The Reserve Squad: New league seeks to continue American tradition of soccer failure
The continent’s newest professional soccer league, comprised mostly of breakaway franchises from the second-tier United Soccer Leagues, is set to be known as the North American Soccer League, it was announced Monday. The name is an homage to the original NASL, which operated from 1968 to 1984 and represented the continent’s most serious foray into “getting soccer to the cusp of mainstream notoriety and popularity before the whole operation completely implodes.”
Officials with the new NASL are hoping this incarnation of the league can be an even bigger breakthrough.
“The original NASL nearly put soccer over the proverbial hump before they shot themselves in the foot,” said one official with the new league. “But we are confident that with all of the attention heaped on the sport in the USA this year, with David Beckham, the Gold Cup and the Confederations Cup, we will find a way to help soccer crash back out of the mainstream in even more spectacular fashion.”
The original NASL rose to prominence quickly and raised the sport’s profile immeasurably, thanks in part to aging foreign stars such as Pele and Franz Beckenbauer — but questionable decisions, including rapid, unsustainable expansion, forced the league to close up shop 14 years after its inception. But the new NASL believes it can do even better.
“This week, before the league even had a name or commissioner, we expanded by 29% [adding teams in Baltimore and Tampa Bay to the original seven],” said the league official. “We believe that by kickoff in 2010, we will have reached 12 teams, with the goal of reaching MLS’s level [16 teams] by September of 2010.
“Reaching 24 teams by 2011 is our short-term plan, dependent upon city council approvals in Murfressboro, Tennessee and Butte, Montana.”
The official expressed confidence that the new NASL could feasibly balloon to as many as 38 teams in as little as four years’ time before the house of cards entirely collapsed upon itself.
The new NASL also hopes that having three professional leagues — itself, along with MLS and USL — bringing soccer to markets across the USA and Canada will help introduce the game to an unprecedented number of fans, making the inevitable self-destruction all the more impressive.
“People like new things, so we have no doubt that fans will, at first, flock to the stadiums, parks and abandoned lots where our franchises will play,” said the league official.
“But we believe that once they realize there’s no comprehensible soccer pyramid in either of the league’s two countries, and with the accompanying dilution of relevance caused by having three leagues competing with one another, those new fans will violently turn against the league and the game, creating a cataclysmic grassroots backlash that the original NASL couldn’t have dreamed of achieving.
“There is a proud tradition on this continent of defining soccer as the ‘next big thing’ — the sport that is just about to break into the mainstream for real. This is a comfortable, reliable niche for the game, and one that we have come to identify with. However, the burgeoning success of MLS is threatening to actually cross that plane and make soccer a legitimate mainstream sport. So we will do whatever we can to uphold the continent’s proud soccer tradition of almost achieving mainstream success before seeing everything completely fall apart.
“And, y’know, if the owners could make some quick cash in the process, that’d be nice too.”
