PERUGIA, Italy -- Any one of a score of stories about the wacky world of the New York Cosmos soccer team in the 1970s could fill a movie theater with laughter and amazement. Even those who aren't fans of the game have to appreciate the screwball situation of a misplaced team playing an unpopular sport with foreign players in a country that had lost its way. But perhaps the most interesting character in the drama of goals, greed and girls was Shep Messing, the U.S. goalkeeper who was a native New Yorker and probably the least comfortable of all the Cosmos. Messing was a key character on the team of stars put together by Warner Communications chairman Steve Ross years before most American parents were driving their kids to soccer practice. The Cosmos roster also included Pele, the world's greatest soccer player; Franz Beckenbauer, the German soccer icon who led his country's World Cup organizing committee; and the charismatic Italian idol Giorgio Chinaglia. Messing is a key character in a new film that chronicles the rise and fall of the Cosmos, a club team that was playing in a dilapidated facility on Randall's Island when Ross tried to turn them into the world's most glamorous team.
- 6/27/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PERUGIA, Italy -- Any one of a score of stories about the wacky world of the New York Cosmos soccer team in the 1970s could fill a movie theater with laughter and amazement. Even those who aren't fans of the game have to appreciate the screwball situation of a misplaced team playing an unpopular sport with foreign players in a country that had lost its way. But perhaps the most interesting character in the drama of goals, greed and girls was Shep Messing, the U.S. goalkeeper who was a native New Yorker and probably the least comfortable of all the Cosmos. Messing was a key character on the team of stars put together by Warner Communications chairman Steve Ross years before most American parents were driving their kids to soccer practice. The Cosmos roster also included Pele, the world's greatest soccer player; Franz Beckenbauer, the German soccer icon who led his country's World Cup organizing committee; and the charismatic Italian idol Giorgio Chinaglia. Messing is a key character in a new film that chronicles the rise and fall of the Cosmos, a club team that was playing in a dilapidated facility on Randall's Island when Ross tried to turn them into the world's most glamorous team.
- 6/27/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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