Giovanni Savarese leads LI Soccer Player Hall of Fame inductees

New York Cosmos coach Giovanni Savarese headlined this year’s Long Island Soccer Player Hall of Fame class, which included six of his former teammates and his general manager from the 1995 Long Island Rough Riders national championship team. Danielle (Egan) Reyna, who won four titles with the University of North Carolina, was also inducted in cermonies last Saturday.

Savarese led the Rough Riders to the United States International Soccer League title in 1995, scoring the winning goal with six seconds left in the championship game against the Minnesota Thunder at Mitchel Field. The team had a large local presence, and many of the players went on to play in Major League Soccer when the league started the following year, Hall of Fame founder Kevin McCrudden said.

“There wasn’t anything really done to honor this group,” McCrudden said. “We’re inducting the most well-known players from Long Island, so why not honor the team?”

Savarese, a Venezuela native who played for LIU and was drafted by the NY/NJ MetroStars before MLS’ first season, has won two North American Soccer League championships in the past three seasons as the Cosmos head coach. He’s become a constant presence in the Long Island soccer community and McCrudden said he has an ability to bring out the best in players, starting in 1995 and continuing today.

“Especially now that he’s the coach of the Cosmos and they’ve won two national championships in three years, it goes to show his quality not just as a ball player but as a human being,” McCrudden said.

Paul Riley, Kevin Anderson, Mike Masters, Jim Rooney, Danny Mueller and Steve Cadet were the other team members inducted. Riley coaches the New York Flash in the National Women’s Soccer League, while Anderson coaches the Columbia men’s team. Masters was the first American to score a goal at England’s Wembley stadium. Rooney played for LIU Post, and Mueller is a Glen Cove native. Steve Cadet is a leadership coach at Wheatley and the Albertson Academy. Jim Kilmeade, the team’s general manager and 1995 general manager of the year, was given a surprise induction at the event at the Long Island Junior Soccer League convention March 5.

“This just happened to be an extraordinary group of guys,” McCrudden said. “When you think of the 1995 team, it was kind of like capturing lightning in a bottle.”

Reyna, from West Islip, won four national championships with the University of North Carolina, and made six appearances for the U.S. national team before a women’s professional league existed. North Carolina went 97-1-1 during her career.