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347.5: The North American Soccer League - With Paul Gardner

May 13, 2024

We celebrate the 94th birthday of legendary Soccer America columnist Paul Gardner (The Simplest Game: The Intelligent Fan's Guide to the World of Soccer; Soccer Talk: Paul Gardner on Soccer) with this special archive re-release (and our 6th-ever episode!) from 2017.

The universally acknowledged "dean" of American soccer writers waxes nostalgic on his unlikely journey from fledgling British pharmacist to the States' most persistently influential commentator on the "beautiful game." 

Gardner:

  • Recounts the chaotic formation of the modern professional game in the U.S. during the 1960s;
  • Recalls how ambitious sports entrepreneurs like the International Soccer League’s Bill Cox, and greedy corporate owners like the United Soccer Association’s Madison Square Garden were quickly chagrined by the machinations of soccer’s international governing body;
  • Describes how a complex Welsh-born, player-turned-NASL-commissioner curiously nudged him into national TV game commentating;
  • Remembers when he first recognized pro soccer had finally “arrived” in America (ironically, while out of the country); and
  • Suggests that a revised U.S. corporate tax code may have helped hasten the demise of an already-wobbly NASL as the 1980s beckoned.
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