The Biz
Cosmos are Back… Again
They were the Galaticos in the alternate universe of American soccer in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.
They were a collection of global superstars bankrolled by a worldwide entertainment conglomerate, Warner Communications, long before the words soccer and synergy were uttered in the same sentence, long before the Real Madrids and Manchester Uniteds of the world were global “brands.”
The were the Cosmos, the flagship team in the North American Soccer League, a circuit that flashed all sort of possibility for the game in the United States, then burned as the oxygen was vacuumed from the room. Over the years, the N.A.S.L. and the Cosmos were derided and dismissed as abject failures, when they actually planted the soccer seeds that are now sprouting across the country as the game has taken hold and emerged in the 21st century.
The names are still familiar, and oddly, the word Cosmos is still recognized around the world, perhaps more so than in the United States where soccer fans younger than 40 have only videos and tall tales to relate to.
The names: Pelé, Carlos Alberto, Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia (who died in April 2012), Johan Neeskens, Dennis Tueart, Shep Messing.
It is hard to rekindle memories of years past, kind of like finding an old girlfriend on Facebook 30 years after those flames of youthful infatuation took hold. But that has not stopped a new group, led by Seamus O’Brien, the founder and chief executive of Singapore-based sports marketing and media management company (backed by Sela Sports of Saudi Arabia) from relaunching, rebooting to use their term, the New York Cosmos in the latter-day version of the N.A.S.L. The league now is considered to be the second tier, second division if you will, of soccer in North America, though many of its owners have designs on joining, or perhaps overtaking Major League Soccer with a more spendthrift model. (Kind of like the old days!)
Read More: NY Times
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