ESPN

Our countdown of 2010's top 10 soccer stories and newsmakers -- from a Southern California slant -- continues.

• Stories/No. 7: Sol starts a trend

The L.A. Sol set the standard in Women's Professional Soccer's inaugural campaign in almost every regard, with the league's most professional organization, the most sponsorship and merchandising revenue, the best fan experience (in the league's best stadium) -- and, especially, on the field.

The Sol, featuring Brazilian superstar Marta and local heroine Shannon Boxx (Redondo Beach/South Torrance HS), went 12-3-5 in 2009, easily capturing WPS's regular-season title. They likely would have won the championship if not for a controversial red card not quite a half-hour into the final.

The team would never play another game. The team folded on Jan. 28 after negotiations with a potential new ownership group fell apart.

It began a trend in the league, and not a good one. Saint Louis Athletica, which posted the second-best regular-season record in year one, dissolved just six weeks into the 2010 campaign, and Bay Area-based FC Gold Pride -- winner of the 2010 title with Marta and Boxx leading arguably the finest women's team ever assembled -- packed up shop in November.

A month later, the Chicago Red Stars went on hiatus, with plans to return in 2012. The Washington Freedom, the lone survivor from the late, great 2001-03 Women's United Soccer Association, nearly went under, too.

What's left? A six-team league, entirely on the East Coast for 2011. The San Francisco-based front office has been all but scuttled, and survival remains uncertain, perhaps unlikely. Yet there are groups angling to join in 2012 and beyond, including one that wants to put a team in Orange County.

The Sol lost somewhere around $3 million in 2009. Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owned half the team and paid about 90 percent of the bills, pulled out -- as planned, it turned out -- after the first season, and Blue Star LLC, a partnership that included L.A. Blues owner Ali Mansouri and Australian actor Anthony LaPaglia, couldn't afford to run things on its own.

The league took control of the club in November 2009 and had a new owner, never identified, all but signed, sealed and delivered. That owner pulled out in mid-January, and the Sol was dead a week later.

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So much is changing in the wake of Chivas USA's worst season since its horrid start in 2005 that's it simple to think the club is making a new start.

Antonio Cue, the Goats' managing partner, doesn't disagree.

"I do think things are happening and changing," Cue (pronounced "quay") said Wednesday. "We're very excited about it. It's a great opportunity to do a lot of things we want to do. It is kind of a new beginning, for sure."

And so Cue is reaching back to the club's beginnings. He has resumed his former position as club president, a job he held until Shawn Hunter was brought aboard in September 2007, and says he he has no plans to relinquish the title.

So: One vacancy filled and two to go.

The club ostensibly had been looking for a new president since Hunter stepped down last month, and there remains openings for a head coach and, following vice president of soccer operations Stephen Hamilton's resignation Tuesday, for a general manager on the technical side.

Hamilton, who will continue to work with the club for "the next couple months" as an adviser, said Wednesday that he had "a couple of things I'm looking at" within the soccer world and that this "seemed like the right time for me" to step down.

"For me, personally," he said, "it felt like the right time to go in a different direction."

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Stephen Hamilton, Chivas USA's highest-ranking executive on the soccer side of the organization, abruptly resigned Thursday, seemingly leaving the Major League Soccer club in turmoil.

Hamilton, whose title was vice president for soccer operations, is the third major Chivas figure to step down or be fired since the club finished in October its worst season since its inaugural season. The club also is searching for a new head coach and president.

Hamilton, who attended the NCAA College Cup with Chivas USA coaches last weekend at UC Santa Barbara, was the club's chief figure in assessing and acquiring players and was working with ownership to find a replacement for Martin Vasquez, who was dismissed Oct. 27 as coach after refusing to allow one of his assistants to be reassigned within the organization. A source close to the club says there are three finalists for the post, and Hamilton had said the Goats hoped to make a decision by Christmas.

Club president Shawn Hunter resigned Nov. 2 so he could spend more time with his family, which lives in Denver.

Hamilton, who was not available for comment, will continue working with Chivas USA in an advisory role. Club adviser Jose L. Domene becomes interim general manager and will work with the committee looking to hire a head coach and prepare for next season.

Hamilton's brother, Doug, was the Galaxy's general manager in 2002-06. He died in March 2006 from a heart attack on a flight home from Costa Rica after L.A. was eliminated by Saprissa in the CONCACAF Champions Cup.

Martin Vasquez's abrupt dismissal last month as Chivas USA head coach had nothing to do with his performance or club management's confidence in him to lead the team in the next step of its rebuilding project.

As director of soccer Stephen Hamilton said following the Goats' final game, an Oct. 23 loss to Chicago at Home Depot Center: Vasquez was their guy, and the club had every intention of heading into the second year of a three-year plan with him at the helm.

It all fell apart within days, all over Vasquez's reluctance -- his refusal -- to replace a member of his staff.

Vasquez and Chivas USA managing partner Antonio Cue provided ESPN Los Angeles identical descriptions of a 3½-hour meeting two days following the Goats' season finale, one that both sides called positive and productive -- until Vasquez was told he would need to jettison one member of his staff.

The meeting -- involving Vasquez, Cue and Cue's brother, Lorenzo, an executive with Chivas USA LLC, the company that manages the club -- was a “great meeting,” Vasquez said, with discussion covering what went right and wrong in an 8-18-4, last-in-the-Western Conference campaign and the best way to improve the club.

Lorenzo Cue mentioned bringing in another assistant coach, and Vasquez, who was given his first head-coaching job by the club last December, said he “thought it was a good suggestion, a positive suggestion.”

By the end of the meeting, Vasquez said, “we had a plan of action going forward, and we felt very positive about going forward and turning this around.” Then, as the meeting was coming to an end, Vasquez was told “somebody from my staff had to go. I was not in agreement with that. I said if somebody was coming in to be part of the group, great. But losing somebody, I'm against it. Because I have a lot of confidence in my assistants, and they have all the knowledge to help us, to help Chivas USA, turn this around.”

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Chivas USA's organizational makeover continued Tuesday with club president/CEO Shawn Hunter's decision to step down. He will continue to assist the club in an advisory role.

Hunter, a respected and most approachable executive recruited three years ago from Galaxy owner Anschutz Entertainment Group, told ESPN Los Angeles that 5½ years of commuting from his Denver home to Los Angeles had prodded his decision.

"At the end of the day, with young boys -- my sons are 11 and 9 -- it became, hey, life is short," Hunter said. "I want to spend more quality time with my family. ...

"I made it back [to Denver] last week. I hadn't seen my kids for a couple of weeks. The good news is they came out for a good portion of summer, but I'm missing a lot of events -- a lot of important events -- during the school year."

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