The Nasl: It's Alive But On Death Row

If it does, it will be because of two quite different trends now discernible in the national picture. One is the recognition by two clubs in particular, the Cosmos and the Vancouver Whitecaps, of one of the great strengths of soccer—its international dimension.

It might be recalled that after the '82 World Cup, there was an exhibition game featuring a team of European All-Stars against the Rest of the World All-Stars that sold out 76,891-seat Giants Stadium—this at a time when NASL attendance was starting to verge on the comic. Said Cosmos president Rafael de la Sierra last week, "New Yorkers have proved they'll respond to the best. This year we'll give them Barcelona with Maradona; Juventus of Italy with Paolo Rossi. We'll give them Falcao, Kevin Keegan, Peter Shilton." The Cosmos' home schedule, in fact, will have as many international meetings on it as NASL league games, and the team hopes to compete in Copa de Libratores de América, the Western Hemisphere's Club Championship, in which it would face in earnest clubs like Argentina's Boca Juniors and Brazil's Fluminense.

The other trend? Out there in the wings still is the huge army of young soccer players, more than eight million strong, according to an A.C. Nielsen survey, that far outnumbers the participants in any other team sport in the U.S. You'll hear, of course, that these kids will grow up to be lawyers and then buy season tickets to baseball and football games. But it doesn't have to be that way.

On his desk, for the edification of his underlings, de la Sierra has a sign that reads: GOD'S DELAYS ARE NOT GOD'S DENIALS. Soccer, at least NASL soccer, has its back so hard against the wall at present that the bricks appear to be crumbling. But the NASL isn't the only game in town. Soccer is too great a sport to be lost because of the antics of sports-illiterate owners and fast-buck seekers. Even if the NASL goes gurgling down tubes of its own making, soccer will surely come back for another life.