Team America was a professional version of the

United States men's national soccer team The United States men's national soccer team (USMNT), officially recognized as USA by FIFA, represents the United States in men's international Association football, soccer. The team is governed by the United States Soccer Federation, which is ...

which played as a franchise in the

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League (NASL) was the top-level major professional soccer league in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984. It is considered the first soccer league to be successful on a national scale in the ...

(NASL) during the 1983 season. The team was based in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, played its home games at

RFK Stadium Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, commonly known as RFK Stadium and originally known as District of Columbia Stadium, is a defunct multi-purpose stadium in Washington, D.C. located on East Capitol Street near the Anacostia River. Opened in 1 ...

, and was intended by the NASL and the

United States Soccer Federation The United States Soccer Federation (USSF), commonly referred to as U.S. Soccer, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the official governing body of soccer in the United States. It is a full member of FIFA and governs American soccer ...

to build fan support for the league and create a cohesive and internationally competitive national team. However, the team finished in last place and drew only 13,000 fans per game. A "Team America" also played an unofficial exhibition game against

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in 1976, to commemorate the bicentennial of

American Independence The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American Revolutionary War ...

. The players were drawn from North American Soccer League clubs and included

Pelé Edson Arantes do Nascimento (; 23 October 1940 – 29 December 2022), better known by his nickname Pelé (), was a Brazilian professional Association football, footballer who played as a Forward (association football), forward. Widely reg ...

and

Bobby Moore Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore (12 April 1941 – 24 February 1993) was an English professional footballer. He captained West Ham United for more than ten years, and was the captain of the England national team that won the 1966 FIFA ...

. The match was played in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

and England won, 3–1.

History

Origins

The origins of Team America came with the ascension of Howard J. Samuels to the positions of president and CEO of NASL on June 25, 1982. At the time, the league was on the verge of collapsing. The league had 21 teams at the end of the 1981 season, but began the 1982 season with only 14. Attendance was dropping and the league had lost its television contract. To reverse these trends, Samuels proposed turning the league’s focus away from international stars to domestic players in order to create a larger fan base. Samuels’ concept dovetailed with a desire on the part of the

(USSF) to build a more successful national team program. In order to fulfill the twin objectives of nurturing new U.S. talent to reach a greater fan base while feeding that talent into the national team, Samuels and the USSF decided to enter the national team into NASL as a franchise. At the time, U.S. players found it difficult to compete for roster spots against the foreigners who stocked most of the league’s teams. In theory, Team America would only feature U.S. players who would train with each other, fostering a sense of team cohesion which would pay dividends when the U.S. played international games. The name Team America was a reference to both the U.S. national team as well as the 1976 Team America, a team which combined U.S. national team players with the addition of several NASL international stars, which played in the 1976 U.S.A. Bicentennial Cup Tournament.

Creating the team

Samuels brought in Robert Lifton as the team owner, and in coordination with Lifton and USSF secured

in Washington, D.C. as the team’s home field. In January 1983, the NASL and USSF invited 39 players from the NASL, American Soccer League (ASL) and Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) to tryouts for the 20 available roster spots. However, several top U.S. players, including

Rick Davis Richard Dean Davis (born November 24, 1958) is an American former soccer midfielder, and former captain of the U.S. national team for much of the 1980s. He is considered by fans the best U.S.-born player of the North American Soccer League er ...

, Jimmy McAllister,

Winston DuBose Winston DuBose is an American former soccer goalkeeper who spent eight seasons in the North American Soccer League, four in the American Professional Soccer League and one in the American Indoor Soccer Association. He also earned fourteen cap ...

, David Brcic, and Juli Veee, refused to leave their teams to play for Team America. This forced the NASL and USSF to turn to recently naturalized players—ten of the 21 on the roster (see below) had been born outside the U.S., including Alan Green, who was still a British subject in 1983 (he finally gained American citizenship the following year). Several top U.S. players did join the club, including Chico Borja,

Jeff Durgan Jeffrey Durgan (born August 29, 1961, in Tacoma, Washington) is a retired U.S. soccer defender who played professionally for the New York Cosmos and seven times for the U.S. national team. NASL Durgan was born and raised in Tacoma, Washingto ...

Arnie Mausser Arnold "Arnie" Mausser (born February 28, 1954) is an American former soccer goalkeeper who played with eight different NASL teams from 1975 to 1984. He is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Mausser may be considered one of the fin ...

and

Perry Van der Beck Perry Van der Beck (born November 5, 1959, in Florissant, Missouri) is an American former soccer player, former coach and technical director, and the former Vice President of Competition and Operations for the United Soccer League. Van der Beck ...

. Even

Alketas Panagoulias Alketas 'Alkis' Panagoulias (; 30 May 1934 – 18 June 2012) was a Greek association football player and manager. He managed the national teams of both Greece and the United States. He also managed several clubs, including Aris, his birthplace ...

, U.S. national team coach (and thus Team America coach by default) was himself a naturalized citizen. (Panagoulis had led the New York Greek-Americans to three

U.S. Open Cup The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, commonly known as the U.S. Open Cup (USOC), is a knockout cup competition in men's soccer in the United States. It is the country's oldest ongoing national soccer competition. The competition was first held duri ...

triumphs in the early 1960s and was later coach of the Greece national team at the

1994 World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States w ...

, but earned his living selling real estate.)

Season

Wearing a red, white and blue uniform with a horizontally striped jersey, the team began well, going 8–5 (including a shootout win over the Cosmos in front of 31,112 at RFK on June 17) but lost 15 of its last 17 games, finishing at the bottom of the standings with a 10–20 record. (There was one highlight, however: on August 13, the club played to a 1–1 tie with the mighty Italian club

Juventus Juventus Football Club (; from , ), commonly known as Juventus or colloquially as Juve (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Turin, Piedmont, who compete in Serie A, the ...

(which featured six players from the

1982 World Cup The 1982 FIFA World Cup was the 12th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Spain from 13 June to 11 July 1982. The tournament was won by Italy, who defeated West Germany 3–1 in th ...

-winning squad), in front of 20,111 fans at RFK.) Lack of scoring punch was the biggest problem: the club scored just five goals in the entire month of July, losing all eight matches; Team America's 33 goals on the season was barely one per game and easily the worst in the league. None of the players were named to the league's

All Star An all-star team is a group of people all having a high level of performance in their field. Originating in sports, it has since drifted into vernacular and has been borrowed heavily by the entertainment industry. Sports "All-star" as a sport ...

team. As the team stumbled through the regular season, Samuels and Lifton became desperate. On July 27, 1983, they announced that they had approached the owners of the other NASL, as well as MISL, teams about loaning U.S. players to Team America on a game by game basis when the players' regular teams had an idle game day. However, MISL refused the NASL/USSF request for player loans, citing the NASL policy forbidding teams in that league from loaning its players to MISL. Lack of success on the field led to tensions among U.S. national team players. Some, such as Jeff Durgan, publicly criticized

and

Steve Moyers Steve Moyers (born September 23, 1956, in St. Louis, Missouri) is a retired soccer forward from the United States, who was a member of the American squad that competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. He spent eight sea ...

for choosing to remain with the Cosmos rather than signing with Team America. Mark Peterson, the North American Soccer League's player of the year in 1982, began the season with the Seattle Sounders, but joined Team America during the 1983 season after receiving severe criticism from other U.S. players.

Demise

The team's initial attendance figures were decent enough: an average of 19,952 through the first seven home matches. (This was a little misleading, however: the figure includes the 50,108 who attended a game against Fort Lauderdale that featured a free

Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by thei ...

concert; the other six matches averaged just 14,926.) As the losses piled up, though, the fans stopped coming to RFK: barely 55,000 showed up for the last eight home games combined, lowering Team America's average to just 13,002 for the entire 1983 season. This was actually third-best in the rapidly-fading 12-team NASL, but it wasn't enough to avoid severe financial losses, especially when coupled with the USSF's inability to finalize several potential marketing deals. Panagoulis wondered aloud, "Where are we going? What the hell are we doing? Why do these people keep paying me?" At the end of the season, Robert Lifton pulled the plug on the franchise; afterwards, he, Commissioner Samuels and the USSF engaged in much public rancor and wrangling over who was most responsible for the club's failure. The Team America fiasco may also have had a hand in the destruction of another NASL franchise, the

Montreal Manic The Montreal Manic or the Manic de Montréal were a professional soccer team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, that played in the North American Soccer League. History "Le Manic" as they were called by the locals, were Montreal's first professi ...

. In his book, ''Soccer in a Football World'', North American soccer historian Dave Wangerin partially attributes the downfall of the Manic organization to the Molson ownership's declaration to attempt to build a Team Canada roster for the 1984 season. The new direction of the club meant many of the Manic's non-Canadian players would be let go; given Canada's poor track record at producing world class soccer talent, fans were put off by the prospect that the team's play would diminish. (The fact the franchise played in

francophone The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...

Montreal, rife with

separatist Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...

sentiment, didn't help.) Sure enough, the Manic managed only a 12–18 mark in 1983 and saw their attendance drop by more than half, attracting only 9,910 fans per contest. Team Canada in the NASL never became a reality, as the Manic (who had already lost a reported $7 million in their first two seasons) folded after the 1983 season.

Year by year

Honors

U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame * 2003:

* 2014: Bruce Savage Indoor Soccer Hall of Fame * 2014: Bruce Savage

References

External links

Pre-season article on Team America plus a write-up of the first game, against the Sounders

* ttps://books.google.com/books?id=1mK2xw1E6dAC&dq=ussf++%22team+america%22&pg=PA211 Soccer in a Football World {{North American Soccer League (1966–85) Defunct soccer clubs in Washington, D.C. North American Soccer League (1968–1984) teams History of the United States men's national soccer team 1983 establishments in Washington, D.C. 1983 disestablishments in Washington, D.C. 1976 in American soccer 1983 North American Soccer League season Association football clubs established in 1983 Association football clubs disestablished in 1983