Category: Sidewinder Insider

I truly wish my relationship with association football wasn’t so freakin’ complicated.

Since soccer is my favorite sport, I ought to be able to just sit back and enjoy it. And on an international level, I can.

And I do.

I’m gonna watch Celtic F.C. every time they play, Borussia Dortmund every time they play (unless they conflict with a  Celtic F.C. match), Manchester United every time they play (unless they conflict with a Celtic F.C. or Borussia Dortmund match), and Birmingham City F.C. whenever they happen to pop up on ESPN+ (unless they conflict with a Celtic F.C., Borussia Dortmund or Manchester United match).

I’m sure I break some sort of gatekeepers’ rule by supporting all four of those clubs, but I don’t care … it’s my gate, and I’ll let in or keep out whomever I please. (Actually, it’s eight clubs … I also root for the women’s teams bearing their brands).

Thing is, American professional soccer has seemed foreign to me, even though I’m an American. I mean, talk about a checkered history.

My favorite domestic professional club – the New York Cosmos – haven’t kicked a ball since 2020. I fear they might have been sent to a farm so they can run and play with the Los Angeles Aztecs, Dallas Tornados, Philadelphia Atoms and other sidewinders from my youth.

Atlanta Silverbacks FC was my second favorite in the pro ranks.

Same farm … same fate.

Closer to home, I was a big supporter of the Birmingham Grasshoppers, a top-shelf amateur team in the early and mid-1990s that competed in the United States Interregional Soccer League. They weren’t pro, but they carried themselves like professionals.

Gone.

And I still miss Greenville FC of the semi-pro National Premier Soccer League. They were “my” team for two seasons when I lived in Greenville, South Carolina, but now exist only as a website and a memory.

The men’s team I follow most closely these days is Chattanooga Football Club, members of the National Independent Soccer Association. I even bought shares in the club in 2019 (I have stock in Celtic F.C. and Manchester United as well, so yeah, I’m something of a soccer tycoon. I get a check from Man U each year for nine cents).

I also have a soft spot for the Asheville City FC men and women and in the National Women’s Soccer League, I – along with Batman – stand with Gotham FC.

But last night, I was at Protective Stadium to watch Birmingham Legion FC of the United Soccer League Championship take on Major League Soccer’s Charlotte FC in a U.S. Open Cup Round of 16 match. When I lived out of state, I kept up with the hometown team during their embryonic years as the Birmingham Hammers in the NPSL … I even own a couple of Hammers T-shirts.

I’ve been back in the Magic City for two years and have seen the Legion play a handful of times, but my fandom has been casual.

In fact, I’ve seen more FC Birmingham matches, primarily because the United Premier Soccer League side is coached by my friend Preston Goldfarb, a Birmingham-Southern, NAIA and Jewish Sports Heritage hall of famer. (He also founded and coached the Grasshoppers, so there’s some history there).

Honestly, I’ve been on the outside looking in when it comes to “mainstream” U.S. men’s soccer for several years now. Once I took a deep dive into the roadblocks lower leagues and women’s soccer deal with, I started resenting the United States Soccer Federation’s far too cozy relationship with MLS. It’s like they’re fine with stifling growth and competition beyond anything bearing or sharing its acronym.

And when the USL and MLS signed a deal to integrate MLS reserve teams into the Second Division league in 2013, that was a turn-off for me.

I long for a system based on sporting merit, I believe promotion/relegation is the only way the sport can reach its full potential, and it sucks that there are hundreds and hundreds of soccer clubs that can never make it to the top tier unless they buy their way into MLS.

In a nutshell, I think the infrastructure of soccer in the United States is a monument to dysfunction that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

But you know what?

I’m tired of looking for reasons not to go to soccer matches that are played seven miles from where I live – matches that feature athletes who love the game and play it at a high level.

If I stopped watching sports because I don’t like their business model, I wouldn’t be watching much sports.

So, Wednesday, I tabled all my grievances in favor of cheering a squad representing the city I live in and jeering one representing another of my favorite cities (Charlotte is great) – but one competing under the banner of the evil empire.

It was the most fun I’ve had as a fan in decades.

I’ve spent much of my life around people who’d flee in terror and confusion if you even said the word “soccer.” It’s always a pleasure for me to sit among those who are into it.

And there were 12,722 of them – a Legion record – in front of me, behind me and beside me on a chamber of commerce night in the Ham.

I’m not a flag-waving, drum-beating, chanting, vuvuzela-tooting kind of guy, but I like being in the company of those who are. (In the interest of full disclosure there were no vuvuzelas … which was kind of a shame).

Having fun is a beautiful thing, especially when you’re watching the Beautiful Game.

Things got loud when Charlotte’s Adilson Malanda was sent off after being issued his second yellow card of the evening in the 50^th minute.

Things got much, much louder 10 minutes later when Prosper Kasim scored a goal on a rocket to the far post (Juan Agudelo assisted). The man who accounted for the first goal in club history back in 2019 tallied one of the Legion’s biggest ever, because that was the lone score of the night.

Birmingham 1, Charlotte 0.

Or as I like to think of it, Birmingham 1, Major League Soccer 0.

When the whistle blew to end the match, 12,000 people sounded like 112,000.

The victory moves the home team forward in the Cup, where they’ll host Inter Miami on June 7 in the quarterfinals.

Definitely going to that one.

In fact, I think I might just become a regular.

And why not?

On Wednesday, my relationship with association football wasn’t complicated at all.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be anymore.

During my preteen and early teen years, my bedroom displayed plenty of “art.”

There was a Batman figurine, a jointed Spider-Man cutout that hung on the door, a red and white plush football doll I’d won at the Alabama State Fair, and a New York Jets pennant that was the centerpiece of the wall above my bed.

I never was much for posters, but after falling in love with soccer in the early 1970s, I decided to break that rule and give Pelé and Kyle Rote Jr. the big picture treatment in my room.

Pelé was an obvious choice; his tour de force in the 1970 World Cup ignited my passion for the Beautiful Game, and led to my devotion to the North American Soccer League and longtime support of the New York Cosmos.

Pelé represented the exotic side of the sport. It was played by athletes from distant places like Brazil, Germany and England – athletes who were born in a world where the world’s most popular brand of football was everything.

But Rote? Well, he made me think that I could not only watch soccer, but maybe even play it, too. He didn’t even pick up the game until he was 16, became a star forward at a southern college (Sewanee in Tennessee) and went on to be the No. 1 draft pick of the NASL Dallas Tornado in 1972.

I first “discovered” him in a 1973 edition of Sports Illustrated, which came out just before he was named Rookie of the Year in the league. After that I read everything on him I could, from the yearly editions of The Complete Handbook of Soccer to any issue of Soccer America I got my hands on.

Fifty years later it’s fun to look back on his origin story, which was chronicled by an Associated Press article in 1972. A Dallas native whose first love was tackle football (he is the son of 13-year NFL veteran Kyle Rote), he was a late-comer to soccer.

“A bunch of us on the (Highland Park High School football team) were looking for a way to stay in shape during the summer, so we formed a soccer team and challenged church teams and private schools,” Rote told the news service.

The second-generation football player was highly decorated as a prep quarterback/defensive back, and hoped to parlay that into more gridiron success at Oklahoma State. But a broken leg ended that brand of football for Rote, so he headed to Sewanee to give association football another shot. During his senior year at his new school (now called the University of the South) he had 17 goals and seven assists in a 12-game season.

By the time he graduated, the NASL was still in its early stages. When it held its first college draft, the circuit jumped at the chance to give a homegrown player an opportunity to put his stamp on the league.

“When it was first tried on the professional level, it was handled very poorly,” Rote said of soccer’s earlier attempt at attracting supporters in the United States and Canada. “They tried to sell it like a product on television, without regard to the future. In order to get support for soccer you’ve got to start in the junior high schools and get the parents as well as the kids involved.”

Rote didn’t join Dallas until later in the summer of 1972 and didn’t play that year. But once he suited up in 1973, he made an immediate impact.

When the season was done, he had 10 goals and 10 assists, earning Rookie of the Year accolades while helping the Tornado reach the NASL finals (where they lost to Philadelphia).

“I think my success has lent some credibility to the sport,” Rote told the New York Daily News. “Here’s a kid from an old traditional American football family forsaking football for soccer. People must think one of two things; either I’m crazy, or maybe there’s something to this foreign game, soccer.

“If people ever asked me if I believe in miracles I’d say yes and point to this year. At the beginning of the season the only goal I had in mind was to make the team. Now, here I am being called soccer’s ‘Great American Hope.’”

I was never an accomplished American football athlete (my career ended in eighth grade) and I was, at best, a serviceable soccer player (I can still remember the three goals I scored as a high school junior, though … I’ll be glad to tell you all about them). But knowing Rote could excel at a sport that was still largely alien to many Americans did inspire me – and many others – to suit up.

“There are 35,000 kids playing soccer in Dallas, and now they have someone to identify with,” he said. “They can look at me and say, ‘If he made it, there’s a chance for me.’ That’s what it’s all about.”

He inspired me further with his showing in the old ABC Superstars competition where he competed against other athletes in various events. Any time one of my peers would roll their eyes at soccer and belittle it, I’d point to the fact that Rote’s success in everything from swimming to biking to tennis allowed him to win the event three times (1974, 1976 and 1977).

As for his soccer playing career, he finished with 43 goals and 38 assists, playing with Dallas through 1978 and spending the 1979 campaign with the Houston Hurricane.

Rote was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2010.

I have no idea what happened to my old soccer posters; like many things from my youth, they now exist only in my memories.

But sometimes when I look at my high school letter – or pick up one of the soccer balls displayed in my fan cave – I’ll remember Kyle Rote Jr.’s influence.

I’ll just let this column serve as a thank you note.

I love soccer. Its unique combination of simplicity, beauty and technique make it my favorite sport, and I’ve been mesmerized by the game ever since I discovered it in 1970.

But man, I hate to see a soccer match end in penalty kicks.

After 11-player sides have spent 90 minutes – plus injury time and then overtime – battling to a standstill, the outcome is determined by one-on-one competition. And when it comes down to a kicker versus a keeper, guesswork plays a major role.

On the other hand, if you look at how the 1975 American Soccer League championship series played out, then maybe PKs don’t seem so bad after all.

In case you never knew or can’t remember, the 1975 season ended with the New York Apollo and Boston Astros declared ASL co-champions. Seems these two clubs just couldn’t figure out which one was best, as evidenced by the fact they played to a pair of 2-2 draws during the regular season and tied each other 2-2 in the first leg of the championship series. (New York finished the regular season with an 11-6-3 record and atop the Eastern Division, while Boston was best in the Northern Division at 9-8-3. And, despite the club’s success, New York coach Nick Kambolis was fired a week before the postseason started and replaced by general manager Nick Sclavounos).

The first playoff game between the two was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 17, with the Apollo going up 2-0 on goals from Mike Patarigas and Mario Garcia. The Astros rallied, however, thanks to an Itmas Alves penalty kick in the 80^th minute and Carlos George’s goal just three minutes later.

That meant they’d meet one more time – this time in Mount Vernon, New York, on September 20 – with the victor claiming the ASL crown.

Jose Neto gave Boston the lead in the 15^th minute with an 18-yard blast, but New York equalized 10 minutes before halftime thanks to a header courtesy of Dave Power.

That ended all scoring in regulation, which set up sudden death overtime. The ASL’s O.T. format consisted of seven and a half minute periods, with the first goal ending the match.

Incredibly, the clubs played through nine overtimes without breaking the stalemate. New York outshot Boston 32-9, and Astros keeper Emilio Costa had 25 saves.

So why not keep playing until there was a winner?

Well, after the ninth O.T. it was 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, which was an hour past the Mount Vernon city curfew. The bigger problem, though, was that New York player contracts had actually expired on Saturday night.

Had the teams agreed to a replay later on Sunday (or any other date), the Apollo might not have had enough players on their roster.

Thus, American Soccer League commissioner Bob Cousy (yes, that Bob Cousy) decided to give each team a piece of the crown.

“There will be league co-champions,” Cousy told the Herald Statesman of Yonkers. “You don’t have to be a soccer expert to see that both teams deserve a share of the title. I don’t care what the precedent is for something like this.”

Boston coach John Bertos wasn’t happy about sharing the spoils, nor was Sclavounos.

“In my heart, no, I am not satisfied,” Sclavounos said. “But this is the way it has to be.”

It was a dysfunctional ending to a dysfunctional ASL season, one that saw the older league relegated to minor league status due to the growth of the rival North American Soccer League. The American league was bleeding money, and less than 3,000 supporters showed up for the championship match.

Still, you have to admire the stamina and character of all the players who put in 157 minutes and 30 seconds of work just to finish where they started – all even.

I’m guessing had penalty kicks been an option then, they would’ve gotten a rousing endorsement from the Apollo and the Astros.

And maybe even the spectators who hung around for the finish.