NASL

NASL story was rapidly coming to an end. It was scraping at the bottom – indoor tournaments were used as a way to stay afloat, but the league was crumbling. Seven clubs folded at the end of 1981 – Atlanta Chiefs, Calgary Boomers, California Surf, Dallas Tornado, Washington Diplomats, Minnesota Kicks, and Los Angeles Aztecs. Players were still coming from all around the world, but the transfers were no longer big exciting news. Rules were modified a bit, but even that was seemingly a last effort to accommodate FIFA demands rather than luring American public to the stadiums. 14 teams played in the championship, divided into three divisions and collecting the weird massive points under the elaborated league system, which practically rewarded every move with a point – it was always weird to the eyes of Europeans and South Americans, but now was grotesque: the rapidly declining league had teams finishing the first stage of the championship wit points ranging from 93 to 203. Anyhow, the championship was played until it reached the final in September 1982, played at Dallas. The ‘Soccer Bowl’82’ attracted less than 23 000. New York Cosmos and Seattle Sounders contested it – the most successful NASL club and one stable club, which seemingly managed to put strong roots. Jumping ahead in time, it was a West Coast phenomena – three clubs managed to establish some following and stability,which helped them through the lean 1980s and 1990s: Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, and Vancouver Whitecaps. All of them had no major competition in their cities – no baseball, American football, basketball, and hockey teams taking public attention away (Seattle had basketball and Vanvouver – hockey, but soccer survived as second most popular sport). The approach of the competitors was also different: Cosmos, true to its name and New York, always had truly international squad with huge names; Sounders depended entirely on British players. To a point, Sounders were better organized, but Cosmos always had plenty of talented players, who even in their old age were capable of prevailing over compact, but less imaginative squads. And Cosmos won – 1-0, Chinaglia scoring the winning goal in the 30th minute.

Sounders did well, but not well enough and the squad perhaps shows why: British based, as ever, but rather impoverished by now: Alan Hudson was just about the biggest name in the squad and he had a double role: playing assistant manager.

Cosmos was much heavier – but it always was: Chinaglia, Carlos Alberto, Neeskens, Rijsbergen, Bogicevic, Buljan, Romero, Cabanas. Compared to any other club in the league, very strong – yet, a few years back the list of great names was much longer: the end was coming, it was clear.