Was I Too Harsh On The NASL?

Taking a second look

Was I Too Harsh On The NASL?

I created a video on the history of the NASL a few months ago that was somewhat well received.

The question, though, is whether I was a little bit too harsh on the New York Cosmos and the Vancouver Whitecaps.

As I’ve spent more time watching old matches, I’ve noticed a few things about the way football was played in the 1970s.

• The pitch was frequently in poor repair. This isn’t just something that happened at the Baseball Ground. This seems to have been a constant problem around the world. The grass would be dug up by cleats in England; players would slip all over the place in Germany; in some countries the pitch was not even entirely grass. As bad as artificial turf was on the legs, at least it was consistent.

• Officiating was universally bad. It’s easy to look at bad calls from old matches and conclude that there was some sort of collusion or gambling going on in the background. Honestly, though, I think that training for officials in the 1970s was simply poor. I don’t like VAR at all, but at least VAR ensures that there is some level of accuracy.

• Many foreigners in the NASL were actually in their prime. It’s easy to talk about how old Beckenbauer and Pele were during their brief stints in the NASL. However, the NASL also served as a sort of summer loan league for some of the best players in Europe, many of whom were under 30. It’s not entirely fair to say that the NASL was nothing but a retirement league.

• The NASL had the best television coverage in the world. It’s also easy to forget that live football wasn’t a thing in most countries in the world. I believe that more live league matches were broadcast in the United States than in any other country in the world in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It’s actually kind of puzzling when you realize how much NASL attendance sank by 1983.

Anyway, it might be time for me to take another look at the NASL. What do you think?