The Cosmos host Puerto Rico FC in their first-ever meeting on Saturday, July 30 at Shuart Stadium.  Fans have been looking forward to this match since news began to leak during the Cosmos trip to Cuba last year that Carmelo Anthony of the Knicks had traveled with the team to Havana and was considering bringing professional soccer back to Puerto Rico with a new club in the NASL.  Los Isleños finished third in the NASL in 2012, but suspended operations before the Cosmos reboot in 2013.    

The strong cultural bonds between New York and Puerto Rico are manifest not only in the Nuyorican Movement of literary, musical, theatrical and visual artists; there’s also a deep connection between the Cosmos and Puerto Rican soccer, going back to the first visit to New York by the Puerto Rican National Team on July 7, 1974. 

“The head of the Puerto Rican Federation was a very nice man who plainly wanted to do some building, and I guess New York was where he came and talked about it,” founding General Manager Clive Toye recalls. “And we tried to help him build the game in Puerto Rico which, at the time, was almost non-existent, or so he told me.” 

Then President of La Federación Puertorriqueña de Fútbol, José M. Arsuaga, proclaimed in the Cosmos’ press release: “It will be an historic game for Puerto Rican soccer.  Soccer is growing rapidly in Puerto Rico and we are delighted to be able to show soccer fans in the United States as well as the Puerto Rican people of New York, the development which is taking place.”

Seeing the global game as a unifier between peoples, Arsuaga insisted: “This historic event will benefit all Latin American people in the area, and we hope all the people will get together to support the event.  This will not only be a great soccer game, but a way to unite all our people.”

Collaborating with Orvaldo Vega, President of the Puerto Rican Hispanic Sports Council (the Plaza now at E. 106^th St. and 3^rd Ave. in Manhattan is his namesake), the Cosmos offered soccer clinics to children in New York’s Puerto Rican community.

The friendly finished a 4-1 victory for the Cosmos.  Mark Liveric scored a hat trick and Tony Donlik had the fourth goal for New York, while Orlando Winters scored on an 89^th-minute breakaway to earn a consolation goal for the Puerto Rican fans. 

Having garnered attention with the match in New York, Arsuaga persuaded the Cosmos to play a return leg at Juan Ramón Loubriel Stadium in Bayamón, Puerto Rico.  Toye was impressed by the President of the Puerto Rican Football Federation.

“We did our best to help him, and the opportunity came to get a big crowd when we took Cosmos and [Pelé] there,” says Toye. 

By the fall of 1975, with Pelé the Cosmos had become an international attraction.  Their postseason tour took the club from Sweden to Turkey and to Haiti and Jamaica before ending with games in Puerto Rico and Canada. 

The Cosmos may have come to Puerto Rico to help promote soccer, but they weren’t going to do so by treating the match as simply a friendly.  The crowd of 6,000 at Juan Ramón Loubriel Stadium were treated to a clinic in attacking soccer by the visiting New Yorkers, who won 12-1.  Record-keeping, especially in those days and even more so for friendlies, was scant, but the end-of-tour press release credits a goal each to Pelé and John Coyne, two to Mark Liveric (who had scored three the year before against Puerto Rico) and Manuel Maria, and hat tricks to Tommy Ord and Ramon Mifflin. 

However, an article shared by Luis Reinaldo Álvarez, Presidente de la Galería de Inmortales del Fútbol Puertorriqueño, offers a different tally.  Coyne (who only appeared for the Cosmos on the exhibition tour) isn’t credited with a goal and Mifflin is denied his hat trick.  Instead Ord is credited with four goals, Mifflin and Maria with two each, Pelé and Maria one each and Werner Roth is ascribed a brace.  Center forward Jorge Palacios is identified as the scoring the consolation goal for the home side. 

“Oh gosh, I have no recollection,” said Roth when asked about the goal scorers. “What was the final score? 9-1? I just don’t recall.”

Image via Mr. Luis Reinaldo Álvarez (Presidente de la Galería de Inmortales del Fútbol Puertorriqueño)

Regardless of the goal scorers, the technical acumen and tactical adaptability of the Cosmos, now growing more accustomed to playing with Pelé, was on impressive display.  Scoring eight in the first half, the Cosmos were content to counterattack with quick, long passes.  Switching from the aerial assault to a controlled short-passing game in the second half yielded another four goals. 

“They had a big crowd and, with a bit of luck, that helped begin the game there,” recalls Toye.  “We were trying to build soccer everywhere. It wasn’t just in New York. We wanted to be big-time wherever we could. And we also very much wanted to be the first. So we were the first to bring the Russians, the first to go to China, all that kind of stuff.”

Another important Cosmos-related connection is found with the first FIFA World Cup qualification win by Puerto Rico.  When the Puerto Rican Federation fired Head Coach Victor Hugo Barros, the National Team players resigned in protest.  Federation President Dr. Roberto Monroig turned to legendary New York coach Arnie Ramirez, who worked for the Cosmos with Pelé Soccer Camps for years (and remains a most loyal Cosmos supporter to this day, attending most home matches).  Ramirez assembled a team of locals, including Ramiro Borja (younger brother of Cosmos legend Chico Borja) and trained in New York.  The team shocked the Dominican Republic on March 21, 1992 with a 1-2 road win in Santo Domingo.  A 1-1 draw in San Juan eight-days later saw the Boricua through to the next round in a tie that remains infamous among both islands’ soccer communities.

Although this will be Puerto Rico FC’s first NASL match in New York, they played at St. John’s University’s Belson Stadium on June 11 against the Puerto Rican National Team in a matched dubbed the “Puerto Rican Clasico De Futbol” to coincide with the weekend of New York’s Puerto Rican Day Parade. The 1-0 win for Puerto Rico FC means they have a taste of winning in New York, but the Cosmos will likewise hope their history against Puerto Rican sides provides an optimistic omen.  Perhaps these shared cultural and sporting legacies will make this a Nuyorican Clásico, Saturday’s showdown the first match in a rivalry for the ages.