Category: Sidewinder Insider

Soccer Twitter is much like political Twitter in that it reveals a huge divide – with a healthy dose of infighting.

Some are all-in with Major League Soccer – the golden child of the United States Soccer Federation – and believe the closed professional pyramid that includes the United Soccer League and its three branches is all well and good.

Then again, there are those among the USL faithful who have issues with MLS and wouldn’t mind a hostile takeover.

People who like to see their clubs grow from a community sprout have little use for franchise soccer, and find themselves at odds with the “bought not built” model.

And many of us want America to follow the world’s lead and adopt a system of promotion and relegation.

Throw in the National Women’s Soccer League, the fledgling National Independent Soccer Association and amateur loops such as the National Premier Soccer League, United Premier Soccer League and Women’s Premier Soccer League, and you have thousands of different voices screaming in hundreds of different directions and making an incredible amount of noise.

If you think soccer Twitter is lively now, though, imagine what it would’ve been like had it existed back in 1993. In case you’ve forgotten, are too young remember or never cared to begin with, that was a huge year for American soccer.

With the first World Cup coming to the United States in 1994, the country had a mandate from FIFA to establish a Division 1 league.

Originally such a league was supposed to be in place by 1992, so FIFA was already getting antsy about the delay. But officials from the USSF promised one would be established no later than 1995, and soccer’s mad dash for a major league was on.

The primary candidates were the Super League proposed by the USSF and something known as League One America.

The existing American Professional Soccer League waited in the wings, with its officials thinking the APSL could be in the mix if given a fair shake.

League One America had the wildest aspirations – by far.

The brainchild of Chicago businessman Jim Paglia, League One would be a single entity model with 12 teams playing in 20,000-seat stadiums constructed specifically for the league. There would also be “adjacent entertainment complexes and exhibit halls” so the matches would be part of events.

Players would make an average of $65,000 per season with individual and team performance incentives.

But League One America was all about the Americanization of the game, and its proposed rule changes turned association football into a whole new sport.

There would be tiered points depending on where the ball was kicked (the pitch would be divided into sections) and which player kicked it. According to a retrospective written for The Guardian back in 2016, points ranged from “one for a striker to three for a defender, and a team could earn an extra half point if their player scored between the posts of the traditional-sized goal and a new, larger outer goal that was being proposed.”

“Admittedly our proposal is more radical, but it is also more workable,” Paglia told the Orlando Sentinel in a December, 1993, story. “You combine all of our elements and you lower the risk factor.”

Such a league would’ve been interesting, but it wouldn’t have been soccer as anyone knew it.

The USSF eyed 12 teams in major U.S. markets playing in a league with USSF president and World Cup Organizing Committee head Alan Rothenberg serving as commissioner.

It would function as a single entity for three years before stadium owners could buy “licensing rights” from the league.

“There are elements in the World Cup organization, people in the venues, in operations and marketing who are among the best and the brightest,” Rothenberg told the Hartford Courant for a July, 1993, story. “They could be the core of the management group for a new league.”

As for the APSL, which had existing teams in Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Montreal, Tampa Bay, Toronto and Vancouver, it hoped to formulate a business plan that would allow it to attain Division 1 status and possibly merge with any other “major” league that might be formed following the World Cup.

Los Angeles Salsa president William De La Peña, who was also a member of the USSF board of directors, told the Tampa Tribune in November, 1993, he wanted a fair process.

“I don’t believe the (USSF) is in any position to approve only one plan to control soccer in this country,” he said. “We would have some reservations about anti-trust violations. We could have the three leagues all coordinate together and let the market determine which system works best.”

Of course in the end, the USSF idea won.

The Super League plan morphed into Major League Soccer, which was founded in 1995 and started play with 10 franchises in 1996.

The APSL was rebranded as the A-League in 1995 (and its remnants ultimately became part of the USL), and League One America never got beyond the drawing board.

One can only imagine the cussing and discussing on Twitter while these organizations were making their plays.

Fortunately for the argumentative types, domestic soccer is as dysfunctional as ever, and remains tasty fodder for Twitter fights.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention this tidbit. Shortly after the World Cup was awarded to the United States in 1988, the USSF drew up a development plan for the sport. One of its key features was promotion/relegation.

Feel free to Tweet among yourselves …

* This story was updated to clarify information about the APSL.

Long before there was a fully functioning United States Men’s National Soccer Team – and long before the USMNT fell into dysfunction – there was a professional franchise known as Team America.

Blink and you might’ve missed them, but for those of us who followed the original North American Soccer League during its spectacular rise and equally spectacular fall, this one-and-done club is a unique part of its history.

Formed on January 20, 1983, and disbanded on September 13 of that same year, Team America was an idea much better in theory than in practice.

“The establishment of Team America will serve as a tremendous vehicle to enhance our chances of qualifying for the World Cup, soccer’s greatest spectacle,” United States Soccer Federation President Gene Edwards told United Press International during the launch announcement in New York. “It’s an exciting new endeavor – no country has ever placed its national team in a professional league – and will serve as an important step towards making the United States a viable force in international competition.”

The USMNT hadn’t been relevant since 1950 – the last year it qualified for the World Cup. Thirty-three years later the plan was to test the mettle of an American team against foes in a circuit whose stars were primarily from soccer hotbeds around the world.

The 20-player roster would be formed by taking the top United States players (including naturalized citizens) from the NASL, American Soccer League and Major Indoor Soccer League. To make sure Team America had the best athletes available in an effort to earn a berth in the 1986 World Cup, each NASL team had to nominate 40 players for consideration, with the expansion team allowed to sign away any who wanted to join.

“Team America is a landmark development as the United States prepares for international competition,” NASL President Howard Samuels told UPI. “A total commitment is being made by the United States soccer community, which believes that the U.S. can and will become a force in world soccer.”

I was hopeful that Team America would not only give domestic soccer a boost, but provide a loft to the NASL as well.

After its late 1970s heyday when huge crowds showed up to see players like Pele, George Best and Johan Cruyff, the league was struggling in the early 1980s.

Boasting 24 franchises in 1978, it was down to 12 in 1983 and fan interest was waning. Perhaps Team America would inspire new soccer supporters who were looking for a team to call their own (even though its home games were played in Washington D.C.) and reinvigorate the fan base for the rest of the league.

Nope.

The club averaged just over 13,000 fans for its matches at cavernous RFK Stadium. Plus, the team itself was punchless; some of the better American players such as Rick Davis of the New York Cosmos opted not to join.

“In the final analysis, it came down to a decision to where I could contribute to the development of the game more,” Davis told the Los Angeles Times. “The Cosmos have their own version of Team America. They have a very successful Americanization program that I’ve been an important part of. For many reasons, the best place for me at the moment is with the Cosmos.”

Due in part to the lack of top-tier U.S.-born players, Coach Alkis Panagoulias chose a team that had an abundance of naturalized citizens. He even added those who were in the process of applying for citizenship.

This would’ve been a non-story for any other NASL squad, but it strayed significantly from Team America’s “homegrown” mission.

Aside from finishing with a league-worst record of 10-20, Panagoulias’ charges netted just 33 goals the entire season and were shut out in 11 matches – making them unsuccessful and boring.

Less than eight months after it began, the experiment was over.

“The plan is to put Team America together next year as the U.S. team-in-training for the 1986 World Cup,” Samuels told the Chicago Tribune. “We’ll reassemble right after the indoor season.”

Spoiler alert: they did, but not as a member of the NASL. The franchise model was abandoned.

Team America owner Bob Lifton said he lost $1 million during the season and didn’t have many kind things to say about the experience.

“We were without the offensive strength we needed and that weakness showed up egregiously,” Lifton told the Tribune. “The team was certainly not a role model to the kids in this country.”

The USMNT would go on to reinvent itself and qualify for seven consecutive World Cups beginning in 1990 – including a quarterfinal run in 2002.

The squad missed the cut in 2018, however, and recent performances have done little to inspire confidence among supporters.

But while it’s interesting to look back at the tribulations of Team America, they really don’t have anything to do with the turbulent times the USMNT is going through now.

Then again, you know what they say about those who forget the past…

Editor’s note: This column originally appeared on October 1, 2019. It’s being republished as a tribute to Pelé, who passed away today.

We all have those “Where were you when?” moments, whether it’s remembering a major news event or a milestone in sports.

Sometimes, the two are the same, and one of those times was October 1, 1977.

On most Saturdays during the fall I’d be glued to the TV watching college football or listening to it on the radio, like many sports fans in Birmingham, Alabama. On this particular one Auburn was taking on Ole Miss in a televised contest at 1 p.m. while Georgia at. Alabama ruled the AM airwaves later in the day.

But Edson Arantes do Nascimento (I’ll just simplify things and call him by his nickname, Pelé) was also playing his last competitive soccer match on a special episode of ABC’s Wide World of Sports that afternoon. For me, that trumped everything else.

In a friendly between Pelé’s current team – the New York Cosmos, and the club team from Brazil where he got his start, Santos – the “Black Pearl” played a half for each side. A crowd numbering 75,646 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, got to see Pelé score a goal for New York in the Cosmos’ 2-1 victory.

I watched because by 1977 I was a hardcore soccer fan, but also because I owed much of that fandom to Pelé.

The first soccer match I ever saw (also on Wide World of Sports) was a December 1970 rebroadcast of that year’s World Cup Final; Pelé scored a goal in Brazil’s 4-1 victory over Italy.

The sport fascinated me, and the way he played it made it even more enthralling.

His was the first soccer poster to ever go up on my wall, and his likeness still bears a prominent spot in my Fan Cave.

I’ve always shied away from butting the words “sports” and “hero” up against each other, bit for Pelé I made (and make) an exception.

Since soccer was hardly a TV staple back in the day, any chance to see it was cause for excitement. But this really was a well-played match, and Pelé’s 1,281^st career goal (which came off a 30-yard free kick that rocketed into the right corner of the goal) was pure class.

When the match ended he took a victory lap – holding an American flag in one hand and a Brazilian flag in the other – and was mobbed by players from both clubs and thousands of fans who had made their way onto the field.

As I’m sure was the case for millions of other soccer faithful, the occasion was a bittersweet one. It was great to see this magnificent athlete go out on top, but it was sad to think he’d never lace up his boots again.

Pelé gave a speech afterward, but since it’s been a minute since I heard it, I had to look it up in the archives of the New York Daily News.

It was brief, but worth repeating:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy to be here with you in this moment of my life. I want to thank you all, and I want to take this opportunity to ask you in this moment – when the world looks to me – to take more attention to the young ones, to the kids all over the world. We need them too much. And I want to ask you, because I believe love is the most important thing in the world that we can take in life, people, say with me three times, Love! Love! Love!”

In 1999 Pelé was named World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, and that same year was elected Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee.

Certainly there’s plenty of room to argue over who the greatest footballer of all time is – names like Messi, Maradona, Best, Zidane, Cruyff and Ronaldo will no doubt enter the conversation – but Pelé transcended sports.

He made The Beautiful Game even more beautiful.