D.C. United officially unveiled 20 years ago this week

The 2015 season is the 20th season of operation for Major League Soccer and 2016 will mark 20 years since the first games were played in 1996. When it was founded, the United States had been without a top-tier professional league since 1984, when the original North American Soccer League folded. So, throughout the 20th anniversary of the league, we are going to bring you some D.C. United history to celebrate.

20 years ago this week, Washington's new professional soccer team and its president, Kevin Payne, officially unveiled the team. They announced that the team would be named D.C. United, that its logo would be an eagle, and its colors would be black, red, and white. Payne told Steve Goff of the Washington Post:

"Every indication is that people in this country -- and particularly people in this market -- want top-level soccer and they will support it at RFK Stadium. . . . All of the factors involved have us pointed in the right direction."

Some of the previously proposed names included the Washington Monuments, the Washington Generals, and some of the kinds of names from which MLS teams have fled in recent years: the Fury, the Justice, the Force, and the Spies. The team had already acquired John Harkes and was close to signing two Bolivians to try and drum up excitement: Juan Berthy Suarez and Marco Etcheverry.

However, the team was still without a coach (though one was hotly linked with them) and still without the rest of the team. Next week, we will bring you more about that.