By Dr. David Kilpatrick

Forty years ago yesterday, Pelé made his New York Cosmos debut in a Father’s Day friendly against the Dallas Tornado. 

Just five days after the official signing staged at a press conference held in midtown Manhattan, the scene shifted to the derelict environs of Downing Stadium beneath the Triboro Bridge on Randall’s Island.  21,278 lucky souls can truly claim to have witnessed the match live and in person at Downing, setting an attendance record that would be broken several times over the next three years for the Cosmos. 

The record-setting audience wasn’t just at the rundown stadium. Ten million viewers were watching on CBS, shattering the record for a United States audience for soccer on TV, plus countless other viewers in another twelve countries watching a live match played in the United States for the first time.

The man who made it happen, having pursued Pelé’s signature on a contract for years, Clive Toye, remembers precious little of the event:

“The last ten days, two weeks, whatever period of time it was, from the time it was clear that yes – we had him –  to the papers were signed and he was here in New York was a time of utter absolute mindless chaos. Talk about working 24 hours a day – what do you mean? – it was 48 hours a day.  Remember the Cosmos staff at the time (apart from Gordon Bradley, the coach, who worked like hell) was three people.  And suddenly the world was descending on us. 

I cannot recall very much in terms of sequence because I had to get more tickets printed, I had to get the game organized.  I had to sell some sponsorship or respond to sponsor appearances. I had to cover the Earth with green paint.  Get people in to sweep the stands, which were always left in a terrible state.  Get more ticket offices. Do everything. And that’s it, there were three of us to do it.  So I can’t remember the sequence, how the Dallas game came about.  I honestly don’t remember except that that’s what had to happen, we had to play somebody then as he bloody well signed. It was a state of absolute chaos.  I had to avoid an important wedding of someone in our family.

I don’t recall having more than three hours sleep. I don’t recall too much about the game.  It was exhausting. The whole chase was exhausting but those final days, final weeks, and his descent upon the soil, it was just, I can’t remember – I don’t remember anything about the game, really nothing.  I don’t know what the result was, the score, who scored.  But listen, the whole bloody thing was chaotic because we went from a three person, who-the-hell-has-heard-of-us club, to the club that Pelé played for in a matter of a few days. You can’t go from reading a book in your backyard to fighting your way through a torrent of people at Giants Stadium without suffering somewhat.”

One person who certainly remembers it clearly was another player making his Cosmos debut, a local defender formerly with Long Island University and Palermo FC (now Brooklyn Italians), Tony Picciano:

“We were rookies that day, him and I. It was Father’s Day. It was my birthday.  It was an amazing surprise.  Both rookies.  I remember that game, Dallas Tornado and Kyle Rote, Jr.  It was funny because I was playing left fullback, a bit nervous, in front of 20-thousand-or-so people. I still remember I made some bad touches on the ball – eventually I picked up.” 

Dallas Tornado featured homegrown American striker Kyle Rote, Jr. (son of former New York Football Giants star of the same name).  The pregame ceremony involved symbolic exchange of flags between the established global superstar and the emerging new domestic talent. As Rote recalls:

“Pelé and I exchanged flags.  I was the honorary captain that day, obviously because of the promotional piece of all this.  I was surprised.  They came out and said, ‘Kyle you’re gonna bring an American flag and you’re gonna hand it to Pelé. He’s gonna bring a Brazilian flag and he’s gonna hand it to you as an act of welcome America to Pelé and for Pelé to say welcome America to soccer.’ 

Right after the opening ceremonies, those of us who were starting had to go out to the field and I’m there holding this flag. The last time I saw that flag was handing it to our coach Ron Newman.  I don’t know if Ron has it. I don’t know if someone on the team has it. I never saw that flag again. As I looked back on it at the time, I thought it was kind of odd, but he wasn’t really giving the flag to me personally. It was the symbolism of it. That was the key thing.”

For all the symbolism, there was still a match to play.  If the Dallas Tornado felt cast as the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters in the exhibition, the fact that they had played and lost a match in San Antonio the night before didn’t help. 

“The difficulty was playing the night before in San Antonio,” according to Rote. “We left really early from San Antonio. We got no sleep. Everybody was fatigued. It was a rough game. So we came in quite depleted but that’s okay, because the importance of this game.”

Another factor was the quality of the field, or lack thereof, which was so bad green paint was used to try and make the field appear playable on television.

“They tried to spray the field to make it look like a real soccer pitch,” Rote said. “Since it is America and New York and all that, you do what you can to fix it up. Several of our players had these green paint streaks on their clothing, our pants, from slide tackles but also on our elbows and arms.  That was a big piece of it.” 

If they were to rollover for the spectacle, the Dallas Tornado didn’t get the memo.  Despite their exhaustion, playing an afternoon game in New York right after an evening game in Texas, the Tornado came out full force at the Cosmos.  While the New Yorkers were getting to know their new talisman, the Tornado took a two-goal lead into halftime.  And with the lead, they began to batter away at Pelé, giving the legend a thuggish welcome to North American soccer. 

At halftime, Cosmos coach Gordon Bradley was desperate for some changes to turn around the side’s fortune before the club’s largest-yet home crowd.  What happened in the locker room will never be forgotten by Picciano:

“It was funny because it was my birthday and I don’t know if Pelé knew. But we went in to halftime, and I really picked my game well later as we went on. Gordon Bradley was making a speech.  Pelé was on my right, an arm’s length away from me. Professor Mazzei was on his right side. Gordon Bradley was talking to all of us.  And Prof. Mazzei is slowly translating, he was bent over slowly translating to Pelé in his ear.  I understand Spanish and a little of Brazilian – they call it Brazilian not Portuguese.  They don’t like to say they speak Portuguese; they speak Brazilian. 

So all of a sudden Gordon Bradley makes some changes, and one of the changes was, he says, ‘Hey Tony I’m gonna get you out of the game and bring Barry [Mahy, the captain, who started at central defender] on that side.’ And the Professor’s translating that and then I hear Pelé say, ‘No, no, no,’ three times he says, ‘no, no, no.’ So Gordon Bradley stops speaking.  And Gordon Bradley says, ‘What’s Pelé asking?’ 

And I hear Pelé say to Professor, in Portuguese/Brazilian, ‘No, no, no. I don’t want Picciano out of the game.’  So Professor gets up and says, ‘Pelé does not want Picciano out of the game. He stays and plays left fullback.’ I had goosebumps. I came in the second half and played top notch.  It was Father’s Day, a Father’s Day gift to my father, my mother was there, my sister and a couple of friends. My birthday.  It was a great birthday present, 40 years to the day, today.”

The Cosmos came out of the locker room and began to show signs of understanding with Pelé, attacking a Dallas defense beginning to show signs of fatigue.  Playing in his familiar No. 10 role withdrawn from the forwards, Pelé had been teaching the Cosmos how to play his form of futebol with short passing and quick movement, like a choreographer.  But suddenly dropped back far enough to receive the ball in the middle of the field along New York’s 35-yard offside/shootout line, Pelé played a long ball down the right touchline to Julio Correo, who caught up to the ball at the Dallas 35-yard line and passed back to the sprinting Pelé, charging down the center of the field.  Slowing down the tempo from 40 yards out, Pelé then dribbled in about ten yards and found a seam between three Dallas defenders to feed Mordechai Spiegler, the Israeli international’s left boot getting enough of a touch on the ball for it to roll across the goal line and beat an outstretched Ken Cooper in the Dallas goal. 

Finally, at the 66th minute, the moment arrived everyone had hoped they would see.  While the broadcast was dissecting yet another vicious blow to Pelé, Spiegler returned the favor with a cross from deep down the right flank.  Pelé simply out-jumped everyone, twisting as he headed the ball towards the upper left corner of the Dallas goal for the equalizer.  A pitch invasion ensued as Pelé was swarmed by teammates, then media and fans. 

Once order was restored, the delighted crowd cheered the friendly to its finish, the all-but-finished Dallas Tornado players angling for a souvenir, according to Rote:

“I think the most active we were that day was at the end of the game, all the guys from Europe, everybody wanted to exchange jerseys with Pelé, obviously. And so he got inundated. What was funny was as the clock went down, right near the end of the game, we had probably six players within ten yards of Pelé just before the match concluded, so that they could be the first one to get to him to try to get a jersey exchanged.”

But another pitch invasion, with more of a mob on the field than when Pelé had scored, meant the desired trophy, like the flags from the opening ceremony, disappeared into the mists of time.

But the legacy of that day lives on.  For Picciano, that day forty years ago changed his life completely.

“I became very close to Pelé.  Pelé took me in almost like a son.  It was my 23^rd birthday that day.  He took me under his wings. He gave me a lot of gifts, small gifts, and that’s why I coach now, I teach the little things he taught me.”  And that’s why he’s still out there on soccer fields each week, currently coaching three different teams in the Long Island Junior Soccer League.”

Kyle Rote, Jr. sees the lasting legacy of that friendly on the faces of today’s youth:

“The easiest way for me to say it is when I see the sweat on a 10-year-old girl’s face as she finishes a run on a soccer field or on a pitch, and when I see the smiles on their faces when they come off after the match or a game, that’s the success of soccer to me, at which many of us had the privilege of starting that movement but he was the accelerator in the movement to which the average person became to at least acknowledge soccer. And those of us who had played before he came here, everybody worked hard, everybody did the best they could, but generally we did it in our region.

Pelé’s arrival knitted all these diverse regions together to where now we look at soccer, the most popular youth sport, and the accolades that the sport has now, he’s the one that really got to Madison Avenue, got to the big money people, got to the big network people.  The Cosmos guys, they didn’t just play at Hofstra.  They also went out and they marketed. They went out to schools, they went out and did everything they could to help grow the game.

In terms of any kind of a national recognition of growth, you certainly have to go to the Pelé era and look at what he did. He kind of knitted all these regions together to where we had kind of a uniform movement.  That only could have happened with someone like him. And there’s no one else like him.”

According to Rote, it wasn’t just about Pelé’s extraordinary talent.  It was also his character:

“I think he’s still the King. Obviously people argue with me on that. But there’s no one else who’s won three World Cups.  And Pelé is the ambassador.  I’ve admired him for a long time for many, many reasons, not simply his soccer skills, though that’s how I first got to know about him. Just the way he handled people, the way he handled situations.  And he never seemed to get frustrated, he always did the right thing for the game, he did the right thing for his teammates, he did the right thing for all of us who were fortunate enough to have played against him.  

If he didn’t want to do interviews, you never knew it, from a media standpoint. And he understood his role extremely, extremely well.  Like anybody, you have to have some downtime.  I’m sure he had some of that.  But he understood the responsibility that he had and he wanted to be true to the responsibility and be faithful to the responsibility of trying to help bring the world’s most popular sport to the nation.”

Having scored the first of 64 goals in the first of 106 games he would play for the New York Cosmos until his retirement on October 1, 1977, Pelé changed the course of soccer in New York and the United States that June 15 forty years ago. 

Literally changing the American landscape, the field he played on that day would be considered unplayable in most youth soccer leagues today.  The games played each day on the countless fields scattered all across North America now are all in some way linked to that day forty years ago when the King made his Cosmos debut to spread the gospel of the Beautiful Game and make us a soccer nation.