New York Cosmos Announces Relaunch With Pele As Honorary President

Forget David Beckham and Thierry Henry, the biggest name in U.S. soccer re-emerged Sunday when the New York Cosmos announced its relaunch.

The franchise, which featured Pele and Franz Beckenbauer, ceased operations in the 1980s as ownership fluctuated and the NASL crumbled.

Since then, G. Peppe Pinton had held the rights to the name, until a group led by Paul Kemsley, an English businessman who previously held an interest in Tottenham Hotspur, bought it.

The new Cosmos has already partnered with Queens-based youth club BW Gottschee. Together they will field youth teams called the Cosmos Academy in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy. The Cosmos also bought the Copa NYC tournament, an competition in New York which has a 16-year history.

Eventually, the club wants to return to the highest level -- in this case, Major League Soccer.

"Our plan has several phases, but if you fast-forward, it’s our aspiration to play at the highest level in this country, and that’s MLS," said Joe Fraga, executive director of the new Cosmos, told the New York Times. "And we are serious. We want to make it relevant again; we want kids to know what the Cosmos were and are, to bring the soccer dream back to the city.

"Pelé is our face, and you couldn't do better than that, not just for the Cosmos, but for soccer in general. Our goal is to respect history and the legacy, and make it relevant now."

The Brazilian legend played for the New York Cosmos in its glory days in the 1970s.

"This is fantastic," Pelé said, according to the New York Times. "We are working very hard to bring the beautiful game back to New York, and now we finally have people who support us.

"Looking back, we know mistakes were made in the league, but that happens everywhere in the world. But the football is the reality, and one day I hope to be happy to see the New York Cosmos playing the Red Bulls in the championship game."

Since reclaiming the territorial rights to a second New York team when AEG sold the MetroStars to Red Bull, MLS has never tried to hide its desire to put a club in the city proper, as opposed to in New Jersey, where the Red Bulls are based.

1st INDIAN FOOTBALLER PLAY IN EUROPE

Long before the likes of Bhaichung Bhutia and Sunil Chhetri made their mark on the Indian football scene, an Indian player was mesmerizing the Scots with dazzling skills. He attended trials with Celtics, the most famous team from Scotland and impressed the coach so much that he wanted to offer him a place on the team. However, fate had other plans and the glorious transfer from the amateur football in Inida to the professional league in Scotland did not happen. However, the man himself etched his names in the minds of generations to follow.

The legend we are talking about was the first Indian football player to ply his trade in Europe. In the 1936-37 season, Mohammed Abdul Salim, appeared in two friendly games for the celebrated team of Celtic Rangers. However, faced by homesickness Salim did not take up a permanent place in the Glasgow based outfit. Story of Mohammed Salim is a true inspiration for any football fan in India.

The extraordinary story of how Mohammed Salim, came to play for Celtic in the 1936-37 season has been unearthed by a Boria Mazumdar, a Rhodes scholar.Salim was born in colonial Calcutta in 1904. Majumdar says: “At that time, with Indian nationalists fighting for independence from British colonial rule, many Indians took to football to answer British jibes that Indians were not manly enough to rule themselves. The Indians played in bare feet and despite this they defeated English men in boots which was seen as evidence that Indians were not inferior to the British.”

By the mid-1930s Salim, a winger, was an essential member of Calcutta’s Mohammedan Sporting Club side, and helped them to claim five successive Calcutta League titles.A cousin called Hasheem who lived in England, was then visiting Calcutta and having seen Salim’s exceptional display, Hasheem urged Salim to try his hand at European football. Hasheem took Salim to London, and then Glasgow, and persuaded Coach Maley to Grant Salim a trial. Initially the idea of a bare-footed amateur from India competing against Scottish professionals was difficult to believe. However Maley relented and asked Salim to demonstrate his skill before 1,000 club members and three registered coaches.

Salim’s ability, even in bare feet, astonished them. They decided to play him in a match against Hamilton. Salim, in bare feet, proved exceptional helping Celtic win 5-1. In his second match against Galston, Celtic won 7-1 and his performance led the Scottish Daily Express of Aug 29, 1936, to carry the headline: “Indian Juggler – New Style.” The paper wrote: “Ten twinkling toes of Salim, Celtic FC’s player from India, hypnotised the crowd at Parkhead last night. He balances the ball on his big toe, lets it run down the scale to his little toe, twirls it, hops on one foot around the defender.”

However, after a few months in Scotland, Salim began to feel homesick and was decided to return to India. Celtic tried to persuade him to stay by offering to organise a charity match in his honour, giving him five per cent of the gate proceeds. However, Salim offered that money to the charity and returned back to India.

Mohammed Salim passed away on the 5th November 1980 and will forever be remembered not only as the first Indian player to play in Europe but probably the finest football talent India ever produced.

Indian Football: A forgotten legacy

With Fifa World Cup fever gripping the whole world, I sorely miss the Indian connection. The fact that World’s second most populous nation does not figure, even remotely, in the scheme of things is quite distressing. As per FIFA website India is ranked a lowly 133 (rankings for MAy 2010) amongst the FIFA registered nations. Was it always this bad? Did we always struggle at the bottom of the ladder while countries like Japan, China, Korea were taking the lead? A little bit of research gave the answer, and it was a resounding “NO”.

Like other British colonies, the game of football was introduced in India quite early. In fact “Mohun Bagan Athletics Club” was established in 1889 as the first professional club in India. 1950′s and 1960′s can be termed as the golden years of the Indian Football as we won two Asian Games “Gold Medals”, finished 4th in 1956 Olympics and got invited to the 1950 FIFA World Cup. However, the biggest disappointment was that we never participated in the World Cup as it turned out to be our only chance (till date) when we came even close to participate in a FIFA Football World Cup.

Social Media

We all are enjoying world cup. But what about Indian Football.