FanPost

File this under Cosmos are Awesome

Rafael Neddermeyer

I have a theory, that the old Cosmos are the reason why we saw the explosion of super teams in the late 80's and early 90's. I had something sitting in my computer that might help this. There’s no secret that in sports that big names bring in big money on many levels. And money does help operating costs, those operating costs help keeping teams in the black instead of the red. If a club has scouted the right way, and allocated its resources the right way, it can go on. Plus if you make more money than your operating costs, you can fund other things to improve your club’s infrastructure. The bad thing about the old NASL is that teams started to live beyond their means, and the league went the way of many start up leagues, into the crapper. And in a way transferring in these players, when they do well, you can flip the players for large transfer sums into Europe. You really can’t "flip" a player like you can flip a house, but having players prove their talent, and then get a larger transfer fee is a big deal.

It does help that the Cosmos had Warner Communications money behind them. Of course Warner Communications was involved in the music industry, and Studio 54. So they had the cash behind them. However, having all the money doesn't mean that you will get every player. The Cosmos didn't sign every top player who came to the USA, George Best never played for the Cosmos, and Johan Cruyff was allowed to go out west. That’s just what happens in all sports, for every top player who is out there able to be moved to a club, or a city, sometimes they don’t all come.

Cruyff, who some people in Europe consider the best player in the world at the time, had a trial and a friendly with the club. Did he sign with the Cosmos? Nope, he took his talents to LA, and then to the Washington Dips. George Best, who could have been a rock star in NY, especially with Warner behind him, didn’t come to New York. He instead went to LA, kind of like what David Beckham did. But at the same standpoint, Becks and Best were probably for a short period of time one of the best players Manchester United had.

Then there was rumors about the club looking into Maradona, and just imagine if he’d come over? Hindsight being what it is, probably what would have happened, that he would have been secretly moved over to another club to make sure the Cosmos don’t buy up everyone. The bridge that he would have held between the Pele generation in the NASL and the next set could have been amazing. Maybe, the league wouldn’t have died, but this is all conjecture. Yes the Cosmos didn’t buy every player, and win every Soccer Bowl, but adding Cruyff or Maradona would have been unfair.

From a very good book on the NASL, and American Soccer, Playing for Uncle Sam by David Tossell, the Los Angeles Aztecs signed Cruyff: "…who were coached by former Holland World cup coach Rinus Michels and had been steered towards the playoffs by 134 goals from Dutch superstar Johan Cruyff, lured out of retirement by a reported $700,000 per season deal."[i]

There’s the reason folks, that he didn’t turn out for the Cosmos, his old coach at the international and club level (Michels was at Ajax and Barca, with Cruyff) came across the pond. Like many of the players that came over, the league was attracting some big name managers. And that would be another key to getting players in, not only to the NASL, but to future megaclubs.

That is all well and good, but who was the first big NASL signing for the guys, and why did he come to the States? Was it solely based on the money? Was it to get away from some of their managers? Or just another way to for them to keep their names known, we may never know on a whole. Some generalities can be made, like Gordon Banks came over to get more first team soccer. Why did someone like Johan Cruyff leave Europe for the USA? Why did George Best, who jumped teams all the time come over? Was it because he was always associated with the Beatles? Some of these questions we may never know the answer to. Hopefully through this book, people will get the definite answer to all their questions about the NASL. Some people like Cruyff probably will never come clean or tell anyone the real reason why they left the comforts of Europe for North America. Or in Cruyff’s case why he came out of "retirement"? We all know it was Pele, and that's the rub, people could see the great players going to big markets now, collect the top talent and the fans flock.

[i] Playing for Uncle Sam David Tossell p.164

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