Ahh some of these names bring back memories. Love to see Kevin Crow's name. A sucker for the old MISL and the Sockers.
MISL, lol. Who was that one guy that became famous for taking off his shirt and throwing into the crowd everytime he scored? Tatu or something like that.
lol I don't remember any of those teams. I never really followed the indoor game. I do recall San Francisco having a team for one or two years called the Fog only because KQED used to show recorded games before SMIG. I do recall the Earthquakes playing indoors once and acquiring Steve Zungul who was (for lack of a better phrase) the Babe Ruth of indoor soccer. But I was curious to see how Zungul would do outdoors when the NASL season began because I wasn't aware of him having played outdoors at the time. Ended up scoring in the opening game of the season (great shot from outside the box, in off the post). I later found out that he was quite the outdoor player in Yugoslavia (?) before he played indoors in the U.S.
ahh yes Tatu the Arch nemesis of the Sockers. The reality was some of the guys in the MISL were making some decent cash. For eastern bloc players it was a good deal. You made more money than back home and were in Amerreeeca. As the for the original post of the thread, I feel like a newb compared to some people on this board wow. The first World Cup I watched was 1990 on TNT (and a Spanish station forgot which one). Still remember watching US vs. Czechoslovakia completely expecting a US win. I mean come on we are the US we always win. ohh boy. Other memories from that tournament was how huge the field was, how far the keeper could kick, and freaking out every time they took a free kick or had a throw in. I mean they would take the kick from ten yards ahead of the foul and the ref did NOTHING. Coming from American sports where things are literally measured to the inch this was a huge change. Also for the first time realized that England, and Britain were different with different flags.
Self-quote: FWIW, just on my TV was a NCAA football game being reaired which originally aired in 1995 on ABC. They only used a scoreboard before/after commercial breaks.
Slaviša "Steve" Žungul was a Yugoslavian international, who played in the 1976 Euros. But he was not a "big name" like Branko Oblak (Schalke, Bayern), Ivan Surjak (PSG, Udinese) or the national legend Dragan Dzaic. Zungul did start in the semifinal vs. West Germany but, overall, he had no goals in 14 caps. The big star of the Sand Diego Sockers back then was the late great Kazimierz "Kaz" Deyna, who took 3rd place in the European Footballer of the Year in 1974 voting (behind only Cruijff and Beckenbauer). BTW, during that era, the Yugoslavian, Polish, and Czech stars had to play in their domestic leagues until 28, Yugoslavia or 30, Poland. Zungul defected because he had a very lucrative deal awaiting for him in the USA. The Soviets were not allowed to play abroad until the late-80's when Gorby was in charge. Renat Dasayev was sold to Seville and Alex Zavarov to Juventus after the Euro'88 tournament. Money wise, there was no comparison. In the USSR, a player in the top league made between 300R-800R/month, which was roughly equal to the same amount in dollars in relative purchasing power (many players were, however, given free 1-2 bd apartments and cars). Players of that caliber could easily make over $100K in the West and they often made a lot more that that anyway. Dasayev retired from Seville in 1991 at 34 because, by the Soviet standards, he was a de facto millionaire.
I believe this allowed those countries to keep the amateur status of their players which made them eligible for the Olympics, where the Eastern Bloc countries dominated the football medal count during the Cold War. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that in an interview in the old 'Soccer Digest' magazine/booklet I have, Kaz Deyna said he felt that winning an Olympic gold medal (which he had achieved in '72) was a more important achievement for a footballer than winning the World Cup (which - SURPRISE! - he just missed out on in '74).
The Russians were the most ruthless in their dealing with any possible defectors and thusly their defectors were an occasional ballet dancer - sort of protected by the international fame - and a bunch of KGB officers, who were literally facing a life and death situation. The "amateur" status of the East European/communist athletes was a complete crock of shit. A star athlete was halfway between a celebrity and a slave. Coaches wrung everything they could out of an athlete's body. In exchange, a star player was famous and, by the local standards, rich. Just as a rough guide - a manual/blue collar worker in the USSR made 60R-120R/mo, depending on the skill and seniority. a white collar doctor/teacher/lawyer with a 5-year university degree made 120R-180R/mo. a white collar d/t/l with a supervisory/management title made 150R-250R/mo a white collar d/t/l in middle management made up to 300R/mo a local district Communist Party chief, military/police/KGB captain, young upper league player made ~ 400R/mo a city Communist Party chief, a military/police/KGB colonel, an established sports star ~ 600R/mo a state Communist Party chief, a general, an international quality player, an industry minister - 800R/mo a Politburo member - 1,000R/mo Leonid Brezhnev - 1,200R/mo These were official wages, paid by the state on the books. Of course, the corruption was at unfathomable levels. The head of the Uzbekistan Communist Party Rashidov was alleged to have misappropriated in excess of 300,000,000R. When Brezhnev died and Andropov, the head of KGB was appointed in his place, he began to put screws to Rashidov and the latter suddenly developed heart problems and was dead within a year (unofficial cause of death - suicide). The Minister of Internal Affairs (State Police) and Brezhnev's buddy Schyolokov was accused by Andropov of stealing 500,000R of state property. Schyolokov was stripped of his 4-star general status and ended up shooting himself in the head (as did his wife a few months earlier). There were also members of organized crime and the underground manufacturers that were worth millions. Those had to pay protection money to the police, the KGB, the Party apparatchiks, the White Collar Crime (economic crimes) Police, the more powerful organized crime rings, etc. In exchange, many of these high placed legitimate officials asked for the off-the-books contributions to their favorite local teams. The extent of these will never be truly known ... however, one of the post-Communist Russia largest organized crime groups was headed by the ex-Greco Roman wrestler Otari Kvantrishvili, who put together a political party called ~ Lev Yashin Sportsmen Society. Ex-wrestlers, ex-weightlifters, ex-martial artists, ex-hockey goons comprised his private army of about 1,500 henchmen. Kvanstrishvili himself was assassinated by a sniper in 1994. Vladimir Putin is basically running the same racket, asking his billionaire peons to cough up the funding for the top sports clubs. That was the case with Suleiman Kerimov's Anzhi Makhachkala reign that briefly brought Guus Hiddink, Roberto Carlos, Samuel Eto'o into the RPL. Since then, Kerimov ran afoul of Putin and, having lost billions, decided to effectively disband the club, which was relegated after the end of the 2013-14 season.
Just came across this thread. Can anyone confirm the first World Cup game on US TV? I think that it was the 1970 Final on ABC's Wide World of Sports. I remember watching it but I think it was on tape delay on the following Saturday (the game was the previous Sunday). I was young and it was a long time ago so please correct me if that is wrong. I think that some of the 1966 World Cup games were shown live via satellite in the US on Closed Circuit at movie theaters and the like (same with the 1970 games), but not on US broadcast TV (no cable TV in those days!). So was the 1970 Final the first World Cup game on US TV? It was certainly the first soccer game on US TV that I ever saw, and it was in color! There was nothing like seeing Pele in that bright yellow shirt since we just got a color TV a couple of years before. 1982 was the first World Cup that I remember having all of the games broadcast on US TV, many/most on ESPN both live and tape delayed (the Final live on ABC) and all of the games live on SIN ("Spanish International Network", the Spanish language channel that eventually became Univision) except when played at the same time (those were on tape delay, as I recall). The funny part was that the SIN announcers would repeat a lot of their commentary in English, since they knew there were a lot of non-Spanish speakers watching! I remember watching "Canal Fut" (a Televisa satellite channel) on Sky Mexico in the year leading up to the 1998 World Cup when they showed the Televisa broadcast of every game of every World Cup in their entirety from 1962 on up (this took several months to show them all!). I recorded a lot of those on VHS. So, Mexican TV (Televisa) was showing the games at least since 1962, but I think that they were on tape delay until the trans-Atlantic satellites were used for 1966. The 1970 games were the first ones in color on Televisa (and they were all in color).
The 1966 final was broadcast (same-day, delayed) on NBC (the BBC broadcast). Supposedly it got pretty good ratings, and the story is that it led to the forming of the professional soccer leagues in 1967 which became the NASL. I remember that too!
Thank you for confirming that! I don't remember the 1966 Final being on TV. I am guessing that the 1966 Final may have been the first soccer game on US TV and that there were no other soccer games on US TV until the 1970 Final. Do you know if the 1966 Final was broadcast in color on NBC? The 1970 Final was in color on ABC.
Gold Cup QF a few weeks ago was on Fox, there were several EPL matches on NBC last season (and one this Saturday), and that's just off the top of my head.