The Queen of Corona

If me and Julio can ever find it

in the schoolyard,

we’re gonna beat the crap

out of it and be on the cover of Newsweek.

Then we’re going to make 

a basketball out of it,

and let every good college and pro player

pound it on the floor for a whole month.

And then we’re gonna turn it 

to a hard rubber disk,

and give every pro hockey player

a chance to whack it with a wooden stick.

Of course we’ll also shape it

into a soccer ball,

and make sure every futbol pro in the world

kicks it with all their might.

Eventually we’ll reduce it to a ball with strings 

wrapped tightly in cowhide,

and give every major league baseball player 

a bat to hit it hard hundreds of feet.

And then we’ll chisel it down even further

to a little ball with dimples,

and ask every golf tournament pro

to tee off on it with an iron club.

For good measure we’ll ask thoroughbred horse jockeys

and mighty race car engine drivers,

to run over it again and again and just leave it behind

in a trail of muddy dirt and dust.

But we can’t.

We can only avoid it like a plague

until it begins to whither and die.

And then me and Julio will find it 

and kill it off once and for all.

Copyright Charles A. Bruns, 2020

Young Americans: the (almost) forgotten Cosmos

Mention of the Cosmos teams from their Giants Stadium era likely conjures up images of Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia, Pele, Carlos Alberto and Johan Neeskens in the memories of aging New York City/New Jersey-area soccer fans. Those international stars may have grabbed the headlines and attracted the crowds, but I recall a less heralded group of U.S. players on the Cosmos just as fondly. 

These young Americans toiled at a time when the U.S. was habitually absent from the World Cup, but they provided the Cosmos a spark and their fans some thrills. Often, they also enabled the veteran Cosmos stars to preserve their legs on the hard, hot Giants Stadium turf.

If you assembled the young American Cosmos players during the peak of their careers, they probably would have formed a strong North American Soccer League club and competitive U.S. National Soccer team, perhaps one that could’ve qualified for a World Cup. Here’s how I think this team would’ve looked:

Goalkeeper: David Brcic or Shep Messing

Defenders: Jeff Durgan, Santiago Formoso, Werner Roth, Bobby Smith

Midfielders: Boris Bandov, Rick Davis, Angelo DiBernardo

Forwards:  Chico Borja, Mark Liveric, Steve Moyers

Rick Davis was arguably the best American player during the years the Cosmos played at Giants Stadium in front of huge crowds while winning the NASL title four times and hosting international teams between 1977-84. A clean-cut kid from California who was only 19 when he joined the Cosmos, Davis’ game grew leaps and bounds playing alongside Beckenbauer, whose number 6 he wore near the end of his Cosmos career, after the legendary German had retired.

Davis drew the wrath of some fellow American players in 1983 when he refused to join Team America, a short-lived NASL club intended to include the best Americans and strengthen the country’s chances of qualifying for the 1986 World Cup. But, he was quite happy to remain with the Cosmos and, in fact, was an honorable mention NASL all-star that season, when the league required teams to field only a few Americans.

Jeff Durgan, who made his Cosmos debut as an 18-year-old alongside Carlos Alberto, accepted the call from Team America after three seasons with the Cosmos. Durgan benefitted immensely from playing with the crafty Brazilian for a couple of those seasons, showing courage and strength defending against the league’s top attackers, and developing a mental aptitude for the game not normally associated with such a young American.

Durgan remained humble as his star in U.S. soccer circles rose quickly, and retained a great sense of humor. Watching Wayne Gtretzky on TV after a difficult Cosmos indoor game at Madison Square Garden, Durgan (sarcastically) quipped Gtretzky “plays hockey like I do indoor soccer.” He also wore a “No Bozo the Clown” patch over the Cosmos crest on his uniform one time for a road game.

Two other Cosmos and Team America clubmates of Durgan perfected their skills in the U.S. and featured on the national team after arriving in the country as youngsters. Ecuadorian-born Chico Borja played at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, near his family’s Belleville home and Giants Stadium, before making his Cosmos debut in 1981. He dribbled the ball and shot on goal with confidence rarely seen in Americans at the time. Boris Bandov, born in Yugoslavia, spent 1979-82 with the Cosmos, his fourth NASL club. Comfortable in midfield or defense, Bandov was a calm and steady presence on the field.

Mark Liveric and Angelo DiBernardo, on the other hand, although they also were born overseas and established their professional credentials in the NASL, were more difficult to overlook during a game. Liveric was a cheeky attacker. During the second year of his second stint with the Cosmos in 1980, he once delayed a game after hanging on to the crossbar and bringing the whole goal down after scoring. When healthy between 1980-84, DiBernardo was perpetual motion on the field, causing midfield teammate Vladislav Bogicevic to yell, “Easy, easy, Angelo!” loud enough for fans to hear during a game.

Bobby Smith was another young American difficult for fans and opposing players to overlook during games. A Trenton native and prolific goalscorer for Rider University in Lawrence, Smith began his NASL career with Philadelphia before spending three seasons with the Cosmos between 1976-78 as a respected, fearless, hard-nosed defender.

Many soccer fans walking through the Giants Stadium parking lot to games during 1978-79 didn’t have to guess who owned the 25^th anniversary Corvette near the entrance with the license plate, “Santi.” It belonged to defender Santiago Formoso, who immigrated to New Jersey from Spain and was perhaps a bit ahead of his time with overlapping runs from the back of the field.  

Another American Cosmos defender during much of the 1970s, Werner Roth, became a heart throb of many young female fans with his long black hair and twinkle in his eyes and smile. There was no doubting his steely presence on the field, however, and he was cast as a stoic German player for the 1981 movie, Victory, which also featured former teammate Pele, Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine.

Among the Cosmos players also popular with female fans was Steve Moyers, the blond attacker who was a prolific scorer during the last three years the Cosmos played NASL games at Giants Stadium. Moyers also showed good footwork on the dance floor of the Front Row, the now-defunct nightclub in the shadows of the stadium.

Of course, few American Cosmos could match the magnetism of Shep Messing, the Harvard-educated mustached goalkeeper who posed nude for Viva magazine during his first of two stints with the club. Messing parted from the Cosmos a second time in 1977, after minding the nets in the club’s championship game win, and became the league’s highest-paid American.

You could argue, however, that David Brcic was as fine an American goalkeeper as the Giants Stadium-era Cosmos ever had. Brcic joined the club as a 19-year understudy to Messing in 1977, and was Hubert Birkenmeier’s backup for many of his eight years with the Cosmos. His quick reflexes, however, gained him lots of playing time with the indoor squads of the Cosmos and other teams for many years after the original Cosmos ceased operations.

Although most Americans who played for the Cosmos during their Giants Stadium era between 1977-84 found themselves in the shadows of more renowned players with international credentials, their contribution to the club cannot be underestimated. Nor, for at least one aging New York City/New Jersey soccer fan, are they forgotten.

An edited version of this article along with some great photos was published in the Empire of Soccer website on October 12, 2017.

A needed alternative to FIFA

Let's hope sports historians will look back at this week as the beginning of the end of FIFA, the organized crime family that has ruled global soccer competitions for decades. As if the arrests of some of its members on Wednesday wasn't sufficient evidence of how institutionalized corruption is within FIFA, the re-election of Sepp Blatter to a fifth term as president on Friday proves the organization can't be salvaged.

Now is the perfect time for major soccer powers around the world to withdraw from FIFA. Germany, Argentina, Holland, Brazil, Spain, Italy, France, England and other countries -- including the United States -- should pull out of the qualifying rounds for the 2018 World Cup and organize their own tournament for 2017.

By withdrawing now, these countries will once and for all destroy whatever legitimacy FIFA retains after this week's events. The 2018 World Cup, cynically awarded to a country, Russia, where racism in soccer stadiums is among the worst in the world while FIFA was launching an anti-racism campaign, would be a shell of a competition without the top teams.  Major sponsors would pull their support, further making the tournament a huge money loser. 

Bankrupt by no longer having its World Cup piggy bank, FIFA would implode. The 2022 World Cup, its hosting rights sold to Qatar by corrupt FIFA executives, would never happen. The slave laborers building the 2022 World Cup infrastructure in Qatar would be liberated. 

Among the leaders who can help organize an alternative international championship tournament and governing body is Sunil Gulati, head of the United States Soccer Federation.  A bright and fair man not tainted by FIFA, Gulati nominated the opponent to Blatter this past winter and was among the 73 country soccer heads who voted against Blatter's re-election on Friday.  Along with major soccer powers, some of these 73 countries may jump at the chance to be part of an alternative to FIFA.

FIFA must be dismantled. It needs to be stripped of its power. Hopefully, when this happens, lovers of the beautiful game around the world will commemorate this week's events as the start of an era when soccer got rid of the relic known as FIFA.

Sunil Gulati with Charley Bruns, February 2015








(Deflated soccer ball photo from korifaeusmagazine.files.wordpress.com)

The name game

Enjoying a Euro 2012 telecast with a friend recently, we realized that among the things we like most about soccer are...the interesting names of the players.

One of the best German players currently, for example, is Bastian Schweinsteiger, which translates to "pig farmer." Another German national team player is Holger Badstuber, the meaning of which is unclear, but the sound of which is clearly cool. Mesut Ozil is a German star of Turkish descent whose nickname is Nemo, after the big-eyed Disney character.

A Real Madrid clubmate of Ozil is named Kaka, one of the top Brazilians in the game today. A compatriot of Kaka goes by the name Dudu, but let's not go there.

Some philosophy students may have been surprised to learn that it wasn't until early this year that Socrates passed away. That Socrates was a great Brazilian player. A Greek soccer player named Sokratis Papastathopoulos--try stitching that across the back of jersey--remains alive and well, however.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Spanish national team that will be defending its European championship against Italy this Sunday includes three players who go by a single name: Pedro, Xavi, and Juanfran. Not to be completely outdone by their Iberian neighbors, the Portuguese national team defeated by Spain in Wednesday's semi-final match had five players on the roster with single names: Nani, Custodio, Pepe, Eduardo, and Beto.

Is there a place in soccer for people in the world named Jones or Johnson? Well, yes, of course. The English national team that competed in this month's Euro 2012 championship had a Phil Jones and Glen Johnson on the squad.