Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos

Goals. Greed. Girls. The meteoric rise to fame of the New York Cosmos, the dominant team in the North American Soccer League (NASL) during their glory days of the late 1970s, is charted in Paul Crowder and John Dower's Once in a Lifetime, narrated by Matt Dillon. Constructed around interviews with former players and key management personnel, the documentary chronicles how the Cosmos helped make soccer a “sexy” sporting event here in America: one day the team members were hardly known, even among rabid sports fans; the next, they were being feted in media outlets everywhere and using their newfound fame to establish themselves as superstar athletes and notorious “party boys” whose excesses occasionally made for unwanted headlines, before they finally flamed out. DVD extras include excerpts from classic matches and testimonials about Pele, the South American soccer superstar who helped put the NASL on the map, so to speak. Recommended. Aud: P. (E. Hulse)