The New York Cosmos launched their reincarnation with a 2-1 win against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers here Saturday as Brazilian legend Pele and other members of the club’s 1970s heyday looked on.
A sell-out crowd of 11,929 packed the stands at Hofstra University for a festive occasion that was a far cry from the outfit’s golden era when crowds of 40,000 regularly flocked to Giants Stadium.
The Cosmos were the star attraction of the North American Soccer League (NASL) during the 1970s, when players like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia were lured to the Big Apple in an attempt to help football take root in the United States.
The Cosmos folded with the demise of the NASL in 1984 as the attempt to spread the football gospel in the land of baseball, basketball and grid-iron ended in failure.
The club retained its brand recognition over the intervening decades however and is now hoping to relaunch itself as a viable franchise in the more modest surroundings of the reborn NASL, effectively the division below the main professional league in the United States, Major League Soccer.
Cosmos captain and former Spain international Marcos Senna came closest to breaking the early deadlock, forcing a fine save from Richard Sanchez on 21 minutes with a vicious volley from outside the area.