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| My Ten Favorite NASL Games | ||
| This was Pele's first match for the Cosmos. He signed in the middle of the season, and CBS broadcast his first game. Over 22,000 screaming fans showed up -- at the time the largest crowd to watch an American soccer match. They saw a great game, and Pele scored the tying goal. Before the match there was a nice ceremony where Kyle Rote Jr. and Pele exchanged flags. Kyle accidentally held the Brazilian flag upside down. Kyle told me that for the next ten years, people kept coming up to him and saying "Do you know you held the Brazilian flag upside down?" And he had to keep saying "Yes, I know. I know. I know." There is whole chapter about the 1975 Portland Timbers in David Tossell's fine book Playing For Uncle Sam: The Brits Story of the North American Soccer League. This playoff game was the culmination of a year long love affair between Portland and its team. The fans hung on every twist and turn in this match. When the Timbers won in overtime, the fans poured onto the field and hugged the players. I think this was the first time in American Soccer that fans swarmed the field...When DC United won a playoff game in their first season (1996) the fans at RFK Stadium ran onto the field, but the players were already in the locker room. This match at a packed Yankee Stadium was on HBO. (Did you even know that HBO showed soccer?) Several great Pele shots were saved by Chicago goalkeeper Mervyn "The Magician" Cawston. Pele eventually scored the tying goal, to send it into sudden death overtime. Yet the fans went home disappointed when Steve Peplow scored the winner for the Sting. HBO recently did a nice documentary on the USA Women's National Team. I like women's soccer, but I would also like to see HBO do a documentary about the USA Men's team at the World Cup. The winner of this semifinal match went to the Soccer Bowl. The Rowdies were the defending NASL champions, and they hadn't lost at home throughout the 1976 season. They had even beaten Toronto handily a month earlier in Toronto...How overconfident were the Rowdies? Several days before this match the team made its airplane reservations to Seattle for the Soccer Bowl. The Toronto players heard about that, and they were not amused! Unfortunately, I only have found the first half of this match on tape. However, Toronto upset the Rowdies 2-0, and both goals were scored in the first half. The legendary Portuguese player Eusebio scored one of those goals. The legendary George Best played the last five years of his career in America. He had some great moments in the NASL. This game was one of his better days...Bestie did not play with much consistency in America. Like many soccer fans, I've always wondered how much better he could have been if he wasn't always getting drunk. Fortunately, earlier this year (I'm writing this in August, 2006) I found a tape of a famous 1981 match between the San Jose Earthquakes and the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers. It's the game when George Best scored what he always considered his greatest goal, weaving around four different players. Strangely enough, during a halftime interview of the 1977 game Elton John says that he is the one who convinced George Best to come to America. I wonder if that's true? I've never seen such a dumb play to end a soccer match. In front of 50,000 fans in the playoffs, Minnesota held a 1-0 lead for most of the match. Seattle tied it with a minute to go. In sudden death overtime, Minnesota's Mark Bailey took possession of the ball near his own goal...Ouch! The broadcast ends quickly after Seattle wins. It's too bad, because I would like to see some of the faces of disbelief around the stadium. Trevor Francis was one of the great English players who came to America to play in the NASL. This was Detroit's first season, but they were far better than a typical expansion team...Francis scored two goals for Detroit in this playoff match, but the Strikers won 4-3 in a thrilling shootout. Hardly anything happened in the first half of this game. Then in the second half all hell broke loose. Tied 4-4, the teams went to a shootout. The Sting felt that the referee let a Kicks player take more than five seconds, and the team went crazy. Sting owner Lee Stern even ran on the field and started shoving the referee... After this game the NASL ruled that the stadium clock would count down the seconds in the shootout. This semifinal playoff is generally regarded as the greatest match in NASL history. The Cosmos were the two-time defending champions. They seemed invincible. But after nearly four hours in the hot sun, Vancouver outhustled and outlasted the champions. What a game. A classic "aint over till it's over" game. The playoff series was Best of Three. In the second game Ray Hudson, Thomas Rongan, Robert Meschbach and rest of the Strikers had a 3-2 lead. With only seconds left, the Ft. Lauderdale fans were confidently chanting "Soccer Bowl...Soccer Bowl." The Sounders stole the ball, and crossed it to Roger Davies, He headed it into the net to tie the game. A few seconds later the referee blew his whistle to end the game. In overtime Paul Hammond came up huge for the Sounders. Then the Sounders scored, sending the series back to Seattle. Unfortunately, I have not found a tape of the deciding game back in Seattle. The Sounders won that one too, and advanced to the 1982 Soccer Bowl. |
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