Try this one on for size! The year was 1983. "Team America" was born in the NASL. Meanwhile, Seattle was subjected to this... http://soundercentral.com/museum/1983 updates/more/american_sport.htm "Team America" Link: http://soundercentral.com/museum/1983 updates/team_america.htm
I like page two of that first link, where there are interviews with people on the street responding to questions of what "American Style" soccer would look like. Eric Clarke rocks. "I believe the American style would be like Hemingway on the playing field. Like Hemingway said, "what is style? Style is just grace under pressure." I think that would characterize our play."
Ah, the infamous "red, white, black and blue" campaign. And, in one fell swoop, one of the NASL's premier franchises was dead. As far as Team America, let's not forget how the NASL managed to kill two franchises with the idea. Before the 1983 season, everyone was so excited about the concept that the owners of Le Manic de Montreal announced that, in 1984, they would form a "Team Canada." Alas, little thought was given to how the not-particularly-Canadian Montrealers would react to such an idea (this was during the peak of the Quebec seperatist movement). The fans stayed away in droves. Plus, the team jettisoned all of their stars to make room for Canadian players. Like Seattle, Montreal was not around for 1984. Nor, of course, was Team America. I have a Team America article in the making. I'll post a link when it's done.
It was the lowest of lows for a team that once stood so tall: They changed logos, team colors, coaches, style, ownership... 1983 was almost like a one-year "expansion team" in Seattle soccer. This after having gone to SOCCER BOWL '82 the year before!
They replaced Alan Hudson and Roger Davies, household names in the UK, with guys like Brian Schmetzer, Billy Crook and Geoff Wall--household names in Seattle high school soccer. Truly a case study in how to ruin a club.
So true, yet if 90% of BigSoccer posters had witnessed this back in the day, they'd be singing high praises to that idiot owner Bruce Anderson.
Geez soccer in the USA sounds so depressing back then. I don't remember the national team before the 1990 world cup, and I'm now thankful that I wasn't subjected to this. MLS needs to become a carbon copy of European leagues so we don't get any more ideas like this.
Seem to recall a similar situation with the Timbers the previous year.... before they folded. Some local yokle offering to save the franchise but gut it beyond any reason for the fans to recognize it as a pro team. You'd think the NASL would've seen this coming. Kinda parallelled the Team America-Team Canada train of deep thinking. I was in the minority then, and I would be now if such rampant idiocy repeated itself. IMO: except for Clive Toye, and one or two others, the whole bunch of them were eager to ditch the outdoor (genuine) game for indoors anyhow. .. and weren't very covert about it. Hated to see NASL die, but the league and the owners largely got what they deserved and vice versa. Based on their brainstorms, I'd left them for dead a year or two earlier. They appeared to me, largely at the end, as a bunch of egocentric carny hucksters interested only in making a buck indoors as opposed to any degree of passion for developing it here outdoors. Boy, this subject always riles me up!
IIRC, it was not quite as bad as you remember. In fact, the indoor-only advocates were a distinct minority. However, they were a powerful minority: Lee Stern (Chicago), Bob Bell (San Diego), and the Robbie Family (Minnesota) wielded quite a bit of clout. In the outdoor camp, you had the Cosmos who, by 1984, were being run by a lunatic (Peppe Pinton), and every other team which, while committed to outdoors, were all in the various stages of death. So it was definitely a quality-over-quantity situation. Those who frequent these boards know Joe and I can go on for hours about what the NASL owners did wrong. We'd agree on most reasons, disagree on some others. But I think we both agree that if people spent more time listening to Clive Toye instead of Phil Woosnam and the newer owners, we would be getting ready to enjoy season 39 of the NASL. As it is, we can thank Peppe Pinton, Peter Frampton, the boob who bought the Sounders and every other idiot owner for showing MLS how not to run a soccer league.
Correct. By 1982, I was so depressed with the state of professional soccer in the US that I stopped playing soccer (even though I had the opportunity to play collegiately) and stopped attending the SJ Earthquakes (family had been season ticket holders since 1975). NASL failed on many fronts, but I believe the biggest failure was in not developing professional US players. The American fans had learned the game and become tired of "over the hill" European players coming the league for a holiday and final pay check. Add the fact that indoor soccer was coming on strong and the NASL didn't have a chance...