Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos Page #7

'When Pel scored,

he never looked at us,

'when Bobby Smith scored,

he never looked at us,'

'but every time

that Giorgio scored a goal,'

he would run back in front of Steve

and bow down and suck up to Steve.

By the last week of June 1977,

Chinaglia had eight goals

and the team had ten wins.

They avenged two straight losses

to the Rowdies in front of 62,000 fans.

'Pel scored a hat trick.'

'When I look at games I played

in America,'

that would definitely be

the top of the heap.

Then they dropped five

of their next seven games.

Steve Ross said, "Now we have Pel,

we have Beckenbauer and Chinaglia.

"But the rest, you need more."

I went back to Sao Paolo.

In my opinion,

the most important signing

from a team point of view

was Carlos Alberto.

As captain of the Brazilian

national team,

he had helped Pel win

his third World Cup title in 1970.

With only four games remaining

in the '77 season,

Carlos Alberto came to America

to help his old team-mate win

one last championship.

'It was unforgettable.'

The day I arrived in New York

was the day of the blackout.

'At 9:
34 last night,

it all went black.'

'... a wild outburst of crime.'

'... a night of no lights, elevators,

subway trains, airports,

'air-conditioning,

traffic signals, television.'

'... looting, mugging

and a thousand false fire alarms.'

In the darkness, July 13th,

it seemed as if the world

was turning upside down.

'We had the criminal

Son of Sam, a serial murderer.

'Riots in the blackout.'

The major problem was the bankruptcy

of the City of New York.

'It was really quite a year.'

When the power returned, the lights

came up on soccer in America.

'Soccer is fast becoming as popular here

as it's been in the rest of the world.'

It was like an explosion.

'It was a whirlwind.

It was like a meteor taking off.'

One day we were nobody, and the next

day we're playing at Giants Stadium

and limos picking us up

to take us to Studio 54 after the game.

'A big table there

was reserved for the Cosmos.'

Not only for the players,

also for the bosses.

'The doorman looked me up and down

and gave me a hard time,'

until I uttered the four magic words:

"I'm with the Cosmos."

'I remember people

making out there in full view of you.'

Celebrities walking in and out.

Every Monday night,

they had a party at Studio 54.

This was a part of the development

of football also in the United States.

Soccer in the United States.

Everybody was invited to the party.

'I was the first one

on the field every game and you felt it.'

You walked out there and

all of a sudden, one by one,

these giants of soccer, international stars,

bigger-than-life players

'were coming out of this tunnel

like gladiators coming out to do battle.'

August 14th, four days after police

arrested David Berkowitz,

the self-proclaimed Son of Sam,

the Cosmos sold out one of the biggest

football stadiums in the world.

It was a playoff against Fort Lauderdale.

The first time in history sold out.

Giants Stadium was sold out

with 77,000 and something else.

Soccer is a game that

everybody is involved with.

It takes stamina, speed, strength.

...something going on all the time.

It'll be right up there with baseball

as the national pastime.

Soccer is not only here to stay,

but will be perhaps the ultimate,

the biggest big league of all.

It was just unexpected,

unbelievable glory.

Basking in the glory

high above the masses

sat the king of American soccer,

Steve Ross.

He would sit on the second level

of Giants Stadium,

which is fairly high up because

he thought he'd see the action better,

'he'd see the whole field

and what was going on.'

We had to put chains on him because

from the mezzanine at Giants Stadium

he was always arguing with the referee

and everybody was afraid he'd fall down.

A remarkable sell-out crowd of 76,000

last night at Giants Stadium.

The Cosmos, the new darlings in town,

beat Rochester 4-1

'to make their way to the final,

the Soccer Bowl in Portland,

'which will be seen here on Channel 4

on Sunday starting at 4:00.'

Ross watched his one-time

rag-tag team become champions.

'What I remember most

about the championship game in 1977

'was how excited the players were.'

They wanted to win

a championship for Pel.

We all felt responsible.

It was Pel's last game, competitive.

'We wanted to do it for him.'

We'd like Pel to leave the way

he deserves:
as a champion.

That was not marketing.

That was not PR.

That was genuine

and it was very touching.

'It just fell into place

on the day for me.'

I scored one of the most memorable goals

in Soccer Bowl history.

But the game winner

in the 81st minute

belonged to Pel's locker room rival,

Chinaglia.

We had a good year. He left on a

winning note - he won the championship.

I think today was one of my best games.

Win the World Cup, but there were

eleven Germans on the field.

You win the European Cup, there were

nine Germans and two foreigners.

With the New York Cosmos,

we had 14 different nations.

So it was like a family. It was fantastic!

It was really an experience

I will never forget.

'This was an incredibly fun

few years in my father's life.

'It was a big joy for him.

'And in Jay's life and Pel's life and

Giorgio's life. They were having a blast.'

And Warner Communications was

in its prime. My father was in his prime.

'It was huge amounts of fun.

There was nothing that wasn't fun.'

Pel left the league with a parting gift,

hope for the future.

As he stepped aside,

ABC Sports began negotiating

to broadcast NASL regular season

games on network television.

'Steve believed that

television was the key'

to the Cosmos' or soccer's success.

No professional sport in the US

makes it without a television contract.

'We're at Giants Stadium

in East Rutherford, New Jersey.'

By 1978, the Cosmos were giving

network executives

every reason to believe that

American soccer had a lucrative future.

'Already it's been filled

to its capacity of 77,000

'several times for another sport,

for soccer.'

'Every game was like a party.'

Even in Brazil we don't play

every game with the stadium full.

People would be arriving

three or four hours before kick-off

'with their tailgates open at the back,

barbecues going, flags waving.'

Great atmosphere outside the ground

long before we started the game.

Steve Ross signed a new slate of

international stars for the '78 season.

They won their first seven games

and 15 out of 17.

The team got more and more stabilized.

The team got better and better.

But the competition had also

been diluted due to expansion.

In '78, the NASL added six more teams

for a league high of 24.

All of them chasing

Steve Ross and the Cosmos.

It was a negative impact. People

owned teams that couldn't afford it.

'Players that should not have

been playing a professional sport'

'were playing professional soccer.'

And the quality itself wasn't what it was.

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