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Once in a Lifetime

A portrait of football titans
By TOM MEEK  |  July 19, 2006
3.0 3.0 Stars
This nostalgic documentary from Paul Crowder and John Dower begins earnestly enough as it chronicles the cobbled origins of the North American Soccer League in 1967, but when Warner media mogul Steve Ross buys up the New York Cosmos and transforms them into a spectacle of sports shock and awe, in 1975 inking Pelé to a then-unheard-of $5 million contract, the film becomes an exposé on excess, egos, and lore. Oddly, Pelé, whose artistic wizardry is well enshrined in the highlight reels, never appears as a talking head; instead we get Italian scoring machine Giorgio Chinaglia, whom the filmmakers paint as both the catalyst for the Cosmos’ last four NASL championships and the cancer that caused the team to implode in the ’80s. What they don’t explain is why the NASL failed after record sellouts at Giants Stadium. (Try over-expansion and empty stadiums outside of New York.) Still, this portrait of football titans, the mod ’70s, and a passion for a world game that is not an American product scores.
Related: Unspeakable, Messi situations, Ghana baby Ghana, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Sports, Soccer, North American Soccer League,  More more >
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