Pelé, arguably the greatest football player of all time, and undoubtedly one of the most influential. A three-time World Cup winner, he claimed his first title at just 17 years old. He was, and remains, an icon of Brazilian football, thanks to both his legendary exploits with the national team and his iconic spell at Santos.
Pelé played for Santos from 1956 to 1974, scoring an astonishing 643 goals in just 659 competitive appearances. By the time he retired in 1974, he had firmly established himself as a one-club legend, seemingly having ridden off into the sunset.
Until…
In a move that stunned the football world, Pelé came out of retirement on June 10, 1975, to join the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (NASL). It wasn’t just a football transfer, and it was a cultural moment not just for ‘soccer’, but for 1970s American pop culture. Football had arrived, and it was ready to break America.
Backed by media giants Warner Communications, the Cosmos saw in Pelé not only a footballing genius but a global icon who could bring instant credibility to the fledgling American soccer scene.
And Pelé delivered.
At 34, well past the typical prime of most athletes of the time, he still dazzled crowds with his flair, vision, grace, and sheer star power. He had ‘it’, and people wanted to see him for themselves.
But who were these people?
Soccer was a niche sport in post-war America, played mainly within ethnic communities and largely ignored by the general public. So, how did Americans find soccer in the 1970s?
When 13-year-old Charles Cuttone joined the Cosmos in 1975, he had little to no knowledge of soccer. He landed the role because the American football team he had previously worked for had folded, and the Cosmos just happened to play at the same arena on Randall’s Island.
Reflecting on his early days, Charles said: “When I started working for the Cosmos, I knew little to nothing about soccer. There was very little coverage in the newspapers, and you very rarely saw it on television.”
Yet Charles persisted in his role and even ended up painting the grass green for Pelé’s debut. The pitch was in such a dire state, with dirt patches everywhere, that Cosmos officials feared Pelé would revoke his agreement upon seeing it.
So, a young Charles was sent out with a bucket and brush to make it ‘presentable’.
Interestingly, despite chasing Pelé since the start of the decade, the Cosmos’ first-choice superstar was not the Brazilian. It was, in fact, Northern Irish and Manchester United legend George Best, who would have signed, had he not skipped his press conference in favour of one of his infamous drinking binges.
Cosmos historian David Kilpatrick said, “We don’t quite know what happened, but something caught his eye in Manhattan that kept him from showing up. Everybody thought George Best was going to be a Cosmos player.”
Alas, Best missed his chance. Pelé became the most sought-after man in New York.
The Cosmos weren’t the only club vying for Pelé either. European giants also made their pitch for the samba star.
Charles recalled: “There was interest from Milan, Real Madrid, and a couple of others.
“But the story I’ve heard from Clive [Toye] was that he told Pelé: ‘If you go to Europe, you can win championships. If you come to the United States, you can win a country.’
“And I think the money certainly didn’t hurt!”
The Cosmos had a match the same day Pelé signed his contract, announced at a press conference at the famed 21 Club in a room so overcrowded that Charles, part of the PR staff, couldn’t even get in.
“There’d never been anything like it in U.S. soccer. The room was way too small. No one expected it to be that big, but it was, and it was only the start.”
The Cosmos had a match on the day the contract was signed, away to the Philadelphia Atoms, which drew over 20,000 fans —an astonishing figure for the NASL at the time. All were hoping for a glimpse of the global icon, not even on the pitch, but in the stands.
Pele would make a short appearance pre-match, and that was enough to light that initial spark.
One of the attendees at Pele’s debut a week later in a hastily arranged friendly with the Dallas Tornado was Nicholas Koliarakis, the child of a Greek father and Brazilian mother. Soccer had become his sport of choice the year before, and he wasn’t going to miss this.
He, his mother, cousins, friends, and anyone else remotely interested in soccer made the long, traffic-choked journey to Downing Stadium on Randall’s Island.
But they didn’t care, as long as they saw Pelé. He remembered the “atmosphere” in the crowd, the buzz of New York’s newest sporting star, made the hours of waiting in the car trip there and back more than worth it.
Another fan who had supported the Cosmos even before Pelé’s arrival was Lee Zakow, who later worked with Pelé at Time Warner.
As a child in Queens, the grandson of Russian and Polish immigrants, Lee grew up playing soccer with other kids in the neighbourhood. When he discovered a team playing in the NASL based in New York, he became “infatuated with the Cosmos” and a supporter from 1972 onward.
“The New York Post might have a tiny blurb on a Monday. That was it. No TV, no press. You’d occasionally get something in Sports Illustrated about players like Kyle Rote or Bobby Rigby. But then Pelé signed, and the whole thing exploded.”
Lee attended matches regularly, including the 1977 Soccer Bowl, Pelé’s final competitive career match.
Though the stadium was packed, Lee noted the crowd “didn’t have many soccer diehards” and that soccer “was still a niche thing.”
Still, New Yorkers embraced the Cosmos, not just as a team, but as a representation of their city and state.
David Kilpatrick, Cosmos club historian and the son of a former U.S. soccer player, remembers growing up with a Pelé-branded lunchbox.
Despite moving to Tennessee in 1976, he remained a devoted Cosmos supporter.
He said, “When I was a kid, flying across the country, you’d see baseball diamonds everywhere. Now? Soccer pitches. Every village in the U.S. has a soccer pitch.
“We’re very much a soccer nation in terms of participation.
“Pelé made soccer part of pop culture. You couldn’t watch TV without seeing one of those black-and-white Telstar balls.”
After Pelé’s final match in 1977, the Cosmos continued to dominate with stars like Carlos Alberto, Johan Cruyff, Giorgio Chinaglia, and Franz Beckenbauer.
However, overexpansion and financial mismanagement eventually led to the NASL’s downfall, which ultimately resulted in its folding in 1984. The Cosmos vanished soon after.
However, in 1991, Lee Zakow got the chance to reconnect with his childhood heroes when Time Warner staged a New York Cosmos reunion game.
Through a family connection, he landed a role on the organising team and became a jack of all trades, tracking down former players, producing the game program, coordinating media, and even securing sponsors like Nickelodeon.
The event featured both early-era Cosmos legends, such as Turkish goalkeeper Erol Yasin and Randy Horton, as well as stars from the team’s later glory years.
Lee met many of his idols, including Carlos Alberto and Ricky Davis, and even had several encounters with Pelé.
On Pelé’s character as a man, Lee recalled: “He might have been a king, but he was a benevolent king.”
It may have been a job on paper, but for Lee, the experience was priceless —a chance to relive the magic of the team he had grown up loving.
But that was that for the Cosmos.
Until…
In 2010, a video emerged of Eric Cantona, holding a Cosmos ball and a cigar, saying, “We are back.”
The reformed Cosmos kicked off in the new North American Soccer League (NASL) in 2013, with initial long-term aspirations of joining Major League Soccer (MLS).
They won Soccer Bowls in 2013, 2015, and 2016, but failed to recreate the glitz and hype of the 70s. Big names like Raúl and Marcos Senna came and went. But none could match the magic of Pelé.
The club has been on hiatus since 2021, sidelined by legal disputes with the footballing authorities in the US and an absent owner now focused on Fiorentina. In a city with two MLS franchises, New York City FC and the Red Bulls, the absence of the Cosmos is keenly felt by some, and hopes remain for them to become the third force in New York’s MLS soccer.
David Kilpatrick remains uncertain: “New York’s big. Glasgow has many football clubs. So does London. But factor in all the other sports… is there a clamour for the Cosmos?
“I can’t say there is now. It’s nostalgia for my generation, and a small but loyal younger group.”
Lee Zakow adds: “We’ve got three hockey teams, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, which is unusual for sports in one city.
“If we got rid of Red Bull, I think people would push for the Cosmos. The Cosmos still have currency here.”
All hope isn’t lost. Supporters like James Izurieta remain faithful:
“I still believe, in five years, ten, however long, that I’ll take my kids to see the Cosmos the same way I was taken.
“The support is still here.”
While they may be outsiders now, the Cosmos, with their landmark signing of Pelé in June of 1975, remain foundational to the rise of American soccer.
Charles Cuttone said, “Would there have been a 1994 World Cup or MLS without Pelé? Unequivocally not. You can connect the dots.
“The operation was a success, but the patient died.
“Babe Ruth was the big bang for baseball. Magic and Bird for basketball. Gretzky for hockey. Pelé was the big bang of soccer.”
Lee agrees: “It doesn’t happen without Pelé. It would have grown eventually, but much, much slower.”
So, while the Cosmos may now sleep, they remain a giant. And 50 years on from Pelé’s debut, not even the great man himself could have foreseen soccer’s place in the U.S. in 2025.
As Charles said, it was “the big bang.” Now, Messi, Puig, and others orbit a galaxy first lit by Pelé.
America hasn’t reached the heights of football’s homeland in England, nor the passion of Pelé’s native Brazil. But it’s rising. The rest of the world had a head start, yet the American Soccer Revolution may still be ahead.