For old NASL fans...

That German league is the Bundesliga. And Chinaglia may have the largest ego of any Italian soccer player ever.

And that's saying a lot.

 

I love the fact that we have someone on this board carrying a grudge against Johan Cruyff.

 

The man of zero nuance and limited vocabulary chirps again.

 

Yes, yes, Bundesliga. So simple to spell, yet I rarely get it right.

Chinaglia may have the largest ego of any professional athlete in American history. He makes Michael Irvin look humble.

 

I met Chignalia once at a charity event -- the guy certainly has a presence. He also believes that he can fix American soccer in about 5 minutes. And everything else in maybe 10.

 

Was 5 years old when the Vancouver Whitecaps won the soceer bowl over the Tampa bay Rowdies. I remember my dad taking me to the parade where there were over 100000 people. I grew up wih season tickets and would make the trip down to Seattle and Portland with my dad and the Whitecap booster club. Nothing but fond memories from the NASL, great memories for a kid and his dad.

 

When I was a kid we had season tickets to the California Surf for every year of their existence. They came with a card that gave you free access to LA Aztecs and San Diego Sockers games. I went to most of the Aztecs home games from the Cruyff era. I've never seen an athlete dominate a game on the pro level like he could.

I vividly remember watching Cruyff in a shootout back then. He took a few strides, stopped, waited for the keeper to rush him, then chipped it over the keeper into the net. He seemed to find the whole idea pretty amusing and not terribly challenging.

People can complain about the European dominance of the NASL compared to MLS, but I got to watch George Best and Johan Cruyff on a regular basis. No complaints.

 

Used to go to the odd Toronto Blizzard game (I remember the Metros-Croatia but never went to any games) at Exhibition Stadium, a truly horrid venue for soccer. Even went to a Fort Lauderdale Strikers game at Lockhart Stadium (I think that was the name of it) when we were on a family vacation. The San Diego Chicken was the big guest attraction that night. I think former German national player Gerd Muller was on the Strikers at that time.

 

Lockhart Stadium it is. Florida Atlantic plays its home football games there.

 

Old NASL fans is right. If you weren't there, it's hard to imagine 77,000 for a Cosmos game. Seninho! Beckenbauer! Ricky Davis!

I dragged my Dad to the Cosmos opening day game, circa 1978 or so, vs. Tampa Bay. Froze our butts off in the upper deck of Giants Stadium.

Trivia: Name my high school friend who was the last 1st round pick of the Cosmos, and later coached a D-1 school to the NCAA soccer championship.

 

Fuck that league was loaded. People make such a big deal about Pele, but Best and Cruyff were right up there in the all-time great stratosphere. It is said that no one - not even Pele - is respected internationally as Cruyff is.

I just wish I were old enough to have experienced some of it.

 

The Lancers and the Toronto Metros had some monumental clashes for reasons that no one understood until the European anarchy 20 years later -- Serbs on the field against Croatians.

And for off-the-field drama, the Lancers' front-office saga was so top notch that George Steinbrenner could have learned a thing or two. Non-stop bickering, meddling, inability to pay bills, etc. In one classic episode, a co-owner fired a coach at the airport as the team waited to board the plane and directed the team himself the next night. No one was surprised by the firing; the shocker was that they had the money to fly to games.