Search: 'New York Cosmos'

David Beckham’s mission to explain his sport to Americans while making lots of money is going well. For a start, as Mike Woitalla writes, more of them have discovered that Los Angeles has a soccer team

On the second Friday of 2007, nearly every American newspaper reported the deal on its front page, next to news that made the man seem all the more appealing. On the Miami Herald’s page one, he celebrated a goal beneath photos of hooded protesters dressed as Guantánamo prison detainees and of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In the New York Times he took a shot while, to his right, Rice argued ­emphatically for a troop increase in Iraq.

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In our new book Soccer in a Football World, David Wangerin charts the troubled history of the game in the United States. In this extract he chronicles the short-lived euphoria that surrounded the NASL, the league that brought Pelé, Beckenbauer and Muhammad Ali to New Jersey, but still ultimately failed to ignite nationwide interest in ‘soccer’

Having convinced Pelé to come out of retirement for an unprecedented amount of money, Warner Brothers saw no reason why a similar offer wouldn’t entice Franz Beckenbauer. Initially, Beckenbauer insisted the earliest he would come was after the 1978 World Cup, but an offer of about $2.8 million 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 Pelé’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,” Giorgio Chinaglia brooded. “But is he going to help us with the crowds? No. He won’t draw in this country.”

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Qatar is no longer an explanation for someone gobbing on the pitch: the Premiership has a rival as a home for retiring players, as Daniel Anderson-Ford reports

“Our football league features some of the world’s greatest players, many of them working with some of Europe’s finest coaches, and we hope to com­pete with the best at club and national level.”

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Mike Woitalla explains why the NASL wasn't an elephants' graveyard

The depiction of the North America Soccer League as a circus of geriatric home escapees lives on – especially in the British press, which can’t mention the NASL without ridiculing it. Alas, even WSC has bought into this one. A recent review of the biography of Giorgio Chinaglia, the Welsh-raised Italian World Cup striker who came to New York at 29 and scored 193 goals in eight years, said: “The world’s stars descended on the US to play on astroturf, wear garish strips and generally make fools of themselves while topping up their retirement funds.”

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Ian Plenderleith discovers the nuanced world of sub-genre webzines

Good writing, keen comment and a reasonable smattering of wit constitute the US-based website Roundnotoval, which claims to be the “greatest unread football fanzine on the planet”. Its editors produce a new issue of news and opinions on the game worldwide every week, with a special focus on the US. This regular renewal of content gives the site the kind of fresh feel that is often lacking in the maelstrom of neglected websites that have fallen foul of misplaced enthusiasm in the great Cyber-Beyond.

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