Search: 'Seattle Sounders'

The US college system is offering an increasingly popular way into the professional game for British footballers. Gavin Willacy examines the latest phenomenon in Major League Soccer

With Five no longer airing MLS games during the milkmen’s breakfast slot, even fewer British viewers will have seen the impact Darren Huckerby, Ade Akinbiyi and Danny Dichio have had on the American top flight than saw David Beckham try to inspire the hapless LA Galaxy last summer. While a string of English thirtysomethings understandably use MLS as a preferable last stop to Brentford or Brighton, there is another growing group of British footballers emerging in America.

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With a familiar name and ambitious backers, Mike Woitalla finds the MLS’s latest team are already winning over the locals

The city known for Boeing, Starbucks, Microsoft and grunge rock is giving Major League Soccer a welcome boost as it copes with David Beckham’s jilt and a tanking economy. And if the Seattle Sounders ring familiar, it’s because they’re the reincarnation of a North American Soccer League (NASL) team that popularized the sport in the Pacific Northwest.

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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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Mike Ticher reminisces about Chelsea's man who turned down the chance to play Brazil

Alan Hudson played his last game for Chelsea in a 1-0 home defeat by Liverpool in December 1973. That match also led to the departure of Peter Osgood as Dave Sexton’s team self-destructed in a welter of bruised egos, booze-ups and squandered talent.

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