
Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos
(0.00 / 0 votes)'Goal!'
The New York Cosmos
were the best and worst
'of what soccer in America was.'
We were the first big pioneers where
big stars came to the United States.
'Pel, Giorgio Chinaglia,
Franz Beckenbauer, Johann Cruyff...'
It was my dream at that time
to go to play for the New York Cosmos.
I think it was one of the best decisions
I ever made.
'Goal!'
All of a sudden in that one summer,
summer 1977, the Cosmos took over.
When you saw that stadium
with 80,000 people
'you almost had an orgasm... really!'
It was a happening.
It was an event. It was unprecedented.
'The Cosmos were North America's
soccer ambassadors to the world.'
'We sensed
we were in on something special.'
The world's sport is finally being berthed
right here, right in our midst.
Soccer will be the biggest
big league of all.
'Goal number three!'
We transcended everything.
We were international. We were cool.
We were everything to everybody.
The world's most popular sport
came to its most powerful nation
in the same way the United States
imported many of its people
through the gates at Ellis Island,
imported from almost
every corner of the world.
'This is the cradle
of New York soccer in the early days.'
Ethnic communities playing soccer
on fields like this,
in and around New York
for decades, really.
"Hyphenated Americans"
we used to call them,
German-Americans, Greek-Americans,
but never American-Americans.
From the melting pot came
America's first great soccer team.
'In 1950, a free-spirited band of Yanks'
pulled off one of the most stunning
upsets in World Cup history.
The World Cup,
the Tournament of Nations
held every four years since 1930
is the global game's ultimate event.
The American's second match
in 1950 was against mighty England,
the country where the modern sport
was born.
I was just a teenager at that time,
but it was a great shock to wake up
'to find England had been knocked out
by the United States.'
We just couldn't believe it.
The winning goal was headed home
by Joe Gaetjens,
a Haitian living in New York City
who made his living as a dishwasher.
On the day he became an American
hero, he wasn't even a US citizen.
It would be 40 years before the US
fielded a World Cup team again.
'Americans don't have
the attention span that other people do'
free-flowing and continuous.
'Hot smash! Burleson's
gonna have a long throw. He makes it.'
'That ends the inning.
Bottom of the 7th, 5-3, Cincinnati.'
In our sports there are all these
artificial stops and starts,
'which we use to indulge ourselves in
beer and Cracker Jacks and whatever.'
'Football, baseball,
basketball, hockey,
'all have natural breaks.'
I think that people watching soccer
for the first time wonder what's going on.
It's just up and down, up and down.
'Our football is a game
without stopping,
'where you've got to think for yourself.
'A game that you do with your feet
and not with your hands.'
All these things are totally different
for the American public.
'If you really want to get soccer,
'you have to concentrate on it
for the entire 45 minutes.'
I have sometimes likened it to a play.
If you go to a play in the theatre,
'you are going to pay attention to it
until the intermission.'
'Then you take a break and talk about it,
'then sit down again
and watch the entire second act.'
Soccer's like that.
It's not like the other American sports.
'It's about tradition.
'People in the rest of the world
'are passionate about soccer.'
There's no passion in America about
soccer.
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"Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2023. Web. 6 Feb. 2023. <https://www.scripts.com/script/once_in_a_lifetime:_the_extraordinary_story_of_the_new_york_cosmos_15212>.
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