For the better part of a decade in the 1970s and 80s the original New York Cosmos were the most glamorous team in the world. The club’s constellation of global stars included Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia, Carlos Alberto and playmaker extraordinaire Vladislav ‘Bogie’ Bogicevic – as well as an array of top Americans that included Werner Roth, Bobby Smith and Rick Davis. Every one of these men has his name etched in the National Soccer Hall of Fame, and the ceremonial red blazer to boot.
The club’s trophy case overflowed with almost every piece of hardware available to them, including five North American Soccer Championships and three Trans-Atlantic Challenge Cup trophies, in addition to finishing atop of the NASL league table five straight years, from 1978 to 1982.
One glaring omission from the Cosmos’ trophy collection was the original U.S. Open Cup trophy, known as Dewar Cup. Or was it? While NASL clubs avoided playing in the Open Cup, a large number of the league’s players, especially in the pre-Pelé era, played in – and won – this country’s most historic prize on the side.
If we face up to the facts, 1971 U.S. Open Cup Champions New York Hota (pictured at the top of this story) might as well have been the Cosmos. Five players – Radi Martovic, Horst Meyer, Rudy Pearce, Ceyhan Yazar and player-coach Gordon Bradley (all pictured above) – did double duty that year, suiting up for Hota and the first-year NASL Cosmos. Two others – Johnny Kerr, who played for the Washington Darts in 1970 and 71, and Robert Neubauer – joined the Cosmos for their 1972 season, which culminated in an NASL title.
At least two other players on Hota’s roster, Karl Minor and Windsor Delano, also played in the NASL.
Bradley, a Hall of Famer and briefly USMNT head coach, signed as Cosmos boss in January of 1971 and remains the only coach to win both U.S. Open Cup and NASL titles. At the time, he did a masterful job of juggling both the Hota and Cosmos jobs and lineups, enabling the first-year Cosmos to finish second in their division.
After a bye through the First Round, Hota rolled through the Second and Third Rounds of the New York-New Jersey bracket of the 1971 Open Cup, which by that point was made up entirely of clubs from the German American Soccer League (later to become the Cosmopolitan League). They beat Blau-Weiss Gotschee 2-1 and the New York Hungarians 4-1, Mitrovic scoring twice against the Hungarians.
It was another GASL club that stood in Hota’s way in the State Final, this time the German Hungarians.
Just two weeks earlier, the German Hungarians – who featured two other Cosmos, Werner Roth and Jorge Siega – defeated Hota 2-0 in the final of the GASL Indoor Tournament. It proved to be perhaps the toughest test of the entire U.S. Open Cup competition.
After being postponed twice because of weather, the game was played in Queens in front of 1,500 fans on a muddy pitch at the legendary Metropolitan Oval, with its iconic view of the Manhattan skyline.
Eight minutes into the second half, either Kerr or Yazar (reports differ) dribbled 20 yards before centering a pass to Mitrovic who slammed a shot from outside the 18-yard box off the crossbar and into the net for the only goal of the 1-0 win.
Bradley praised his two fullbacks, Pearce and Neubauer, telling Joe Marcus of the New York Post: “The defense was just great” on the day
With the 1971 NASL season not yet underway, lineup juggling was not an issue against the German Hungarians. But it was very much an issue moving forward in the tournament, starting when Hota faced Taunton Sports Club on the road in Massachusetts.
The Cosmos opened their inaugural season with a 2-1 win over the St. Louis Stars in Missouri on Saturday April 17. Yazar, Meyer and Bradley all played, while Mitrovic, who had injured ribs, and Pearce were on the bench. The five then flew into Fall River, Massachusetts the following day for the Open Cup game at Hopewell Park in Taunton.
Taunton took a 1-0 lead 14 minutes into the second half on a goal by Aurelio Roben. With less than five minutes left in the game, Vincent Delano equalized for Hota to force extra time. Minor then gave the New Yorkers the lead three minutes into the second overtime and Klaus Walters and Rolf Winter closed out the 4-1 rout.
The Eastern Final of the Open Cup and the Cosmos home opener at Yankee Stadium were three days apart, giving player-coach Bradley at least a little bit of time between games to settle on lineups.
Playing at home at Park Stadium in Franklin Square, on Long Island, Hota took a 1-0 lead over Cleveland Danube Schwaben on a goal by Delano. Minor made it 2-0 midway through the second half before Paulo Ramos pulled one back for Schwaben. Ceyan Yazar then added a third Hota goal from the penalty spot.
Three nights later, the Cosmos earned a 1-0 win at Yankee Stadium over the Washington Darts. All five of the Hota players got a night off, while Kerr went the full 90 for the D.C.-based club.
For Bradley and Hota’s Cosmos players, winning the U.S. Open Cup was clearly the priority and came with the blessing of the NASL team’s management, who allowed the entire double-duty contingent to make the trip for the Open Cup Final in faraway Los Angeles, which was on the same day the Cosmos played the Toronto Metros in Canada. Cosmos captain John Young took over for Bradley as coach in the NASL contest, which ended in a 2-2 draw. Kerr missed the U.S. Open Cup Final, instead playing 90 minutes in a Darts 3-0 loss to Hearts of Scotland.
The 1971 Open Cup Final was one of the wildest on record, with the teams combining for ten goals in a 6-4 Hota extra-time win over the San Pedro Yugoslavs at Rancho Cienega Stadium in Los Angeles.
The teams traded goals throughout. San Pedro got the upper hand in the third minute on an own goal by Hota defender Rudy Pearce. Fifteen minutes later, Hota knotted the game for the first time, on a 25-yard shot by Delano.
The Yugoslavs retook the lead on a 26th-minute goal by Manuel Brigida. Just before the half, Horst Kneissl equalized for the New Yorkers.
A free kick by Felipe Ruvalcaba in the 60th minute again put San Pedro on top. But with less than a minute left to play Pearce sent in a long ball that Minor headed past goalkeeper Ruben Fernandez, once again knotting the contest and forcing extra time.
Four minutes into the extra periods, Minor dribbled past two San Pedro defenders and beat Fernandez again to make it 4-3. Mitrovic then headed a corner from Neubauer into the net in the 99th minute and Kneissl scored on a 117th-minute header to ice the win for Hota. The Yugoslavs got a last-gasp consolation goal from Brigada in the 199th minute to make the final score 6-4.
The U.S. Open Cup was the crowning achievement for the dual-team players. Of the five Cosmos on the 1971 Hota team, Bradley was the only one to play on the 1972 NASL Championship squad, along with Neubauer and Kerr.
Other than Bradley and Kerr, who played 132 games for four clubs between 1968 and 1977 and went on to lead both the NASL and Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) Players’ Association, the NASL careers of the other dual Hota-Cosmos players were relatively short.
Meyer made 10 appearances in 1971 with the Cosmos. Pearce, who had been with the Atlanta Chiefs in 1967, played 19 games during the 1971 season. Yazar, who joined the Cosmos after playing the 1970 season with the Rochester Lancers, saw action in nine games for New York, scoring two goals. Mitrovic played in 10 games with four goals to his name.
What they lacked in top-flight longevity, the five Hota-Cosmos men of 1971 more than make up for in the immortality afforded those who lift the oldest trophy in this country’s soccer.
Charles Cuttone is a writer/author, historian and three-time winner of the National Soccer Coaches Association writing award. His latest book, The Soccer Book of Why, was published by Lyons Press and is available here.