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Aging stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Harry Kane may still fill stadiums just by showing up, but their teams’ results are only as good as their on-field chemistry and coaching. The squad that best illustrated that principle over soccer’s long history is the one that first convinced President Donald Trump that the sport was worth a look. <\/p>\n

In the 1970s, the moribund New York Cosmos, part of the North American Soccer League, convinced the Brazilian soccer icon Pel\u00e9 to come play for them. He was followed quickly by stars like Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto.<\/p>\n

The stars, along with a sharp public relations push from club owner Warner Communications, transformed the team, the league and the arc of American soccer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the Cosmos and their panache, we wouldn\u2019t have been in a position to bid for and get 1994,\u201d said Jim Trecker, who served as public relations guru of both the Cosmos and that year’s World Cup, the first in the United States.<\/p>\n

The team went from playing in a sparsely attended stadium on Randall\u2019s Island to the very same Meadowlands where England and Panama played today. The Cosmos regularly drew over 50,000 fans, including Mick Jagger, Cher and Henry Kissinger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one and only time I met Kissinger, he shoved me into Pel\u00e9\u2019s lap,\u201d David Hirshey, who covered the team for the New York Daily News, told Blue Light News.<\/p>\n

The Cosmos also convinced a young Trump<\/a>, who at least once partied with Pel\u00e9 at Studio 54, that soccer was worth watching. When asked about Trump’s Cosmos experience, the White House referred Blue Light News to his family business, the Trump Organization, which did not respond to a request for comment. Multiple times, though, Trump has cited Pel\u00e9 and the Cosmos as an inspiration for his own interest in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany years ago, I remember watching Pel\u00e9 on a team called the Cosmos,\u201d Trump said at the World Cup’s lottery draw in December. \u201cI assume he is one of the greats. I said, \u2018That man can play!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same event, the president seemed somewhat forlorn that the promise of the Cosmos didn\u2019t manifest in the explosion of successful soccer across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, they thought soccer would be so big and big fast,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the height of the Cosmos\u2019 glory, Trump was a young, up-and-coming real estate scion with big dreams of filling the same rooms as New York\u2019s most famous characters \u2014 even though he may have viewed them only from afar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never saw Trump in the locker room,\u201d said Hirshey. \u201cYou would think that\u2019s where he would want to be.”<\/p>\n

Read Calder’s <\/i>Blue Light News Magazine story <\/i><\/b>about the Trump and the Cosmos here<\/i><\/b><\/a>. <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aging stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Harry Kane may still fill stadiums just by showing up, but their teams’ results are only as good as their on-field chemistry and coaching. The squad that best illustrated that principle over soccer’s long history is the one that first convinced President Donald Trump that the sport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}