Cosmos fans frustrated by the bye week as the 2015 NASL regular season heads into its home stretch will take comfort in following the fortunes of two Cosmos players representing the United States in the FIFA U-17 World Cup.

The Stars and Stripes begin their tournament in Chile against Nigeria on Saturday, October 17.  Cosmos striker and Los Angeles native Haji Wright will feature in South America as one of the U.S.’s greatest attacking threats. He was a key contributor to the Cosmos B team’s undefeated NPSL championship run, eventually breaking into the first team roster and tallying a match-winning assist before departing to join the national team.

Alexis Velela, a versatile defender for the U.S. U-17s from San Diego and a close friend of Wright’s, signed for New York back in August but has yet to debut for the club. He netted the winning penalty against Jamaica in Honduras this past March, which clinched his country a spot at this World Cup. Once the tournament is over, he’ll begin training with the Cosmos in earnest.

Although the club is perhaps best known for the long list of international superstars, from Pelé to Raúl, Wright and Velela join a long list of Cosmos to represent the United States in international competition. In fact it was in this competition that now-Cosmos midfielder Danny Szetela thrust himself into the national spotlight with the U.S. U-17s, scoring two goals in four starts at the 2003 U-17 World Championships in Finland.

Digging back further into Cosmos history, a local high school product and early fan favorite, forward Siggy Stritzl, made several appearances on USMNT and Olympic sides, as did defender Werner Roth, who joined the side in 1972.  Mark Liveric emerged from the local sandlot leagues to earn his first cap with the USMNT in 1973 before turning pro and joining the Cosmos the year after.  

Shep Messing was in goal for the 1972 Olympiad in Munich.  He joined the ‘73 Cosmos with the club’s first round pick from the college draft, Joey Fink, another USMNT regular of the era. The Cosmos’ fifth round pick in that draft, Bruce Arena, never appeared for the club but went on to have great success as the Head Coach of the USMNT. 

Identifying the best talent in the country has always been a hallmark of the club’s success. During the dramatic title run in 1977, the American trio of Roth, Messing, and defender Bobby Smith were key contributors to the club’s success. 

Gary Etherington was the first Cosmos signed directly out of high school, joining the club in 1976.  Many scoffed then at the notion that eschewing college could lead to a successful career as a professional soccer player.

When Rick Davis and David Brcic both dropped out of college at the end of 1977 to join the Cosmos, the club was again accused of reckless disregard for their futures.  But for Brcic, it was an opportunity he couldn’t afford to miss:

“You have to understand it was a multi-faceted opportunity because Ricky [Davis] and I were both a part of the Olympic program at the time. Part of the deal, per se, was that we would both be … I believe we were both … you’d have to ask him directly … I think we both signed with Atlantic Records. So we actually worked for Atlantic Records and retained our amateur status. So we both spent a tremendous amount of time traveling with the Olympic Team, preparing for the 1980 Olympics which, of course, we went ahead and qualified for, but then it was boycotted.

Then we turned professional, but then they changed the rules for 1984, and we wound up playing in the ’84 Olympics as professionals. So that was part of the deal. We weren’t going to just go there and start our first year, obviously, but getting the chance to also train with the Olympic Team was part of the deal, so it wasn’t a hard decision.”

Watching in the stands as Pelé played his farewell match, Brcic and Davis, along with Etherington, were then sent to train with AC Milan for the winter. 

Davis turned fully professional in 1979, which proved to be his breakout year, earning a starting role in midfield alongside Johan Neeskens, Franz Beckenbauer and Vladislav Bogićević.  His skill and hard work, along with his “milk-and-cookies” persona, made him a fan favorite and the poster boy for the future of U.S. soccer.  It was a role Davis embraced as a blessing and an honor, but the difference between the Cosmos and the USMNT was, at the time, “night and day,” recalls Davis:

“You couldn’t compare. With the Cosmos, we didn’t fly first class but we traveled clearly first class. When we went to hotels our meals were all set up for us, clearly there was no expense spared in terms of the quality. We traveled with more players than we needed, we traveled with a traveling secretary, with multiple trainers, with an equipment guy.

The National Team was clearly, both from a financial standpoint and otherwise, not at that level. The Cosmos, we would frequently travel, if it was say cross-country, we’d fly in two days before the game, to give us a day to kind of acclimate and then a day to practice or train, and then play the game the next day.  With the National Team, heck, half the time we were being brought together for the first time and we didn’t get together two days before a game. We’d get together the day before. And so there was a big difference.”

Boris Bandov, already a USMNT regular, joined the club from Tampa in 1979 and Angelo DiBernardo came from Los Angeles the year after, but despite the club helping to develop talent with players kept on amateur contracts with the Olympiad in mind, no Cosmos featured in the 1980 Olympics since the U.S. boycotted the Games in Moscow that year.  Failure to qualify for the FIFA World Cup set for Spain in ’82 was another great disappointment for U.S. soccer in 1980.

Still, 1980 wasn’t a complete loss in terms of the club developing young U.S. talent, as stopper Jeff Durgan captured the NASL Rookie of the Year honor.  In 1982, the Cosmos signed native-born goal-scoring sensation Steve Moyers as the club continued to assemble not only the world’s top talent, but the country’s best as well. 

Hoping to rectify the failings of the National Team program, in 1983 the NASL tried the Team America experiment, cutting into the contingent of Yanks on the Cosmos, luring Bandov, Durgan and Chico Borja away from New York.  But with the dissolution of the experiment after just one year, even more regulars on the USMNT came back or into the Cosmos fold for the next year. 

In the last season before the Cosmos and the NASL suspended competition, and with Team America folded, league rules increased the number of North American citizens required on the pitch to five.  The Cosmos were so loaded with young American talent in 1984, the USMNT starting XI could have easily been stocked exclusively with Cosmos. 

An agreement between the NASL and USSF was reached midseason allowing players to compete in the Olympics that summer, the regular season extended a week to accommodate the Olympiad.  Six players on the US Olympic roster in 1984 were current Cosmos (David Brcic, Jeff Durgan, Kazbek Tambi, Angelo DiBernardo, Chico Borja, Steve Moyers) and another three had recently left the club but will always be best known as having played for the Cosmos (Rick Davis, Erhardt Kapp and Mike Fox had joined the indoor teams in St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas, respectively). 

Playing before sellout crowds, the Cosmos-centric Olympians won 3-0 over Costa Rica before 78,000 at Stanford, lost 0-1 to Italy before 63,624 at the Rose Bowl and drew 1-1 against Egypt before 54,973 at Stanford.  Although they didn’t move beyond the opening group round, it was the most respectable performance by a United States team in a major international tournament since the 1950 FIFA World Cup win over England.  It seemed the years of Cosmos investment in U.S. soccer youth development had finally paid off. 

But despite the strong USMNT presence on the 1984 Cosmos roster, because of the absence of a formal youth development/academy structure in those years and the suspension of competition by both the club and the league, no Cosmos products were in the U.S. roster that appeared at the very first FIFA U-16 World Championship for the Kodak Cup (now U-17 World Cup) in China in 1985.

The tournament itself has evolved, and at last talent nurtured by the Cosmos should feature for the United States.  In the International Tournament of Vaclav Jezek, which served as a warm-up for Chile, Wright and Velela saw plenty of action as Head Coach Richie Williams experimented with his twenty-one man roster.  Velela started the opener and Wright came on in the 73^rd minute in a 4-2 loss to Russia.  Wright had an assist in the 1-1 draw against Slovenia in the second match.  Both started the third match, a 2-1 win over Ukraine. 

So Wright and Velela are expected to feature when the USA opens against Nigeria on Saturday before facing Croatia on October 20 and then finishing the opening round of group play against hosts Chile on October 23. This gives Cosmos fans plenty of soccer action to follow before the New Yorkers head to San Antonio on October 24 and return home for the season home finale against archrivals Tampa Bay Rowdies on October 31^st.

Though the impending retirement of international legends Raúl and Marcos Senna at the end of this season draws near, with Wright and Velela on the U.S. squad in Chile, we can see the club’s focus is once again on not just signing but developing elite talent for the future of both club and country. 

The U.S. U-17s begin their World Cup against Nigeria on Saturday, October 17 at 3:55 p.m. ET. Watch the match on Fox Sports 2 and Telemundo.