SPORTS
July 7, 1994 | HELENE ELLIOTT
Was it 1994 or 1979? Driving through the parking lot at Giants Stadium before Tuesday's Mexico-Bulgaria game was a trip back in time, to the days when the North American Soccer League was flourishing and the Cosmos drew overflow crowds to the Meadowlands. As in the brief but enjoyable heyday of the NASL, fans flocked to Giants Stadium hours before the game for tailgate parties.
SPORTS
February 26, 1993 | MIKE PENNER
Every decade it's the same old thing. "Soccer--it's going to be the American sport of the . . . "Seventies?" Well, the New York Cosmos did play to crowds as large as 75,000. Then Pele retired. "Eighties?" Sorry. You can't dunk a soccer ball. "Nineties?" Don't tell Gary Bettman or Michael Eisner. Eisner had a choice: He could spread the Disney gospel along the boards and in the lobbies of ice rinks across the NHL--or he could pass out handbills at an APSL game. Officially, Eisner needed 1.
SPORTS
March 24, 1985 | JERRY TRECKER, Hartford Courant
For soccer lovers, these are harsh times. The news is increasingly depressing, making it ever harder to be hopeful about the future of the sport. The vaunted Cosmos is thrown out of the North American Soccer League, but there doesn't seem to be any league left, anyway. The NCAA imposes restrictive limits on the development of the sport at the Division I level.
SPORTS
April 16, 1989 | From The Associated Press
For 10 years, Rick Davis has been American soccer's most visible symbol. Now, at 30, he has one last chance to play in a World Cup. By the time 1994 rolls around, when the United States will play host to international soccer's quadrennial world championship, Davis will be 35, past his prime and far above the average age of World Cup players. With the emergence of a stronger, faster and better players in the U.S., Davis knows this is it. He was on the U.S. team that failed to qualify for the 1982 World Cup in Spain and the one that missed going to Mexico in 1986.
NEWS
June 15, 1989 | Fernando Dominguez
When Marcelo Balboa was growing up in Cerritos, he and older brother Claudio would pretend to be famous soccer stars playing in important games all over the world. "We used to take penalty kicks against each other," he recalled recently. "One guy would be the goalie and the other guy would kick the ball. Then we would switch off." Balboa doesn't have to pretend to be an international soccer player anymore. The 21-year-old Latino is a defender on the U.S. national soccer squad that is trying to qualify for the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy.
SPORTS
June 18, 1990 | From Reuters
The United States plans to restore a national soccer league by the time it hosts the World Cup in 1994 but will ensure quick-profit owners do not take over the game, the country's top soccer administrator said today. Werner Fricker said American players need the spur of regular professional club competition which they lost when the North American Soccer League (NASL) folded in 1985. Fricker, U.S.