Mike Ammann

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Mike Ammann (born February 8, 1971 in Orange, California) is an American soccer goalkeeper, now retired.

Ammann played college soccer at Cal State-Fullerton, finishing with a trip to the NCAA Final Four in 1993. He was spotted by a scout of English club Charlton Athletic and earned a surprise transfer to England, backstopping the Addicks for two seasons. When Major League Soccer started in 1996, Ammann signed with the then-Kansas City Wiz late in the inaugural season. In 1997, he would set a league record (since broken) with 21 wins.

Before the 1999 season, Ammann was traded to the MetroStars with Mark Chung for Tony Meola and Alexi Lalas. As unpopular as the trading away of local hero Meola was, Ammann quickly won the hearts of Metro fans. Unfortunately, the rest of the team didn't, as the 1999 Metro squad finished with the worst record in league history. Ammann's goalkeeping was not to blame, as he played behind a porous defense, but he did set the league record with 18 losses. He did win Defender of the Year honors in both the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

2000 was Ammann's best season as the Metros went through a re-birth. Ammann was the leading vote getter for the 2000 MLS All Star game and starting in goal for the Eastern Conference. But Mike had to miss the last five weeks of the season after a horrible incident involving Mamadou Diallo. In a game against the Tampa Bay Mutiny, Diallo stepped on the Metro goalie, breaking three ribs, puncturing his lung, and giving him a concussion. The incident, which was dubbed Crime of the Century by Metro teammate Mike Petke, saw Diallo receive no punishment. Ammann, on the other hand, had to miss the rest of the regular season, and then came back – not fully recovered – in the playoffs, courageously shutting out the Chicago Fire 2-0.

With the emergence of Tim Howard in Metro nets, Ammann was traded to DC United for Richie Williams and an allocation before the 2001 MLS season. Unfortunately for Mike, injuries dogged him the rest of the way, and he retired after not playing a minute in 2002. Ammann's elbow injuries were bad enough for surgery but he was not prepared to end his career. Unfortunately his doctor had never performed the procedure prior to operating on Ammann and left him permanently disabled. Ammann suffers disabilities in his right and left arms and hands. Dr. Hazel was found guilty by a jury of Malpractice in DC Courts. Although Ammann received a favorable decision, his fees outweighed the verdict adding another hardship to his unfortunate removal from the game. He has since been outspoken about some of the problems of MLS.^[1]

As of 2004, Ammann is working as a manager for Hitachi Data Systems within their Federal Division.

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After leaving Hitachi Data Systems at the end of March 2008, Mike Ammann has moved on to a career in the commercial division of ViON Corporation. ViON Corporation is largely known in the Washington, DC area for their expertise of providing Hitachi Data Systems Solutions and Maintenance Services to the traditional Federal Market Place.