Today, part of the soccer public’s attention is focused not only on Europe or Saudi Arabia, whose clubs have carried out an active transfer campaign, but also on MLS. Last summer, one of the best soccer players in history, Lionel Messi, moved to the American League. And today it seems that this transfer is an epoch-making event for all American professional sports and for local soccer in particular. But it’s not like that. About 50 years ago, something similar already happened in the United States, when Pelé himself came to play for the local New York Cosmos. And this story can be learned in the documentary “Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos Club”, which we will talk about today.
What you need to know about Messi’s influence on American soccer:
Messi has already changed soccer in the United States. The effect of his move to the MLS is simply cosmic
United States vs soccer
“In the middle of the last century, Americans were so accustomed to artificial breaks during sports that they simply didn’t have the attention span that the rest of the world had, where people watched sports in long, uninterrupted segments,” says journalist David Hirschi in the first minutes of the monumental documentary Once In A Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of The New York Cosmos.
In principle, with just this phrase you can create a more or less tangible portrait of a typical sports fan in the United States half a century ago, when the amazing history of the New York Cosmos soccer club began. The team, which was created in the 70s by the American media magnate and, as they say about him in the film, a great fan of all sports, Steve Ross. At the time, Ross was the president of Warner Communications and had extensive connections in the film and music businesses. And, of course, he managed the huge cash flows of the famous company, part of which he used to create a football team.
To understand the extent to which Ross, on the one hand, took risks and, on the other, was ahead of his time, it is necessary to understand what was happening in American sports in the 1970s. Namely, in football.
At that time, football had already become the main and most popular sport in the world. Everywhere except the United States, where fans’ attention was divided between American football, baseball, basketball and, to a lesser extent, hockey. The country’s professional leagues even then vaguely remembered what American sports are now, had impressive contracts with television and attracted tens of thousands of people to the stands every week.
But unlike the sports mentioned above, football enjoyed very little popularity in postwar America. There were no student or amateur leagues in the country, and 99.9% of the population, according to the protagonists of the documentary Once In A Lifetime, had never heard of traditional football.
How Pelé played in the United States:
Even Pelé started in the United States in a more modest way than Messi. And the first assistance was given to him by a native of the USSR.
The only achievement of American football on the international stage at that time was the victory of the American team over the mighty England in the 1950 World Cup. But this result was not an impetus for the development of the sport in the country, and the next time The American team will reach the World Cup only 40 years later. And this achievement will be directly associated with Steve Ross’ team.
The Steve Ross Revolution
Steve Ross, as I said, was not only a wealthy and well-connected man, but also an avid sports fan and fan. Furthermore, he had no special preferences: he simply loved sports and got excited when his favorite teams and athletes won. But, not being the last person in show business, Ross was well aware of the laws of the entertainment industry. Therefore, the New York Cosmos’ development strategy has absorbed the best from the world of sports and media. Ross, together with the Ertegun brothers, who then ran the Atlantic Records recording studio, created a football club. And everyone wanted the team not only to win, but also to attract as much attention as possible. A little later, Ross will have a more global goal: to make soccer a super popular sport in the USA, not inferior to baseball and American football.
Ross was one of the first to realize that to explode the popularity of the footballer and his team he needed a superstar. New York Cosmos was founded in 1970 and a few years later the bosses organized their most glorious hunt. A club from a country completely unrelated to football proposed to invite Pelé, at that time the leading footballer in the world.
Pele
Photo: Eric Schweikardt/Getty Images
In Once In A Lifetime, the authors recount in some detail how it happened. The management of the American club, of course, was lucky. At that time, Pelé already wanted to retire from football, but, as often happens with athletes, at the end of his career he was not doing well financially. The Brazilian played only in his homeland, and there he was not paid anything extraordinary. And when an offer came from the United States, Pelé thought deeply. Over three years, he was offered, by various estimates, between $4.5 and $7.5 million, making him by far the highest-paid athlete in the world in the mid-1970s.
But, as shown in the film, Pelé finally agreed not only for the money. The management of the New York Cosmos convinced the Brazilian to move to the United States with a pathetic phrase in the style of pathetic Hollywood movies. At that time, upon hearing about the continuation of Pelé’s career, many European giants also wanted to sign him. But the Americans interrupted the offer, telling him that in Europe he could only win one more championship and that as part of the Cosmos he could conquer the entire country.
Until the moment of Pelé’s signing, Once In A Lifetime linearly tells the story of the emergence of a brilliant club in a country where no one expected it. But as soon as the Brazilian on screen puts on the New York Cosmos jersey, you begin to notice parallels between the events of 50 years ago and those of today.
Parallels of the past and present
For the past six months, Saudi Arabia has excited the football world. Local clubs bring in batches of football stars from Europe, thus enriching their league, which in just one transfer window has already started to look very respectable by name. And, in fact, Pandora’s box was opened by Cristiano Ronaldo, who agreed to move to the Saudi club for cosmic money. The invitation of one of the best footballers in history seemed to raise the image of the Saudi championship and gave other teams the possibility of signing contracts with other European stars.
In the other hemisphere, another high-profile transition took place: Lionel Messi went to conquer America, signing a contract with the Inter Miami Club. At the time of writing, Messi has already won the League Cup with the team and is actively helping the club rise from the bottom of the table.
Pelé with the New York Cosmos shirt
Photo: George Tiedemann/Getty Images
Messi and Ronaldo’s transitions are very different and interesting to watch in different ways. But Pelé’s move to the New York Cosmos seemed to combine the characteristics of both transfers. Pelé was partly like Ronaldo to American soccer in the 1970s: that is, a great star who opened a new league for the whole world. He also improved his image: after Pelé’s transition, many clubs wanted to have soccer stars in their squad. But the main thing is that the athletes accepted the transitions.
On the other hand, Pelé’s move was presented in the media as an incredible event not only for football, but for the entire country. Ross and his Warner Communications managed to ensure that everyone, everywhere, followed Pelé. Once In A Lifetime has some fun mini-interviews with fans who admit that they didn’t know the rules of the game yesterday, and today they’re already lining up for hours to buy tickets to the New York Cosmos.
The transition also gave a powerful financial boost to Pelé himself: there is no more fertile market to make money from a star’s image than the United States. And looking at the first months of Messi’s stay in America, the news about his complex business dealings, the purchase of real estate in Miami “for the future”, as well as dozens of videos with stars in the stands of the stadiums where he played . and his game on his team, you can’t help but draw parallels with the transition of Pelé, who 50 years ago demonstrated how famous athletes can make money in the United States.
New York Cosmos: the first superclub
But the transfer of the King of Football, as well as the subsequent transfers of Carlos Alberto, Franz Beckenbauer and others, is not the main mark left by the New York club. Today, the predatory path of team development with the poaching of football stars will not surprise anyone. But in the 1970s no one in Europe thought of such a strategy. Yes, there were superstar dynasty teams like post-war Real Madrid, but they still came together more organically. And here Ross and his team acted with modern methods, assembling the roster according to star status.
A powerful transfer campaign for several years, the inspired play of Pelé’s team and the Italian Giorgio Chinagli, who scored more than two hundred goals for the Cosmos, the phenomenal support of the fans, who will fill the stadiums for the first time in the history of the football. All of this will lead to the New York team becoming a giant in the North American soccer league for several years and winning several championships.
But the history of the Cosmos would not be so interesting if it were limited to transfers, victories and full stands. And from Once In A Lifetime you can learn dozens more stories from the club’s fleeting history. A significant part of them is associated with wildlife. Even though Ross was obsessed with winning, he turned a blind eye to the revelry of the stars who disappeared into Studio 54 and other vibrant New York clubs immediately after the weekend of games. Englishman Rodney Marsh, then playing for Tampa Bay, said the club’s management specially met the Cosmos stars in his hometown with limousines, prostitutes and free and expensive alcohol to chat with them before the game. And it worked!
Kissinger and Pele
Photo: Getty Images
After a while, the Cosmos players became superstars and many celebrities tried to enter the locker room, from Mick Jagger to Barbra Streisand. Some did so out of respect for Ross, on whose favor many star careers depended, but there were also those who became active fans. For example, Henry Kissinger, who was at the time Secretary of State of the United States and one of the country’s leading politicians. As they say, he never missed a single Cosmos game.
***
Drinking in clubs, Pelé’s super transfer, the battle for record television contracts and viewers: just the tip of the iceberg in the history of the New York Cosmos. Once In A Lifetime, filmed in 2006, is not one of those documentaries in which the authors impose their point of view. This is a film where all the cards are on the table, but the viewer must draw their own conclusions.
And the conclusions, at first glance, are very simple. The New York Cosmos is a club that was born too soon. In modern football, this team with huge expenses and a handful of superstars on its roster would seem incredibly organic. But in the 70s, and even in the United States, this project was practically doomed to failure. Steve Ross, who many call the father of American football, put everything into this card and overall lost. In 1985, the team would disband because Warner Communications could not financially support it. Ross, however, always had a Plan B up his sleeve related to the American bid to host the World Cup. He hoped that such a large-scale tournament would make football even more popular in the country and thus help the Cosmos. However, FIFA will not allow the United States to host the World Cup until 1994, when not only Cosmos but also Ross will no longer be alive.
But still, Once In A Lifetime and the story of New York Space in general is a story of victory. The rise of love for soccer in the United States in the 1970s would soon lead to the birth of the country’s first generation of “football” kids, who would ignore baseball and other traditional American sports in favor of the newly extravagant game of soccer. Amateur and student leagues will appear in the country and, after the 1994 World Cup, the MLS will be formed. Naturally, the country will have strong national teams, especially women’s teams, which will become world champions several times.
American Women’s World Cup team
Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
The only time the documentary’s authors allow themselves a personal statement is in the closing credits, linking the growing popularity of soccer in the United States with “Cosmos”, a unique anomaly that caused great changes, but not immediately, but for decades . later. Perhaps today this conclusion seems a little naive and far-fetched. But it’s hard to turn a blind eye to what Steve Ross and his team did. And, even though the story ended quite sad for the main characters, it still had a happy ending. Pelé became richer, the New York Cosmos told the nation what European soccer was and, a few years later, the Americans themselves, without media stories, accepted the sport. Yes, in the United States soccer is still inferior in popularity to baseball and American football. But it is no longer invisible as it was in this vast country some 50 years ago.
