New York Cosmos-2  Seattle Sounders-1

After all they had gone through, there was a certain inevitability to the Cosmos’ championship run. New York defeated dispirited arch-rivals Tampa Bay 3-0 before 57,828, and then blitzed Gordon Banks for 8 goals in an 8-3 drubbing of Ft. Lauderdale before a league-record crowd of 77,691. After dispensing of a surprising Rochester club in the next round, New York faced the tenacious Seattle Sounders in Soccer Bowl ’77. Over 35,000 filled Portland’s Civic Stadium and saw Steve Hunt steal the ball off Sounders keeper Tony Chursky while the latter absentmindedly rolled the ball in the penalty area, scoring the match’s first goal. (FIFA rules at the time allowed a goalkeeper to roll the ball and pick it up again within the area; goalkeepers often rolled the ball to the top of the box to get more distance on punts). Seattle equalized, but Chinaglia scored on a header(!) to give the Cosmos a storybook ending to a tumultuous year. After the match, Pelé swapped jerseys with Seattle’s young American defender, Rookie of the Year Jim McAllister-many saw the move as a symbolic changing of the guard, as aging foreign veterans would soon give way to homegrown American stars.

Written by Steve Holroyd soccerbook@erols.com , with supplemental materials by Dave Litterer spectrum@sover.net