Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game (David Wangerin)
Chapter 6: Shoutout to the Death
Wangerin's survey of the post-Pele NASL from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s shows that history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme:
- Dueling domestic professional leagues
- Domestic professional leagues with soft TV viewership numbers
- Domestic professional leagues that appear to have little use for American collegiate players
- Domestic professional leagues with complicated relationships with the U.S. Soccer Federation and its national teams
- Domestic professional leagues that gain a reputation for prioritizing international players, especially marketable international players playing in the U.S. late in their careers
- Domestic professional leagues that are continuously trying to strike the balance between Americanizing the sport and adhering to international standards and best practices
- Domestic professional leagues that are continuously trying to strike the balance between bold ambition to match the global standard on and off the field and cautious pragmatism that ensures the leagues and their clubs are sustainable over time
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