It was undeniably more dramatic than standard penalty kicks, but whether it belonged in the sport was less clear. `This thing is not part of the game of soccer,' fumed Gordon Bradley after the Cosmos had lost their first of the new tie-breakers. `One hundred and forty-eight countries around the world are smart enough not to put things like this into the game,' Eddie Firmani warned. 'We're getting further and further away from the game as it is played in the rest of the world ... Soon we'll have five or six rules to change when we play against foreign teams.' Most of the favourable views seemed to come from the Americans. 'We are all about showbiz,' Al Miller claimed, 'and you have to please your audience.'
Thirty of the 234 regular-season matches were decided by the Shootout in 1977, some rather ignominiously. Artificial pitches provided the greatest potential for embarrassment, cruelly exposing any unfamiliarity with the super-quick surface. Many an unwary player would race towards goal only to find the ball running away from him and into the arms of a grateful goalkeeper. Players - and the occasional referee - often forgot that the attacker was allowed five seconds to shoot, not find the net, and that scoring from a rebound was not allowed, even if time remained.
Fortunately, the most significant event that season had little to do with tie-breakers or refereeing controversies. It wasn't even related to CBS's decision to cancel the final year of its Soccer Bowl contract (the 1976 finale had been another ratings flop). The biggest news that winter, with the benefit of hindsight, was the decision of the Cosmos to abandon New York City. For this, they had the NFL's New York Giants to thank. Five years earlier the Giants had declared their intention to leave the city for a new stadium to be built in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It was a contentious decision. No big-league club had crossed state lines before, at least not without changing its name. The outcry among New Yorkers was fierce, with mayor John Lindsay vowing to'restrict the right of the Giants to call themselves by the name of the city they have chosen to leave'.
But by 1976 the Giants' new home - actually part of a 'Meadowlands Sports Complex' which included a racetrack, an indoor arena and possibly the body of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa - was ready for occupation. It was in fact no further from Times Square than Yankee Stadium, but to New Yorkers New Jersey was still New Jersey, and their bitterness did not readily subside. (When the team, name intact, won its first Super Bowl in 1987, mayor Ed Koch denied them the satisfaction of the customary ticker-tape parade through the city.) Giants Stadium was a $75 million, 76,000-seat structure designed expressly for football, but its artificial surface made it more amenable to ground-sharing. Toye signed up for ten years. The agreement offered a happy degree of latitude in fixture selection and few conflicts with other sports, since the NFL and NASL seasons barely overlapped. Perhaps more importantly, the facility, surrounded by 25,000 parking spaces, was within easy reach of soccer-friendly communities. Less than four miles down the New Jersey Turnpike stood the city of Kearny.
Thus, The Cosmos, as they were now officially called (not the New York Cosmos, and with a pompous capital 'T') entered a new era, the one most of the world would remember them for. 'We are going to fill this stadium again and again for soccer,' Toye declared, though when the 1977 season kicked off his boast seemed distinctly idle. The Cosmos remained an unseemly tangle of egos and a mishmash of playing styles, and the disenchantment of their marquee player, now in the final year of his contract, was plain for all to see. Pele did not report for duty until two weeks before the season, almost a month and a half later than most of his team-mates. Bruised pride wasn't hard to find. Chinaglia, firmly ensconced as the resident prima donna (it was said he had once paid two team-mates to stand throughout a crowded flight so he could stretch his frame across three seats), said: 'I don't feel a part of this team ... sometimes I feel like it's just a waste of my time playing here.' A beleaguered Gordon Bradley began the new campaign with two Americans, five Englishmen, a Yugoslav, a Peruvian, an Italian and Pele on the field - and lost 1-0 to a team playing its first league game.
But Woosnam, now given to longer hair and flashier suits and having lost much of his Welsh accent, still burned with ambition. By 1985, he predicted, the NASL would have 32 clubs and its wages would begin to match those of the NFL. And that was only the start. 'I am totally confident,' he insisted, that soccer will be the biggest sport in this country, and that the United States will be the world centre of soccer.' This might have seemed ludicrous, yet anyone who had witnessed local baseball diamonds being perforated with soccer posts, and the hordes of youngsters monopolising Saturday morning playing fields, could scarcely discount it.
TV still represented the linchpin of his strategy, and for 1977 Woosnam turned to a syndicated network with a presence in most of the major markets. While the new package was modest - only four regular-season games, plus two play-off matches and the Soccer Bowl - it was more than a nationwide audience had been able to see for some time. The aloof relationship between TV and soccer showed other signs of thawing. Public television, which had offered live NASL matches in 1975, began presenting weekly hour-long highlights of West German matches under the banner Soccer Made in Germany. (For a time it also carried an English equivalent, Star Soccer, bought from ITV.) Audiences were minuscule, but non-commercial television could afford to be more forgiving, relying as it did on donations rather than ratings. Soccer Made in Germany endured in various guises for more than a decade, providing the American fan with a window on German football few other countries could match at the time.
The Bundesliga would make an even more indelible impression on the Cosmos. Having convinced Pele to come out of retirement for an unprecedented amount of money, Warner saw no reason why a similarly hefty offer wouldn't entice the European Footballer of the Year, Franz Beckenbauer. The move was not quite as preposterous as it might seem. Beckenbauer's private life had become a perpetual source of fascination to the German media after a series of extra-marital relationships, and his club's inability to reclaim its Bundesliga superiority had helped to sour relations with Dettmar Cramer. Initially, Beckenbauer insisted the earliest he would leave Germany was after the 1978 World Cup, but an offer of about $2.8 million, spread over four years, helped change his mind. He arrived in New York in May 1977.
Few could see it, but the Cosmos and the league had begun to take leave of their senses. If Pele's arrival had boosted the NASL, Beckenbauer's signalled one club's intention to overwhelm it. Some were sceptical of his appeal. 'He's a great player, don't get me wrong,' Chinaglia brooded. 'But is he going to help us with the crowds? No. He won't draw in this country.'
As it turned out, fans flocked to see the Cosmos that season, with or without their new star. More than 45,000 witnessed Beckenbauer's league debut, a 4-2 defeat in Tampa. When the two teams met a month later at Giants Stadium, Pele scored a hat trick in front of an eyepopping 62,394, a figure which prompted the head of the USSF to claim, somewhat thoughtlessly: 'When they write the history of soccer in this country, that afternoon will be Day One in all the books.' It wouldn't, because Day Ones kept cropping up throughout the summer. On one memorable Sunday the Cosmos even outdrew the Yankees with a gate of 57,000. Admittedly, they did not play 81 times at home as their baseball rivals did, but the Yankees went on to win the World Series that year, and there wasn't a serious sports fan in the nation who couldn't recite most of their starting line-up. The Cosmos, on the other hand, used 26 players during the season, some famous, like Brazilian World Cup defender Carlos Alberto, some unheralded, like English striker Steve Hunt - an emerging star - and others, like Yugoslav Jadranko Topic and Brazil's Rildo, who disappeared after a handful of matches.
The key man was Chinaglia, and not just for his prowess in front of goal. His relationship with Warner chairman Steve Ross had become so intimate that many considered him to be the club's real general manager. It was no coincidence that two of the officials Chinaglia disliked most, head coach Bradley and president Toye, were removed from their positions by the end of the season
. In July Bradley gave way to Tampa's Eddie Firmani, who only weeks earlier had mysteriously quit the highflying Rowdies for 'personal reasons'. Shortly beforehand, eyewitnesses claimed to have seen Firmani dining with Chinaglia.
The unprecedented number of fans flocking to see the Cosmos in their posh new home at last established a presence where the NASL needed it most. Elsewhere, a familiar ratio of failures remained. Membership had declined to 18 clubs with the passing away of Boston and Philadelphia, and the league began to show its proclivity for hasty franchise relocations and daft nicknames. Miami moved up the coast to a smaller market in Fort Lauderdale and renamed themselves the Strikers. Hartford became Connecticut after a move 40 miles south to Yale University (with Bill Cox as their new president and general manager, his last significant involvement in the game) but remained the Bicentennials even though the nation was now well past its 200th birthday. The San Diego Jaws migrated to Las Vegas as the Quicksilvers - or was it the Quicksilver? - and Ward Lay's San Antonio Thunder moved to Honolulu, where they gave up on nicknames altogether and called themselves Team Hawaii.
Most ofthe new entries were short-lived. Hawaii, a logistical nightmare, became a dismal one-season experiment. Las Vegas finished last in their division and then left Nevada, while Connecticut disappeared after playing to the league's smallest crowds. Only Fort Lauderdale showed any real promise. Ron Newman, their coach, gave the club a predictably English look, emphasising fitness and a tight defence. Gordon Banks came out of retirement in spite of having the lost sight in one eye as a result of a road crash, and played capably enough to be named in the league's all-star team - though not without misgivings ('I felt like a circus act: "Roll up, roll up to see the greatest one-eyed goalkeeper in the world"'). Seemingly headed for Soccer Bowl 77 as the latest first-year success story, they were undone on the soggy artificial pitch of Giants Stadium by a Cosmos team at its free-flowing best. With Beckenbauer - moved from sweeper into the midfield role where he had started his career - playing in front of Carlos Alberto, and Chinaglia, Hunt and Tony Field combining up front, the home side pumped eight goals past Banks, all but eliminating the Strikers before the return leg even began.
The wild 8-3 scoreline was witnessed by an audience even the Cosmos' NFL cohabitants failed to match that year: 77,691, a figure soon to assume iconic status in American soccer. (It even set a new North American record, eclipsing the improbable 71,619 who saw the 1976 Olympic final between East Germany and Poland in Montreal.) For years to come, the illuminated proclamation of the Giants Stadium scoreboard that August evening would be reproduced whenever the NASL's 'meteoric' rise was charted - something which now began to happen with increasing frequency.
Often misconstrued as the new incarnation of American soccer, the exceptional Cosmos and their sudden throng of fans distracted attention away from more earnest upsurges elsewhere. An appreciable proportion of Dallas began to follow the Tornado, whose combination of American and imported talent, skilfully blended by Al Miller, claimed a divisional title. Yet average crowds of 16,500, respectable as they might be, did not make for good copy when three or four times as many were turning East Rutherford, New Jersey, into the soccer capital of the continent. Nearly 74,000 returned to the Meadowlands for the Cosmos' next home playoff match against the Rochester Lancers, and the 4-1 victory sent them into Soccer Bowl 77. The next day, Seattle drew more than 56,000 to the Kingdome and reached the final by beating Los Angeles 1-0.
Suddenly, the modest 27,000 capacity of Portland's Civic Stadium, which the league had selected as the venue for Soccer Bowl 77, seemed utterly inadequate. Temporary seats accommodated an extra 8,500, but with the match promoted as Pele's last competitive appearance, they were scarcely enough. It was a mistake Phil Woosnam would not make again.
A mistake - as big as they came - handed the Cosmos an early lead. Tony Chursky, Seattle's Canadian goalkeeper (who attracted the attention of sportswriters by admitting to practising ballet to help his game), rolled the ball to the edge of his penalty area, only for Hunt to steal in and whack it into the net. The Sounders quickly equalised, but ten minutes from time Chinaglia won the match with a rare headed goal. Pele's American sojourn had ended as most had hoped. `God has been kind to me; now I can die,' he declared, having exchanged his jersey with the Sounders' Seattle-born defender Jim McAlister, a torch passed to the nation's own young talent.
Two months later, a friendly in the Meadowlands between the Cosmos and Santos saw Pele 'returned to the people of Brazil', playing a half for each team in a rainstorm that failed to dissuade 75,000 from saying farewell. ABC television got in on the act, broadcasting its first live soccer match and stage-managing proceedings with the help of such theoretical soccer fans as Danny Kaye, Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, and an elaborate ceremony involving Muhammad Ali and a host of others that threatened to supplant the actual game. But the charisma of the retiree shone through. Pele scored, waved to the soggy crowd, burst into tears and was carried off the pitch as, some poetically claimed, 'God cried'.
His mission seemed accomplished. Soccer had never been so popular. While the joy of playing it had been obvious for some time, Pele had heightened interest in watching it and reading about it. Newspapers across the country now carried NASL results and wrote features on college and high school teams, printing photos invariably captioned with a reference to players 'getting their kicks'. Magazines with titles such as Soccer Corner and Soccer Express - and, for a time, even a weekly soccer tabloid - appeared on newsstands. Bookstores made space for All About Soccer, Inside Soccer and The International Book of Soccer; Shep Messing even found a publisher for his autobiography, The Education of an American Soccer Player, written before his 29th birthday. The unfailing cultural barometer of television advertising now featured soccer players muddying their clothes or working up a thirst for the benefit of commerce.
What some had prophesied in 1967 as 'instant major league' had come to pass - it had just taken a few years longer than expected. Yet the handsome mansion the NASL had built for itself still lacked a sturdy foundation. Nobody had made any money yet, least of all the Cosmos, and most of the league's membership remained anonymous outside a tiny circle of obsessive fans. But in the infectious spirit of the times, these seemed little more than bothersome details. Surely, soccer's time had finally come.
6. Shootout to the Death
The collapse of the NASL
I tell you, those Cosmos were the best and the worst thing that happened to this league.
Atlanta Chiefs official, 1980
occer in America had never experienced anything like the late 1970s. By 1978 more than 350,000 boys and girls had registered with youth associations, and 5,800 high schools fielded teams. White, middle-class suburbia provided the most fertile ground for this frenzied growth. Soccer moms and dads fervently pointed out that other sports were often dominated by children with exceptional height or strength, or who had simply matured faster than their peers. In Little League baseball, some players could go through a whole game without touching the ball. But there was no overpowering pitcher in soccer, no sitting in a dugout waiting for the next turn, no being told when to swing or when to run. Just about anyone could kick a ball - and nearly everyone kicked it with the same uncultured naivety.
It seemed inevitable that this innate appeal would soon help to establish the professional game. Pele's departure was widely perceived as timely and appropriate, leaving behind an NASL capable of standing on its own feet. The crowds went out to see Pele in 1975 and 1976,' Clive Toye claimed, but in 1977 they went out to see soccer.' The optimism reached its peak in the winter of 1977-78. Woosnam and the owners brought in six new franchises, insisting that expansion to 24 clubs - from just nine five years earlier - was both measured and justified. Indeed, prospective owners were queuing up for a stake in the NASL even if it meant, by Woosnam's own estimate, losing the odd million over the first few seasons. Two years earlier the commissioner had insisted that 'everyone in the league und
erstands we are ultimately going to 32 or 40 teams', and it was now clear why: the steady stream of franchise shifts and new arrivals had earned the league plenty of money. With 27 fulltime employees and a spacious office in midtown Manhattan, the NASL looked convincingly established.
The entry fee, now an even $1 million, did little to dissuade a host of new owners from chasing riches. Rick Wakeman, Paul Simon and Peter Frampton backed a new team in Philadelphia - not the Atoms, but the Fury. Pro soccer also returned to Detroit, where Jimmy Hill, the British TV football pundit and Coventry City chairman, sought to reinvest the tidy sum he had made from ventures in Saudi Arabia. Hill joined forces with a local consortium to bring a team into the 80,500-seat Pontiac Silverdome, the league's largest venue.
The NASL reappeared in the Boston area, as well as Denver, Houston and Oakland; it spread to Memphis, Tennessee, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, two cities with no competition from major league baseball. There was a new assortment of gauche nicknames and logos, the most lamentable in San Diego, the city which found itself with the remains of Team Hawaii. It called its franchise the Sockers, choosing as its logo a bruised boy named Socko with a ball tucked under his arm. The new entry in the north-east was named the New England Tea Men in homage to its backers, the Thomas J Lipton Corporation, as well as the Tea Party of 1773; its badge featured a clipper ship sailing in rough seas. Detroit were nicknamed the Express and distilled their identity into a cartoon automobile poised to head a soccer ball (if an automobile can be said to possess a head). Milan Mandaric, having sold his interest in the San Jose Earthquakes, bought the Connecticut Bicentennials and moved them into Oakland as the Stompers (a ball soaring in front of a bunch of grapes), while the St Louis Stars were now the California Surf, a name dreamt up by an 11-year-old.
Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game (Sporting) Page 24