Team America
Posted on March 10, 2013 11:08 pm
In the fading years of the North American Soccer League, it used several strategies to try to resuscitate itself and regain its success of a few years before. One of those moves, which didn’t work any better than the others, was Team America, which played in the NASL in the 1983 season.
Team America, at least in theory, was the U.S. men’s national team. The coach was Alkis Panagoulias, who also was coach of the national team, and who later coached Greece in the 1994 World Cup. Many of the U.S. national-team players were on the roster, but not all of them (this was a crucial point).
The Washington Diplomats had folded after the 1981 NASL season, and in 1982, for the first time since 1973, there was no NASL team in Washington. Team America, which played its home games at RFK Stadium, was designed to fill that gap, and it did, but for only one season.
Team America was supposed to be a U.S. national team-in-training, particularly with an eye toward the next cycle of World Cup qualifying. Teams do evolve from season to season, but still, on Sept. 29, 1984, when the United States began that next cycle, its starting lineup included only five players who had played for Team America the year before, too much of a difference to be accounted for by just one year’s worth of evolution. The problem was rooted in the fact that not all of the NASL’s top Americans played for Team America. Other NASL teams were supposed to be releasing their American-citizen players to Team America. None of them did so happily, and there were a few cases of absolute refusal, along with some cases in which players themselves made that decision, declining to leave the clubs they had been playing for. For example, from the New York Cosmos, national-team players Chico Borja and Jeff Durgan did play for Team America in 1983, but national-team captain Rick Davis, Angelo DiBernardo and Steve Moyers didn’t. Other national-team players who played against Team America in the 1983 NASL season, rather than for it, included Winston DuBose of the Tulsa Roughnecks and Hugo Perez of the San Diego Sockers. Davis appears in the photo above, playing for the Cosmos against Team America.
Team America began its season well with victories over the Seattle Sounders and Tulsa Roughnecks, and by the end of June had an 8-5 record. Eight consecutive defeats in July put an end to that surge, however. Team America finished the season last in the 12-team league with a 10-20 record and 79 standings points (it took 124 to make the playoffs). At the turnstiles, they followed a similar pattern. Six of their first eight home games drew crowds of over 10,000. Only one of their last eight did. They finished the season with a home average of 12,769 per game, boosted by two early crowds of over 30,000.
Team America did have some effect on the NASL beyond Washington and 1983, but not the one the NASL had hoped for. At the beginning of the 1983 season, before the numbers began to show what a poor idea Team America had been, the Montreal Manic announced that in the 1984 season, they would be changing their name to Team Canada and becoming an all Canadian team. The Manic, who had been a successful team in 1981 and ’82, averaging more than 20,000 attendance per game, never made it to 1984. With the announcement, their attendance nosedived, and they folded after the 1983 season (as did Team America).
The NASL accomplished some good things, but it was not immune to shooting itself in the foot.
They should’ve called themselves Chivas USA.
I still have my Jeff Durgan jersey; eerily similar to the current striped kit for the Nats.
Nice to see Angelo DiBernardo mentioned. His daughter Vanessa is an All-American here at the University of Illinois. Go Illini!
And Waubonsie Valley HS in Aurora. Go Warriors!
Was in DC at the time…it was painfiul to watch after having seen Cryuff and Jansen play for the “Dips”.
Amazing how the same ideas keep coming up again and again. In the just-released report to formulate Canada’s new developmental league/model, one of the options was called Club Canada, where the country’s top U-23 and U-19/20 players would combine into sides playing in the NASL and USL-Pro: http://issuu.com/rethinkmanagementgroup/docs/leaguesummary/15
Had forgotten all about that Montreal fiasco. After it had been a shot in the arm.
The Glory Days restaurant in Fairfax, Va., has some Team America memorabilia on display.
It was such a sad time for Soccer in the USA..so many gimmicks to try and save a “league” when in the end..all the fans ever wanted was to see quality play!!
The Minnesota Kicks, where an amazing franchise for a few years, but the debacle stadium issues and the nfl complaining about Hunt and Robbie in dual sports doomed them..and not to put the blame on a rival sport. But some of the nfl owners where really scared and complaining about the NASL in their markets! LOL
I was complaining back then about Team America not having all the great players..especially Perez and Davis! LOL
Thanks for the memories..
6xkt74ygd
There’s no doubt that a club team with a higher quantity of national team players who play together regularly benefits the national teams performances. Just see Spain and Germany. I’d love to see one MLS club who focused on up and coming US players with the occassional other player. It can be done such that quality of play is strong and winning is not unachievable.
The national team as club team had positive effects in the Soviet Union, and in Yugoslavia, at the time.
Hey Roger, just curious if you’ve heard the rumors about this Qatari Dream League. Didn’t we have something similar here in the US way back?
I’m still confused about whether the Qatari Dream League is a hoax or not, but I think the U.S. league you are referring to is the International Soccer League, which played games in New York and elsewhere from 1960 to 1965 (although it’s hard for me to think of it as being “way back,” since I went to some of those games). I wrote about it in a blog post in 2010. Here is a link to that post:
http://www.bigsoccer.com/soccer/roger-allaway/2010/10/10/the-isl-showed-the-way/
Thanks for the link. The ISL is what I was thinking of.
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