Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Sexylocher Masterful Movie

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

MartinHafer The North American Soccer League (NASL) an abortive attempt to create a huge sports organization on par with other major league sports such as the NFL and MLB. Their premier team clearly was the New York Cosmos--a very, very high-priced collection of stars from around the globe. What's surprising to me is not that they won a lot of games but that they didn't win even more considering their bankroll. This film chronicles the history of this club as well as gives insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the Cosmos.When the film begins, the Cosmos are more like a semi-pro club at best. No one attends their games, they have no stars and there just isn't any interest. The same could be said for the rest of this rag-tag league. However, with the coming of big money from Warner Brothers came new life to the team and the rest of the league. With the coming of Pelé and other top world stars came a sudden interest by the public. In fact, there was so much interest that the league even eventually got their own network contract...and soon the league just fizzled.I found the film pretty interesting when it came to personalities. While the team had HUGE stars, it also had some huge egos. And, it was rather funny how decades later, folks associated with the team STILL hate the team's most productive star, Giorgio Chinaglia--who didn't do a lot in this documentary to get the viewers to like him! Overall, the film is worth seeing--particularly if you lived through the era. It's also a great show to watch to learn how NOT to run a league--as you'll see if you watch the film. Interesting.

OldSchoolWhitey64 I really liked it, but it just moves by too fast.There were so many moments and subjects that they should have dwelled on a little longer,that they cut away too fast from.This may be because the attitude expressed early in the movie,about Americans' attention spans;that ours are so short,they can't focus long enough on the game of soccer(i.e. football)to appreciate it,and I think the filmmakers edited it to fit that,in the assumption that us Yanks wouldn't find it interesting if the film had been done like their football docs.Maybe they're right,maybe most of us wouldn't,but I know I would have,and I wish they had done so.They could have filled it up with so much more detail,more stories,and so on.Good ,but should have been much more.

bdonut I loved this flick and in many ways it beats the book by a mile as the interviews esp. of Cosmos personnel (hey, they even interviewed the guy in the Bugs Bunny mascot costume!) but there are a lot of generalizations and misinterpretations because I think it was done by a Brit from a soccer point of view.First of all, the football (as in American football) footage in reference to 1977 he used was of the USFL (TB Bandits vs. Houston Gamblers), a league which did not start until 1983. So it was obvious NFL Films would not cooperate with his flick but this sort of "throw a generic football clip in" doesn't cut it with North Americans, Mr. Director. It's sloppy film-making.The claim that the Cosmos were #1 in the NY sports market at the time is preposterous. That era from 1975-81 was when the NY Yankees rose from a decade of poor play and poorer attendance to lead the American League every single year in attendance plus go to four World Series, winning two. Sure the Cosmos were incredibly popular but to suggest baseball was suffering in NY under the Cosmos' glare is laughable. Add to that both the NY Jets and NY Giants of the NFL had a greater average attendance per game than the Cosmos.Anyway, it is an entertaining film esp, for those of us who grew up with and loved the NASL. As far as the guy who wished Cruyff was interviewed. he must have been asleep as the Dutch great makes a great comment on the shootout in the film.Lastly, this whole Cosmos were ahead of the curve in having 14 different nationalities on one team like they invented that. The year before the Cosmos joined the NASL, the 1970 champion Rochester Lancers had players from 12 different nations in their squad. Even hockey (Swedes, Finns and Cezchs came over) or baseball (always had Latin Americans since the '50s) had that mix...it's our immigrant, no import quotas in sports history.

James McNally I saw this film at the Hot Docs Film Festival in May 2006. The North American Soccer League was struggling along through the 1970s until the New York Cosmos, owned by Warner Communications head Steve Ross, decided to bring superstar Pele to the Big Apple. Suddenly, attendance was up, and the Cosmos started winning. Continuing the formula by bringing some European stars over, the Cosmos won several league titles over the next few years. In the process, the once-moribund NASL expanded quickly to 24 teams. Unfortunately, the resulting dilution of talent, and the inability of smaller-market clubs to pay the huge salaries demanded by European or Latin American stars, meant that the league soon imploded.The film tells the story with humour and verve, and it's hard not to be a little bit nostalgic for the days when 70,000 people would crowd into Giants stadium to watch "the other football." But ultimately, the Cosmos' strategy was short-sighted. Building an audience for soccer in North America was going to take time, and the free-spending style of Ross and the Cosmos attracted only fairweather fans, who would melt away as soon as the team stopped winning. Other franchises couldn't attract enough fans in the first place, and the league suffered as a result.It was interesting that the director admitted afterwards that he is a huge fan of Chelsea Football Club in the English Premiership. Chelsea are following a similar strategy at the moment, with the seemingly endless billions of owner Roman Abramovich funding the construction of another superteam. So far, they've won back to back titles in England, but to the detriment of the league, according to many observers. Without a salary cap, the English Premier League drains talent away from the rest of the world, and Chelsea are the richest club of all. This concentration of talent makes the game less competitive in the long term, and while it may attract a few new fans, they're not the sort of fans who will stick around if and when the team starts losing.Many of the American innovations brought to the game by the NASL have made it into the game in the rest of the world. For example, penalty shootouts to decide games tied after regulation time. This will always be unpopular with football purists, but for the casual fan, it certainly adds excitement to the game. Other gimmicks weren't so successful, thankfully. Who wants to see cheerleaders at a football match?The only flaw in the film was the absence of any present-day interviews with Pele or Johan Cruyff (who played for the Los Angeles Aztecs and Washington Diplomats franchises), though I believe numerous attempts were made to obtain their participation. The director Paul Crowder promised lots of fun stuff in the DVD extras, including their attempts to get Pele on board.