Once in a Lifetime: the Incredible Story of the New York Cosmos : Girls, Greed, Goals, Superstars and Excess

With over three million kids playing soccer across the country in the early 1970s, soccer was poised to finally conquer America, and its heartbreaking rise and fall is captured in Gavin Newsham's Once in a Lifetime. This book tells the story of the New York Cosmos soccer team, which brought the greatest talents of the world's biggest sport to a city awash in celebrity and decadence. In the summer of 1977, entrepreneurial Warner Brothers chairman Steve Ross assembled the best soccer players from across the globe to play for the Cosmos. Pele, the German superstar Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Neeskens, Giorgio Chinaglia, Brazil's 1970 World Cup-winning captain Carlos Alberto, Werner Roth, Roberto Cabanas, and many others all donned Cosmos jerseys and became instant celebrities in the process. The Cosmos quickly became the hottest ticket in town and the Cosmos players soon became enmeshed in a world of millionaires, gangsters, groupies, glamour, power struggles, alcoholic excess, drugs, and fistfights. Published to coincide with the World Cup in June 2006, Once in a Lifetime is the thrilling story of America's first flirtation with the world's most popular game. The “compelling . . . detailed and thoughtful account” of the rise and fall of the Cosmos, New York’s first superstar soccer team ( Kirkus Reviews ). In the summer of 1977, soccer was poised to finally conquer America and the New York Cosmos were the premier sports team of the city. They boasted the greatest roster of the world’s best players—notably, Brazil’s international sensation Pelé—ever assembled for any sport. For a time, they were the darlings of the press. Their first game was televised in twenty-two different countries. They were favorites at Studio 54. They partied behind the velvet ropes with Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger. Less a growing sports phenom than a pop-culture happening, the hottest ticket in town drew the likes of Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, Henry Kissinger, and Robert Redford. Warner Brothers chairman and Cosmos owner Steve Ross may not have known a goalkeeper from a zookeeper, but in a city awash in celebrity and decadence, Ross knew spectacle. He also knew how to make a dollar, and stars. But as the Cosmos players soon became enmeshed in a world of millionaires, gangsters, groupies, glamour, power struggles, alcoholic excess, drugs, disco and very public fistfights, they were set for a heartbreaking and inevitable fall. “Colorful and keen . . . [and] detail-rich, this unlikely drama of a quintessentially American flirtation” ( Publishers Weekly ), “is a gripping evocation of a glorious but brief moment when the beautiful game had the US entranced” ( Time Out London ). Describes the 1977 birth of the New York Cosmos soccer team, which brought together some of the greatest talents in international soccer, including Brazil's Pelé, Germany's Franz Beckenbauer, and others, and the team's descent into the decadence and celebrity culture of the city