If They Mated: American Soccer Names and UK Cities

It's been a while since I've posted a 'fun' topic so when I had this idea that nobody seemed to care about on twitter last night I naturally thought I should expand on it here.

The Kansas City Wizards changing their name to Sporting KC is just the most recent example of American soccer teams mysteriously trying to sound more 'legitimate' with Euro-style names. In this post I flipped that idea around and have combined real American-style team names from MLS, NASL, USL, etc. with cities in the United Kingdom. Oh, and you may notice that I find alliterative team names amusing...


Aberdeen Apollos
Belfast Boomers
Birmingham Burn
Burnley Burn*
Bolton Battery
Brighton Rhinos
Bristol Blizzard
Cambridge Kickers
Cardiff Cougars
Charlton Battery*
Colchester Clash
Coventry Cosmos
Crewe Crew
Derby Dynamo
Dundee Darts
Edinburgh Earthquakes
Exeter Express
Glasgow Galaxy
Huddersfield Hurricane
Inverness Invaders*
Ipswich Impact -or- Ipswich Wiz*
Kilmarnock Manic
Leeds Lynx
Leicester Lancers
Liverpool Dips
Manchester Mutiny
Middlesbrough Metrostars
Newcastle Kicks
Nottingham Timbers
Oxford Olympique
Portsmouth Thunder
Reading Revolution
Sheffield Fusion
Southend-on-Sea Whitecaps
Stockport Strikers
Stoke Fire -or- Stoke Stokers
Sunderland Sounders
Swansea Silverbacks
Watford Wizards
Yeovil Union*


Well, that was actually pretty fun...(for me at least)
Feel free to join in if you think of more Ameri-Kingdom combos

*Thanks to Jeremy for his contributions to the list

Videos: Vintage NASL Goals

There are not a lot of goal clips from NASL floating around the internet, but these few are great (although Marsh's 'goal' was called offside). I'd really like to add to this list so if anyone knows of a hidden collection of NASL goal videos (not collections, just single goals), let me know.

Johan Cruyff (--loud audio--)


Rodney Marsh


George Best (--loud audio--)


Giorgio Chinaglia
Link to Youtube (Embedding was disabled for this video)

NASL Photos: Connections to MLS and US Soccer

I was looking at a few really excellent NASL sites the other day (NASL Jerseys---Dave Brett Historic Soccer Videotapes---NASL History Homepage) and found some really great photos of a few well known players. I thought it would be interesting to put together a little picture collection (mostly borrowed pics from the superb NASL Jerseys website) of NASL players with USA and MLS soccer connections.

BONUS: I also happened upon a great video that I hadn't seen before of the 1981 NASL Soccer Bowl between the Chicago Sting and New York Cosmos. If you have a few minutes, definitely watch it, it's a high quality video and it ends with a great shootout.



Ken Cooper - Current FC Dallas player Kenny Cooper's father




Glenn "Mooch" Myernick - Former influential coach and all around good guy in the US national team program. Here is a link to the Mooch Myernick Memorial Fund.




Ray Hudson - GOLtv announcer looking like he will "“capitalise on it like a big werewolf with a plate of liver in front of it.” (He actually said that, while announcing a game last May....). Here's a link to Shut Tha Windaz for many more Ray Hudson-isms.




Fran O'Brien - Father of Colorado Rapids (on loan at Montreal Impact) player Ciaran O'Brien




Hugo Sanchez - Sanchez is a former Real Madrid and Mexico legend and also one of only two players who played in both NASL and MLS (the other was Roy Wegerle)




Shep Messing (with Pele) - Shep is the current Red Bulls commentator and MLS Extratime co-anchor. He has also provided commentary for the World Cup (and he's Danny Szetela's agent?)




Tim Twellman - Father of New England Revolution and USMNT player, Taylor Twellman




Andranik Eskandarian - Father of current Los Angeles Galaxy player Alecko Eskandarian




Giorgio Chinaglia - The Italian scored an amazing 193 goals in 213 appearances in his 7 years with the New York Cosmos. He also provided commentary for ABC at the past two World Cups.




Alan Hinton - Hinton has been involved with the Seattle Sounders since 1980 when he took over as the NASL Sounders manager. He now provides commentary on Sounders FC broadcasts.




Thomas Rongen - Current sporting director for Chivas USA and USA U-20 National Team Coach




Brian Joy - Father of recently released Real Salt Lake player Ian Joy




Norm Wingert - Father of current Real Salt Lake player Chris Wingert




Frank Klopas - Klopas was on the 1984 Chicago Sting roster but didn't make an appearance. He went on to play in MLS with KC and Chicago. He is the current technical director for the Chicago Fire.



Roy Wegerle - Wegerle and Hugo Sanchez are the only two players who played in NASL and MLS. Roy played for the NASL Tampa Bay Rowdies and the MLS Tampa Bay Mutiny.

NASL: 1977 Tampa Bay Rowdies v NY Cosmos Pregame Video

Time for a bit of Nostalgia. This clip is a pregame tv opening for a 1977 NASL game between the Tampa Bay Rowdie's (welcome back) and Pele's New York Cosmos. I think that modern ESPN soccer broadcasts should think about bringing the TVS music and graphics into their weekly games. What better way to get pumped up for "not a football game, but America's fastest growing sport. Professional soccer."

If you ever watch or listen to baseball you might recognize the announcer as ESPN's Jon Miller (with hair). Oh, and give it up for the analyst, Walt Chyzowych, who was an influential person in US soccer and happened to be the coach of the US national team when I was born. (His announcing skills could have used some work though, he was no Bruce "Kip from Napolean Dynamite" Arena).

Enjoy!

Former NASL Players who Became Managers

Here is a list of former NASL players who went on to manage a national team or a prominent club following their playing career.



Dick Advocaat - Chicago Sting 1979, 1980
Manager: FC Zenit St. Petersburg; Managed: HFC Haarlem, FC Dordrecht. Netherlands, PSV Eindhoven, Rangers FC, Borussia Mönchengladbach, United Arab Emirates, South Korea

Sam Allardyce - Tampa Bay Rowdies 1983
Managed: Bolton, Newcastle

Carlos Alberto Torres - New York Cosmos 1977-1980, 1982
Managed: Botafogo, Azerbaijan

Alan Ball - Philadelphia Fury 1978-1979; Vancouver Whitecaps 1979-1980
Managed: Portsmouth, Southampton, Manchester City

Franz Beckenbauer - New York Cosmos 1977-1980, 1983
Managed: West Germany, Marseille, Bayern Munich

Johan Cruijff - LA Aztecs 1979-1980; Washington Diplomats 1980-1981
Managed: Ajax, FC Barcelona

Ruud Krol - Vancouver Whitecaps 1980
Managed: Zamalek, Egypt

Brian Kidd - Fort Lauderdale Strikers 1982-1983; Minnesota Stirkers 1984
Managed: Blackburn Rovers

Wim Jansen - Washington Diplomats 1980
Managed: Feyenoord, Celtic, Sanfrecce Hiroshima, Urawa Red Diamonds

Geoff Hurst - Seattle Sounders 1976
Managed: Chelsea

Ray Hudson - Fort Lauderdale Strikers 1977-1983
Managed: Miami Fusion, DC United, GolTV announcer

George Graham - California Surf 1978
Managed: Millwall, Arsenal, Leeds United, Tottenham Hotspur

Trevor Francis - Detroit Express 1978-1979
Managed: QPR, Sheffield Wednesday, Birmingham City, Crystal Palace

Dale Mitchell - Vancouver, Portland, Montreal 1977-1983
Manager: Canada

Glenn Myernick - Dallas, Portland, Tampa Bay 1977-1984
Managed: US U-17, Colorado Rapids, US U-23

Harry Redknapp - Seattle Sounders 1976-1979
Manager: Portsmouth; Managed: West Ham, Southampton

Wim Rijsbergen - New York Cosmos 1979-1983
Managed: FC Volendam, NAC Breda, FC Groningen, Universidad Catolica, Trinidad and Tobago

Bruce Rioch - Seattle Sounders 1979-1980
Managed: Middlesbrough, Millwall, Bolton, Arsenal, Norwich City, Wigan, Odense, Aalborg

Thomas Rongen - LA, Washington, Ft. Lauderdale 1979-1986
Managed: Tampa Bay Mutiny, New England Revs, DC United, Chivas USA, US U-20

Hugo Sanchez - San Diego Sockers 1978-1980
Managed: U.N.A.M., Necaxa, Mexico, Mexico U-23

Graeme Souness - Montreal Olympique 1972
Managed: Rangers, Liverpool, Galatasaray, Southampton, Torino, Benfica, Blackburn, Newcastle

Wolfgang Suhnholz - Toronto Metros-Croatia 1976-1978
Managed: US U-20

Colin Todd - Vancouver Whitecaps 1984
Manager: Randers FC; Managed: Middlesbrough, Bolton, Derby County

Peter Withe - Portland Timbers - 1975
Managed: Wimbledon, Thailand, Indonesia

Seattle Sounders FC - A Short History of Soccer in Seattle

If you're a fan of MLS, you've probably heard by now that the new Seattle franchise has chosen the name, "Seattle Sounders FC". I like it, although I would have preferred "SC". The name preserves a great soccer history that Seattle has built up over the past 35 years and, in my opinion, is way better than the Star Wars-esque names of Alliance or Republic that were being offered as choices. Here is a brief history of the Sounders and soccer in Seattle.


Seattle Sounders (NASL) 1974-1983

The NASL Sounders also held a name the team contest and “Sounders” was selected as the winning name, beating out hundreds of other suggestions, including “Mariners” .

The First ever major event held in Seattle's "new" Kingdome was a Sounders v. New York Cosmos game in 1976, before a sold-out crowd of 58,128. (Yes, Pele was there)

The NASL team averaged around 20,000 fans in the 10 years they were around.

Get this, NASL Sounders games were carried on major radio stations and most games, both home and away, were televised. What a concept.


Famous Sounders Players from the NASL days

Bobby Moore 1978
-- 108 England caps

Harry Redknapp 76-79
Current Portsmouth Manager

Joe Corrigan 1983
-- 9 England caps

Mike England 75-79
-- 44 Wales caps

Geoff Hurst 1976
-- 49 England Caps

Bruce Rioch 79-80
-- 24 Scotland Caps

The NASL Sounders made it to the Soccer Bowl Finals in '77 and '82, Losing to the Cosmos Both Times.


Well Known Players from the USL/A-League Sounders - 1994-Present

Dominic Kinnear - 1995
Marcus Hahnemann - 1994-97
Brian Ching - 2001-02
Herculez Gomez - 2003
Maykel Galindo - 2005-06


A-League/USL Champions in: 95, 96, 05, 07
Finished top of the table: 94, 02, 07

Sounders League MVP's

'95 Peter Hattrup
'98 Mark Baena
'02 Leighton O'Brien
'07 Sebastien Le Toux

20 First Team Allstars in the last 12 years



Sounders Links

Seattle Sounders Official USL Site
Sounders FC Official MLS Site
GOALSeattle.com
Emerald City Supporters
Seattle MLS Blog