Drive through Brooklyn, through the neighborhoods and by the families and past the houses and churches until you\u2019ve almost run out of real estate, until you nearly reach the boardwalk that has been famous for a thousand years. Park in the shadow of the long disused parachute jump, refugee from the first New York World\u2019s Fair, that hoisted patrons into the sky, only to drop them thrillingly to safety. Now here, now a symbol of something that I am frankly incapable of decoding.<\/p>\n
Then walk east, towards the stadium doors, passing the plaques honoring the hundreds of the finest and the bravest lost on that sunny day nearly 16 years ago, past those paying their respects to them. Go inside and wander the halls \u2013 which smell curiously to me of the swimming pools of my youth but that\u2019s probably just me \u2013 and climb the stairs amidst the fans and other strangers to emerge finally in the sunlight and beach breezes of MCU Park, the home of the New York Cosmos.<\/p>\n
Different indeed from the last Cosmos game I saw<\/a> at the lumberman\u2019s college, for NYCFC\u2019s first Open Cup match against these very Cosmos. Different too from the first Cosmos game I ever<\/em> saw, at the now long gone Giants stadium, where a pantheon of the world\u2019s greatest players dismantled my hero, the pride of English Goaltending.<\/p>\n But this is neither an Open Cup match featuring City Football Group\u2019s Bronx representatives, nor an exercise with that star-studded lineup from my youth. For the Cosmos are out of the Cup and Giorgio Chinaglia is dead (though you can buy his jersey in the stadium store), Pele is in the front office (sort of), and the Kaiser is currently under investigation.<\/p>\n Instead, I am here to watch an NASL league match. To watch the New York Cosmos take on North Carolina FC, in their second home game in four days, their third match in a week, and their 11th of the Spring season.<\/p>\n From here you can see the lower bay of Manhattan as it opens out towards the Atlantic Ocean, in much the same way that you see the Commodore Barry Bridge spanning the Delaware when you\u2019re watching a Philadelphia Union home game. From here you can almost see where Stephon Marbury grew up<\/a>, where Woody Guthrie<\/a> lived, where Larry David and Vince Lombardi were kids (though not together). From here you can see the kids from PS 261<\/a> singing the Star Spangled Banner, and their parents in the stands cheering them on, and the Turkish band Yeni Turku<\/a> playing some sort of rock and roll near home plate. Yes, home plate. Because once again I am watching soccer in a baseball stadium. Some things never change.<\/p>\n I am reminded of what Michael Stephens<\/a> and the Cosmos own Ryan Richter<\/a> said about NASL and USL play on Bobby Warshaw\u2019s podcast \u201cThe Play\u201d<\/a> \u2013 that there is no drop-off in intensity of play from one league to the next. And it\u2019s true. No one is dogging it, at least, not any more than you would see in any other league around the world.<\/p>\n Minutes in and the Cosmos are dominating. They\u2019re splitting the defense on the wing, again and again, when suddenly, in the seventh minute, Irvin Herrera slots in a lovely shot to the far corner. But then, as invariably happens in this beautiful game, North Carolina come right back, scoring off of a corner kick clearance, and we\u2019re knotted at one. Still, however, the Cosmos dominate. North Carolina are giving Cosmos forward Eugene Starikov free reign and he\u2019s taking advantage of it. If they could only finish they\u2019d be up by a touchdown.<\/p>\n And then they pay for it, as teams always do, with a direct kick from the top of the D by North Carolina\u2019s Lance Laing. A rocket that Cosmos goalie Jimmy Maurer has no chance on. And then the halftime whistle sounds and the Cosmos head to the lockers down a goal.<\/p>\n You can tell that the team just played on Wednesday. At best they\u2019re counter-punching now, looking for North Carolina to make a mistake. They’re showing none of the domination that marked the first half. But as the clock begins to wind down, Khalif Alhassan is subbed on and instantly makes his presence felt. He\u2019s causing trouble for North Carolina\u2019s back line. He\u2019s finding open players. He\u2019s creating space. The Cosmos staff hand out \u201cMan of the Match\u201d ballots, and as crazy it sounds, for a guy who\u2019s played only a handful of minutes today, he\u2019d be my pick.<\/p>\n And then he scores and he makes my vote easy. And then the whistle sounds and the game is over and the New York Cosmos draw North Carolina FC.<\/p>\n Every team has a personality. It may be good, it may be bad. It may not be interesting, it may not be the one they want, it may not be of their own choosing. But it exists. Usually it in some way reflects the personality of the city it represents. But the thing about New York is that, to paraphrase the old Brooklynite himself, it contains multitudes. Teams here really don\u2019t represent the whole <\/em>city. They represent some aspect of it. NYCFC represents one. The Red Bulls another. And the Cosmos another.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not only fine, it\u2019s preferred. It\u2019s actually more authentic. More authentic to this city we call home. As authentic as the roller coaster the Cosmos play in the shadow of. As the songs found in Woody\u2019s attic down the street. And as the legacy of soccer in America in the 1970s.<\/p>\n Photo credit: New York Cosmos Communications<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We use the MLS bye week as an opportunity to experience NASL soccer and see the New York Cosmos draw North Carolina FC at MCU Park on Coney Island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":991,"featured_media":7638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,25],"tags":[1236,1237,40,95,344,33,654,50,1238],"class_list":["post-7613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-nasl","tag-franz-beckenbauer","tag-giorgio-chinaglia","tag-nasl","tag-new-york-city-fc","tag-new-york-cosmos","tag-new-york-red-bulls","tag-north-carolina-fc","tag-nycfc","tag-pele"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/991"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The match begins<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
The second half<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
The city is a funny place <\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n