Sebastian Berhalter and Jayden Nelson.

The Wizards in 2000 brought in a host of new faces: Kerry Zavagnin (who served as interim head coach in 2025 before parting ways with the organization); Peter Vermes (ousted as manager earlier this season); and Matt McKeon, Nick Garcia and Miklos Molnar, just to name a few players.

That group turned the tide, adding to the team’s existing strength with such core players as Tony Meola, Preki and Chris Brown.

KC Wizards were ‘hungry for success’

The team didn’t lose in its first 12 games, and that stoked the flames of confidence for a group that rallied around each other — with a chip on each shoulder, as Gansler said.

“There was nothing that we thought we couldn’t do,” Gansler said. “They were there for each other…it was a good group, at a time that they were hungry for success.”

The Star caught up with several players from the 2000 team, as well as Gansler, during a reunion dinner. Preki echoed Gansler’s sentiment about the team’s spirit.

“(We were) a really hard team to beat,” Preki said. “I felt at a time there might have been a couple of teams in the league more talented than us. But as a collective, I thought we were better.”

The final match was one thing. But Preki, along with Chris Klein, said KC’s semifinal win against the L.A. Galaxy made a huge difference. After losing Game 2 in Los Angeles by a 2-1 score, the Wizards found a way to advance.

“The flight home from L.A. when we were down, everyone had a belief that we were going to come back,” Klein said. “I think that was the moment that really — a final is a final — but that moment, being able to come back … it was really a group that refused to lose. That character in a team is something that you can’t replace.”

Winning the third game 1-0 in regulation, thanks to a goal from Molnar, the stage was set for a “golden goal” overtime. Molnar put one into the back of the net six minutes in to send the Wizards on to the MLS Cup final.

The heroics of Tony Meola

To talk about the Wizards’ 2000 MLS Cup team without mentioning Meola’s heroics would be shortsighted.

Meola is still the only goalkeeper to win the league’s MVP award. He posted 16 shutouts (still a league record), as well as a goals-against average of 0.92 and an 82% save percentage.

After re-watching highlights of the championship game, former teammate Brown said he wondered how the team even won.

“Meola came up with so many saves,” Brown said. “But that was our team that year: gritty.”

Meola faced 22 shots and made 10 saves in the title match, garnering MLS Cup MVP honors. Molnar’s goal in the 11th minute, with nearly 40,000 on hand at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., cemented Kansas City’s first trophy since the 1985 Royals won the World Series.

“We used to kind of joke about being misfits from other teams,” Meola said. “(We were) a bunch of guys with chips on their shoulders that needed to prove something.”

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.

This story was originally published December 4, 2025 at 1:19 PM.