I was a few rows away and remember the look in Curcic's crazed eyes when he suffered that injury. What a character. What a shame. We all go through phases of life and the degree or intensity of involvement with a sports team waxes and wanes. It's the abandoning or rejection of a team that's much more drastic. I still think that most of the fans who jumped ship at the time of the Metromorphosis embraced the excuse, as it helped justify the shift of focus, the change of scene. Burnout's normal and, as Prazan points out, we've had enough reasons to burn out. Those that didn't and stayed loyal have been richly rewarded. Interesting that's rarely acknowledged by the nay-sayers. And what's difficult for those of us who've been around since inception is the rewarding of those who've had excuses, indeed flaunted those excuses as if they were moral imperatives. For those (few) of us who were around, even only as kids, and suffered not only losing seasons but the sense of loss of absence not only of the team name but the team, the rewarding of those with excuses with a team that would claim a winning legacy is really tough to stomach. Because I lived through losing the Cosmos the rebranding didn't bother me. But the idea of the Cosmos coming back now as archrivals, especially under the leadership of such a sleazy crew, is too much to take. I still think Zoffinger our #1 all-time villain, but Pinton and Chinaglia both have to be in the top 5 of any Metro Hall of Infamy. And each of the cast taking the local stage in Reservoir Dogs costumes adopting/stealing NY soccer legacy simply add to the cast of panto villains. Easy excuse to dislike and despise what they represent.
And the only reason they got those was because of Pele. It was a celebrity photo shoot more than a soccer game. Yes, lots of People began, or had already begun enjoyning the actual sport and became true fans of the team, but most were just there because Pele was going to show up. Its the same thing as the more recent beckham phenomenon(albeit Pele was a better player by lightyears, but their star power was the same) I do think this team will be a good addition to the league, I just think they should lower their expectations. 40k people are not showing up to watch the Cosmos on a regular basis. Now 15-25k? That sounds more reasonable.
The Cosmos drew over 40K average in '78, '79 & '80 (all at Giants Stadium). They averaged just over 12K in their last season, '84, roughly what the Red Bulls drew during their last year in the same stadium. I don't believe the region can sustain two MLS franchises. The logic that NY2 (Cosmos or other) would somehow help RBNY escapes me.
from what I recall during this past summer, there was massive coverage for the World Cup and the US. It was unprecedented. It was all over national sports news and all over the local news at least in my area. There were World Cup block parties in my city for example.
Have you ever heard the phrase "You're either with me or your against me"? and/or Fear that a real Cosmos team, with a stadium in one of the five boroughs of NYC, will cause immediate problems for RB. Why bust your behind trying to get to Jersey to support an "out of state" team when you can support your own cities team. Quite a few people that i have attended matches with are there to just support a professional team in the area and not necessarily RB. They could just as easily stay in the city and support the Cosmos. Like it or not, whenever the Cosmos are mentioned, page views and replies jump. Vaporware or not that name is still relevant in the area and in soccer. Just my opinion. Plus the Cosmos advertising campaign alone is putting quite a few of the MLS Team PR departments to shame. It kind of pisses RB/Metro fans off wondering how they've been able to get it right so soon while their teams management has F'ed up so badly for so many years.
******** the Cosmos, they totally destroyed the old NASL and they're gonna come back and think they're kings.
As much as I dislike this whole concept of resurrecting the Cosmos franchise as if it were some sort of NY or USA soccer icon rather than the flash in the pan sideshow that IMHO it was, I have to agree with NYCFan. The Cosmos PR campaign has put the MLS to shame. Of course, the Cosmos PR approach has a touch of PT Barnum and Wild West Medicine Show to it.
Agree on both counts. Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain were all great musicians / entertainers, but their legends grew with their death. Who knows where their careers would have taken them. Like Jim, Jimi, Janis and Kurt lets, keep the Cosmos where they were: fond memories. Lets forget the Cosmos' brutal ending and the Soccer Wasteland know as the USA that was created in the aftermath of their demise.
This to me is a big thing. There seems to be so little awareness of RBNY out there....yet every time the Cosmos organizition (whatever that even means right now) hires someone, ESPN wirtes an article and gives them fre publicity. Personally i'm indifferent to Cosmos, but i'm very curious to see how it will evolve. If and when they make it into the league, it will make a big splash no doubt. But will fans be satisfied if you have a team run by big names like cantona and Pele, yet the team on the field is made of no-names. At this stage it seems its easier for a new team to go on a marketing binge and drum up a big amount of support around launching their team than existing teams creating buzz for something that's been around a number of years. I think what we see in Seattle, Philly, Portland, and Vancouver is great, but i'd be curious where they'll all be in 5 years. Philly in particular since they have the out-of-town stadium issue that some teams have struggled with. The current numbers are very good, but if they are still bottom feeders in 5 years, will the fans still be showing up?
And that's the shame of it all. A bunch of unsaviory characters who have failed in everything involving this game in one way or another are trying to re-start something that is higher than holy water. And sadly Cobi Jones has been duped and now Eric Cantona who has a few screws loose is joining them? It's very sad. But then again if we have a difference of an opinion of this, someone from the other boards will come over and calls bulls*** artists and that we don't know what we're talking about. Kemsley's past is very checkered and I don't trust him at all. Just because he's been living here doesn't mean he can run away from his past.
I'm not against a Cosmos revival. I'm against this BS artist reviving them. A legit businessman who wants to bring them back or if Red Bull bought the name to make RBNY the Cosmos again is fine as well.
I'm for the Cosmos revival if you don't know. But I hear so much for the RB end that seems simply like hatred. Who said Red Bull fans need to hate the Cosmos revival? And being that a lot of Metro fans were Cosmos fans, why the animosity? And about the Cosmos management/PR putting some MLS teams to shame, isn't this spark in interest refreshing? So many MLS teams have been sitting back without any incentive to start hitting the new media outlets. Now they have one. America is capitalist. Competition is supposed to provide a better product. And I firmly believe the Cosmos will reshape the stupid Energy Drink FC into something more respectful and identifiable (Goal #2 in my reshape NYC-area MLS dream). They'll have to to compete for fans.
If the Cosmos revival does happen we as RedBull fans will have to accept the fact that many(some) NY area fans might jump ship, either because of their casual supporter nature, proximity, hype, whatever, but that must only make us more passionate about our club, and it is good to see that that passion does exist here. Excellence on the field, in the front office and at the stadium will mean more to many people than some concocted attempt to revisit the past glories of yesteryear. I say let them try, and hopefully they succeed enough to be worthy opponents and not some joke team. Yes, in a perfect world the team we root for now should have been renamed the Cosmos and perhaps sported a Red Bull logo on its shirt, but that did not happen becuase the people who were willing to shell out $200 million to build a world class stadium and fix the shipwreck that was Metro had the right to name the team something else. I for one have long-since gotten over any product placement problems and celebrate the RedBull association. The big mystery for the Cosmos revival is what really do the Wilpons think right now? Without them this will fail, because only they have a snowball's chance of getting a stadium built in Queens, and even then it is a long shot based on the litany of hurdles to be jumped.
Nope. What the hell is a "MetroStar"? It's a, um, beats me. What's a "Red Bull" (there's a space there by the way)? Well, I know what a bull is, and while there aren't any red ones in real life, I can envision what one looks like.
You don't understand that MetroStars was named after MetroMedia that was runned by John Kluge who was the king of buying successful TV shows and getting the broadcasting rights from those MY ##, CW, Fox channels to show re-runs over and over again. That company is gone and so is Mr. Kluge. Naming the club after the company wasn't that good either. But it got the start that it needed. That's all that matters.
Where the hell do you get that thats what my comment was about? Read the part of his post that I bolded dumbass.
I doubt that Kemsley made an offer that Metromedia couldn't have. I expect that what changed between 1995 and 2009 is that Pinton's asking price came down out of the clouds and more into line with the reality of what anybody was willing to pay.