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Karl
Senior Member
USA
914 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 27 2006 : 3:14:16 PM
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Foreign flair ignites flashy NASL (MLS)
Foreign flair ignites flashy NASL
Two of the greats - Pele and George Best on the same pitch.
courtesy of Chris Page
(FIFA.com) 27 Jan 2006
Before the modest evolution of its successor, Major League Soccer, there was the bluster and bravado of the North American Soccer League (NASL) - a name that draws equal parts glory-day nostalgia and rueful dismay from those in the States old enough to remember it. Like a shooting star, it didn't last long but it sure shone brightly.
Spurred to some extent by the surprisingly high ratings of a televised broadcast of the 1966 FIFA World Cup final between England and Germany from Wembley, two major professional football leagues emerged in the USA in 1967.
By year's end the United Soccer Association (USA) and the independent National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) had merged to create the North American Soccer League.
From even before the turn of the 20th century, semi-professional football leagues had been in existence in the States but they were largely the reserve of ethnic strongholds in the northeast. Early in the history of the FIFA World Cup, a team of US players - drawn largely from these communities - finished fourth at the first finals in Uruguay in 1930 and pulled off one of the shocks of the century by beating England in Brazil in 1950. But the emergence of the NASL marked the first attempt to create a league spanning the entire country.
An original Dutch master, Cruyff playing for LA Aztecs.
Growing pains
The first few years proved tough ones for the young league, as officials - humbly headquartered in the basement of Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia - tried their hardest to persuade resistant American sports fans to give football a go. The game - which by the early sixties had become a rampant global phenomenon - was still considered largely a 'foreign' pastime in the States and the stranglehold of the 'big three' sports of gridiron, basketball and baseball proved difficult to break. Between the 1968 and 1969 seasons, 12 of the league's 17 teams folded in one of the largest breakdowns in organised American sports history.
But the gloom and doom sentiments pervading the league quickly turned to sunshine in 1975 when Brazilian legend Pele - the world's best-ever player - came out of retirement and signed with the New York Cosmos for a reported 4.5 million US dollars. After some initial growing pains the league began to grow again and even spread north, encompassing teams based in Canada. And with the world's best known player, it had instant on-field credibility. The handful of teams that survived the early purges of the late sixties emerged as a bona fide core for the league to build around.
Though Pele stayed with the Cosmos for only two seasons (his farewell match against former club Santos at the meadowlands in which he played a half for each team drew nearly 78,000 spectators), the team became a sporting powerhouse and helped earn the league respectability and an all-important network television broadcast deal.
Simply known as the Cosmos (they brashly dropped the 'New York' portion of their name as their popularity grew) became the NASL's flagship team and some, even to this day, refer to it as the best club team in history. Owned by Warner Brothers, the Cosmos had a financial base none of its rivals could match. The star-studded side drew weekly crowds of close-to 50,000 and went on to win five league titles including back-to-back championships in '77 and '78, widely regarded as the league's high-water mark.
Foreign policy
Suddenly, football was alive and competing on the American sports landscape and scores of the world's top players were arriving on US shores by the boatload. Pele was joined at the Meadowlands by FIFA World Cup winner Franz Beckenbaur of Germany, former Brazilian captain Carlos Alberto, Netherlands and Barcelona idol Johan Neeskins and Italy's prolific forward, Giorgio Chinaglia.
The late George Best turned up to play in the sunny confines of LA, with the Aztecs and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. Johann Cruyff joined the league as well in hopes of establishing a 'second Cosmos' with the Washington Diplomats. Portuguese legend Eusebio spent a few years alongside Bobby Moore, FIFA World Cup top scorer Gerd 'the Bomber' Muller, Poland icon Kaz Denya, Geoff Hurst - the only man to score a hat-trick in a FIFA World Cup final - Real Madrid and Mexico marksman Hugo Sanchez, Teofillo 'Nene' Cubillas of Peruvian fame and fabled Italian winger Roberto Bettega.
Former Italian international Giorgio Chinaglia scored more goals than any other man in the NASL.
Although some home-grown American players like Rick Davis and Warner Roth were pushed through the system, it was the foreign names that drew the most attention - a fact that may have contributed to the early demise of the league and was high on the list of things to be avoided when MLS emerged over a decade after the NASL's collapse.
With short-sighted business practices and a profound lack of organisation, the league, after proving for a brief period that soccer was marketable in the States, burned out and collapsed under the its own weight in 1984. In a rather telling statistic, the United States - despite having a powerhouse league - were unable to qualify for a FIFA World Cup during the NASL's existence from '67 to '84.
Lasting for 17 seasons, the NASL and its whopping 62-team roll call of clubs (including the ill-advised Team Hawaii and the rather comical-sounding Colorado Carabous) now stands as something of a cautionary tale, but for many Americans it represented an initiation to the beautiful game informed by some of its finest-ever players.
Back to the dark times of the semi-pro structure, the next try in the States for a nationwide professional league came in 1996 with Major League Soccer. Intent on learning from the mistakes of the indulgent NASL, organisation and slow movement proved the hallmarks of the new league - about to start its 11th season.
NASL Champions:
1968 Atlanta Chiefs
1969 Kansas City Spurs
1970 Rochester Lancers
1971 Dallas Tornado
1972 New York Cosmos
1973 Philadelphia Atoms
1974 Los Angeles Aztecs
1975 Tampa Bay Rowdies
1976 Toronto Metros-Croatia
1977 New York Cosmos
1978 New York Cosmos
1979 Vancouver Whitecaps
1980 New York Cosmos
1981 Chicago Sting
1982 New York Cosmos
1983 Tulsa Roughnecks
1984 Chicago Sting
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Karl |
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Karl
Senior Member
USA
914 Posts |
Posted - Jan 28 2006 : 12:49:00 PM
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FIFA website: The USA matures with MLS
The USA matures with MLS
(FIFA.com) 27 Jan 2006
For a full decade from 1984 to 1994, the USA was plunged into something of a footballing dark age. Though a handful of local semi-professional outdoor and indoor leagues remained, they were mired in virtual obscurity. The loss of the NASL left a gaping chasm.
In 1994 that all changed. The United States was gifted the honours of hosting the 15th FIFA World Cup finals and the pressure was on to prove the notoriously non-football nation could make a real go of it. One of the conditions laid down by FIFA was that the US establish a professional football league.
A little over a year after a dazzling finals, in which stadiums were jam-packed and the USA reached the second round for the first time in nearly fifty years, Major League Soccer became a reality.
With 10 teams in 10 cities across the country, the league - run in a single entity format and strictly controlling player transfers and money issues - began its inaugural season. With low salaries compared to other major American sports and a desperate desire to avoid turning the league into the elephants' graveyard that some perceive the NASL to have been, things began slowly and with a far more realistic business plan.
Starting at home
With a desire to make the game stronger in the States from the inside out, a heavy focus was placed on home-grown talent. By the start of the first season, there were more registered soccer players in the country than any other sport.
Alexi Lalas - who after lining up for the USA in the '94 finals became the first American to play in Italy before returning to play in MLS with New England Revolution and LA Galaxy - put the difference between the NASL and MLS in perspective in a recent interview with FIFA.com.
"I was exposed - as a kid - to the tail end of the NASL," he said. "The Detroit Express was around then and that was my team, their star player was an Englishmen called Trevor Francis. He was a great player and the star of the team, but quite frankly there was no connection between him and me. He wore these cool white shoes but I, as an American kid, had nothing in common with him…when I became a pro, kids in the States could identify with me because I was just like them and grew up playing the game here (in the US)."
Now the General Manager of MLS outfit MetroStars - based in New York/New Jersey and considered the younger brother to the old Cosmos - Lalas is a key figure in the evolution of Major League Soccer.
"If you took some of our players and teams and plopped them down in the best stadiums in the world with their crowds and changed their uniforms, you wouldn't see much of a difference," he added, confident of the league's quality and status.
Club to country
Though it is unfair to say that the NASL had no effect on the US national team program, it is pure fact that MLS has had a major impact on the team's fortunes. Landon Donovan (San Jose Earthquakes, LA Galaxy), DaMarcus Beasley (former Chicago Fire), Brian McBride (former Columbus Crew) are just a few examples of current American stars who cut their teeth in the now nearly-11-year old league. Bruce Arena's current USA squad is comprised almost entirely of players who currently - or at one time - plied their trade in MLS. And though the boss still claims, "we need more players at club's in Europe" he is keen to point to MLS as a key factor in the country's recent success on the international stage.
Long gone are the days of university men and players toiling in obscurity in the second divisions of Switzerland and Germany swelling the ranks of the US national team. The newest generation of players - the likes of Donovan, Eddie Johnson and Freddy Adu - grew up with MLS as a part of their sporting consciousness and supporting their local teams.
Beginning as tenants in cavernous American football stadiums, most MLS teams are now playing in, or in the building or planning stages, of having their own scaled-down, more modest grounds. Ownership of their own stadiums creates a sense of separation and freedom for the clubs, while helping the teams control revenue streams with an eye toward increased profits - a sensible course of action never even contemplated back in the NASL glory days.
Since MLS' inception, only two teams have folded and a recent expansion saw two new teams added before the start of the 2005 season (Real Salt Lake and Chivas USA with the San Jose Earthquakes relocating to Texas as Houston 1836). There are currently 12 teams in Major League Soccer, competing - as in the old NASL - in two 'conferences (East and West) and in a play-off style system culminating in a one-off 'MLS Cup' match mimicking the NASL's annual 'Soccer Bowl'.
Old stars still the rum in the punch
But as in the old days, a few aging stars have made their way over to play - and most have found it no easy task getting a full-time spot in their side. Currently, France 1998 FIFA World Cup winner Youri Djorkaeff is plying his trade, fittingly, in New York.
Other notable foreign stars to have played in MLS include Walter Zenga, Carlos Valderama, Roberto Donadoni and Marco Etcheverry. But with limits on salaries and cool efficiency a pervasive sentiment, nothing has as of yet, gotten out of hand.
David Beckham - perhaps the modern game's biggest name - has even expressed an interest in coming to America. "It's a tremendous sporting market and I would love to be a part of the growing football in the United States at some point," he remarked in a recent interview with American television at LA Galaxy's Home Depot Center. "I can't say for sure when, but let's just wait and see what happens."
As the game develops in the States, the future of American club football may lie somewhere in between the heady indulgence of the NASL and the modest savvy of early MLS. With an average attendance of 15,000, Major League Soccer has already exceeded that of the old NASL, even with the bloated numbers who came in droves to see the fabled Cosmos in their glorious heyday.
MLS Champions:
1996 DC United
1997 DC United
1998 Chicago Fire
1999 DC United
2000 Kansas City Wizards
2001 San jose Earthquakes
2002 Los Angeles Galaxy
2003 San Jose Earthquakes
2004 DC United
2005 LA Galaxy
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Foreign flair ignites flashy NASL (MLS)
