Once in a Lifetime

Tonight I watched Once in a Lifetime: The Incredible Story of the New York Cosmos on ESPN 2. The title is a bit misleading, as this compelling documentary actually uses the New York Cosmos to show the rise and fall of the North American Soccer League in the US in the period from the mid-60s to the mid-80s. The Cosmos story has all of the elements of great Americana -- sex, interpersonal rivalries, lavish and sometimes rash expenditures of cash, American trend-jumping, sports, petty jealousies, a spectacular rise, an equally spectacular fall, competence juxtaposed with incompetence, and an unforced encapsulation of an era, or overlapping eras. Once in a Lifetime was a recent release in several cities, and one can assume that it will soon be available on dvd (it is not yet). I would strongly encourage sports fans, historians, and those interested in cultural change to find this documentary in a theater near you, to see if it will show again on the ESPN family of networks, or to wait for the dvd.

[And by the way, while Pele is one of the heroes of this story, he refused to be interviewed. The filmmakers take a very discrete but clear jab at him during the closing credits. As they encapsulate the lives of each of the main players since their Cosmos tenure, Pele is shown and we are told simple that he is a "football ambassador" (they may use the Americanized "soccer" appellation. I don't recall.) Then on the screen appears the phrase "refused to be interviewed," with the distinct sound of a cash register "cha-ching!" I would surmise that to interview Pele may carry with it a cost that the filmmakers either could not or would not pay. But otherwise the footage from the era, especially the 70s heyday of the team and the league, is incredible stuff. the film is a reminder of how central New York was, for good and for ill, in forging the zeitgeist of the era. I know someone writing a book on the 1970s who will want to get hold of a copy of this video post-haste.]