Back in the public eye after decades in the wilderness, the New York Cosmos are the latest addition to our Icons series. Site editor Chris Nee gives the lowdown on the most famous of the United States of America’s football clubs, and the team that could be set to fundamentally change Major League Soccer.
This post is the last in our five-part series on the Cosmos. You can find the rest here:
Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, Charlie Aitken - these are just a handful of the names that graced the original New York Cosmos, names that helped to write the club into global football lore forever. But the legend of the Cosmos was about more than just names, it was about their star quality. It was a story of excess, of boom, boom, boom and then fatal bust. As the players and management strolled around Studio 54 in their flares and wide collars it was clear that this was no ordinary football club. Books and films like Once in a Lifetime: The Incredible Story of the New York Cosmos are not produced about ordinary football clubs.
Vitals: New York Cosmos
Established: 1971
NASL Titles: 1972, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1982
Home Stadium: To be confirmed…
The New York Cosmos was founded by Steve Ross, the charismatic president of Warner Communications, and the Ertegun brothers. They brought in Englishmen Clive Toye and Gordon Bradley, as general manager and player coach respectively, and set about creating what Ross hoped would become the biggest football club in the world. The North American Soccer League had been in place for a few years and the Cosmos joined in 1971, but the first few years were unrecognisable through the lens of what was to follow. Like many other American clubs through history, the team moved from stadium to stadium, often playing on baseball fields. By 1975 the team was flagging badly and Ross pulled off the signing that would come to define everything the Cosmos became.
The signing of Pele, famously said to be the only soccer player the average American could name, revolutionised the New York Cosmos at a stroke in 1975, both on the pitch and commercially. Lazio’s prolific striker Giorgio Chinaglia (a hugely charismatic and controversial man in his own right) followed, and then Carlos Alberto and Franz Beckenbauer.
It was a truly amazing line-up and it paid dividends; in many ways, Ross had got his wish. In 1977, the Cosmos moved into the cavernous Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands and won their second NASL title. The average attendance was a remarkable 34,142 and almost 78,000 were in the stadium for a playoff game against Fort Lauderdale Strikers. This was the beginning of American football’s finest hour, a glamourous and newsworthy period which saw celebrities in the stands as average attendances at Giants Stadium reached almost 48,000 in 1978.
It also created a culture of overstretching among the Cosmos rivals. A few of the signings made in the NASL era, just for some perspective: Duncan McKenzie and Gordon Hill (Chicago Sting - highest ever average attendance under 13,000); Alan Ball, Peter Beardsley, Peter Lorimer, Bruce Grobbelaar and Terry Yorath (Vancouver Whitecaps); Mirandinha, Rodney Marsh, Clyde Best and Mark Lawrenson (Tampa Bay Rowdies); George Best, Johan Cruyff and Tommy Smith (Los Angeles Aztecs); Mike England, Geoff Hurst and Bobby Moore (Seattle Sounders); Gordon Banks, George Best and Gerd Muller (Fort Lauderdale Strikers).
It’s an outrageous list, and it can be argued that it was all down to trying to keep up with the Cosmos - it was the Cosmos that started it all. Unfortunately, there were a few significant problems. Pele retired in 1977, and interest dwindled as a result. There was also the obvious expense of such players being signed and maintained, and the fact that this was not a league brimming with stars at their peak. I spoke a while ago with Sir Geoff Hurst, who told me about his time in Seattle. He remembers it extremely fondly, but admitted that it was a little bit like a three-month holiday. With crowds dropping (and not even that large in the first place, in many cases), the end of NASL was nigh. Its death throes were undignified. The league and the Cosmos turned to vapour in 1985, with American soccer having long since returned to the doldrums.
Steve Ross died in 1992 after losing his battle with prostate cancer. There’s something deeply unsatisfying about the fact that he wasn’t around to see World Cup USA ’94.
At this stage in any potted history of the Cosmos, the reader meets Peppe Pinton. Pinton, now a long-time friend of Chinaglia but a man held in varying degrees of respect or otherwise by the various biased figures from Cosmos history, was the club’s general manager when it collapsed around him, and retained everything to do with the stricken outfit. He looked after the name and legacy, even going as far - so we’re told - as polishing the trophies. He used the Cosmos name to support youth soccer, an ethos that would continue in its next phase, New York Cosmos MkII.
Pinton sold the Cosmos, or what was left of the club, to British property magnate and former Tottenham Hotspur director Paul Kemsley in 2009, beginning the gradual process of reviving the club. Nobody quite knows what happens next. The Cosmos operates currently as a brand without a team, controlled by a global advertising guru under a seemingly endless cloud of questions. Will the club change the way American clubs source their players, and how will that affect the national team? Is David Beckham really not going to be involved by 2013? Where is the money coming from? Where are they going to play?
Still, the Cosmos legend isn’t built on certainty and success anyway. It’s built on mystique, intrigue, cocksure swagger and spectacular over-commitment. Like them or loathe them, they’re back and they’re going to make things interesting.
Tags: New York Cosmos
Aww god, please enough of this marketers wet dream
Does anyone realize that naming all the great names from the past will only make a new team even more disadvantaged because they will not only play against 11 players but also the ghosts of Cosmos past?
There was ONE reason and one reason only the v1 was successful: they spent like drunken sailors.
Throw out all those names if you want but reality is that this team would never be able to repeat the very leitmotiv which made their reputation. So it seems either cruel or false advertising to lure nostalgia.
At most this team will be able to get two, maybe 3 DPs.
The rest of the players will be taken from teh sea of US college players.
I was a big Ricky Davis fan in the day btw.
Can the Cosmos succeed on a level playing field? Sure. Any team can.
Will the name help them get some over the hill Thierry Henry? Probably.
But that IS NOT the Cosmos people remember or want.
They want Bogie and Giorgio and Shep and great international stars.
It is NOT happening.
This is a bait and switch con: luring the people with names like Beckenbauer and then having Billy Bob from the University of Arkansas be your starting libero.
The Beckham experiment is a failure in the eyes of most american soccer fans and most people warned the league of the risk of giving 250million to a brand not a player (are we going to have to rehash his mediocre skills and rain-man talent with FK?) who could singlehandedly entice fans even in his prime.
Are we going to pin the hopes of MLS now on a name-brand which symbolizes a method that cannot be repeated?
You cant go back.
PS: the only people I despise more than lawyers are marketing people.