Credited cast: | |||
Ahmet Ertegun | ... | Self | |
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Nesuhi Ertegün | ... | Self (archive footage) |
Matt Dillon | ... | Narrator (voice) | |
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Clive Toye | ... | Self |
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Shep Messing | ... | Self |
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Giorgio Chinaglia | ... | Self |
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Peppe Pinton | ... | Self |
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Werner Roth | ... | Self |
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Jay Emmett | ... | Self |
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Phil Woosnam | ... | Self |
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Raphael de la Sierra | ... | Self |
Carlos Alberto | ... | Self | |
Franz Beckenbauer | ... | Self | |
Pelé | ... | Self (archive footage) | |
Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
Marv Albert | ... | Self |
A look back at one of the more curious fads in American professional sports, the sudden rise and precipitous fall of the North American Soccer League, spanning its existence 1968-1984, as seen through the experience of its most famous club, the New York Cosmos. The NASL made very little impact in the US, where soccer had virtually no following, until in 1975 the New York Cosmos succeeded in signing the most famous player in the world, Pele. Attendence for Cosmos games exploded, outdrawing even the New York Giants and New York Jets of the NFL, to where exhibition games in Seattle were drawing huge crowds, and when Pele announced his retirement in 1977 his final game drew the biggest crowd to ever see a soccer game in the US. His retirement from the game began a slow but steady decline for the NASL as money issues for the league and the spending practices of the Cosmos became a running controversy. Written by Michael Daly
I really liked it, but it just moves by too fast.There were so many moments and subjects that they should have dwelled on a little longer,that they cut away too fast from.
This may be because the attitude expressed early in the movie,about Americans' attention spans;that ours are so short,they can't focus long enough on the game of soccer(i.e. football)to appreciate it,and I think the filmmakers edited it to fit that,in the assumption that us Yanks wouldn't find it interesting if the film had been done like their football docs.Maybe they're right,maybe most of us wouldn't,but I know I would have,and I wish they had done so.They could have filled it up with so much more detail,more stories,and so on.Good ,but should have been much more.