For Part I, featuring NASL championship wins in 1972 and 1977, click here.

For Part II, featuring titles in 1978 and 1980, click here.

SEPTEMBER 18, 1982 | NY COSMOS 1, SEATTLE SOUNDERS 0 (SAN DIEGO)

Giorgio Chinaglia bagged the match-winner in Soccer Bowl '82, his fifth score in five title game appearances.

Soccer Bowl ’82 was a rematch of the thrilling final from five years prior, the Cosmos facing the Seattle Sounders at San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium on September 18. Having lost in a shootout against the Chicago Sting after a scoreless draw in Soccer Bowl ’81, the Cosmos fought their way back to the Soccer Bowl with a 23-9 record. Good enough for a fifth straight first-place regular season, the record belied the fact that 14 of those wins were by just a goal, all decided in the last 10 minutes of play.

The Cosmos and Sounders finished first and second in regular season scoring, respectively, the New Yorkers scoring 73, just one more than Seattle. The teams traded 3-2 home wins in their two regular season meetings, so there was an expectation of a high-scoring final.

Pelé again sat on the bench in street clothes. It was Carlos Alberto’s last competitive match of his twenty-year career, with his testimonial played ten days later at Giants Stadium against Flamengo.

Alberto, along with Giorgio Chinaglia and Stevie Hunt, were the only Cosmos to face Seattle in both the ’77 and ’82 Soccer Bowl games. Ten players on the Cosmos roster were playing in their third Soccer Bowl, whereas Steve Buttle was the only Sounders player to have a prior appearance in the annual NASL championship match.

Although his roster was loaded with veteran talent, Steve Moyers, Johan Neeskens and Wim Rijsbergen were injured and unavailable, so Cosmos head coach Professor Julio Mazzei had difficult decisions to make selecting his starting XI. Mazzei picked Andranik Eskandarian, Jeff Durgan and Boris Bandov to join Alberto in his customary sweeper spot on the back four, and charged Rick Davis with the crucial holding midfield role. Perhaps somewhat at odds with the gospel of the Beautiful Game Mazzei had spread since arriving in New York with Pelé, his tactics on the day were designed to win, if not entertain. The Cosmos were content to wait for Seattle to make a mistake.

The first half hour belonged to the confident and seemingly carefree Sounders. The Cosmos, by contrast, were tense and tentative, unable to break through the clogged midfield. But the Sounders couldn’t get any of their nine shots in the first thirty minutes past Cosmos goalkeeper Hubert Birkenmeier.

The Cosmos’ patience finally paid off in the 31^st minute. Alberto set up the goal by picking out Julio Cesar Romero, who then played it forward to Chinaglia at the edge of the penalty area. Chinaglia created a sliver of space by shielding off his marker, Benny Dargle, and then made the most of his slim chance with a right-footed shot to the far post. An arm on the ball by the diving Seattle goalkeeper Paul Hammond couldn’t keep Chinaglia’s shot from hitting the back of the net.

Chinaglia’s goal would suffice, thanks in no small part to Birkenmeier’s third straight Soccer Bowl shutout (285 consecutive minutes). Of those three Soccer Bowl shutouts, recalls Birkenmeier, “that was the toughest one, but I enjoyed it the most.”

A test of resolve and character, the total team effort meant the victory was all the more sweet.

“We didn’t have our A-game that day,” concedes the German goalkeeper, “but you know Giorgio, he gets one chance and he puts the ball in the net and we did our job in the back. We had a good solid defense. It was fun.”

For his goal, Chinaglia was awarded the game’s MVP award, his second such award with five goals in five Soccer Bowls, three of those goals proving to be the winning tally. But it was the poster boy of American soccer, Rick Davis, who proved to be the heart and soul of the gritty Cosmos effort, his tireless efforts at holding midfield repeatedly shutting down the persistent Seattle attack.

With the 1-0 win at Soccer Bowl ’82, the Cosmos earned the club’s fifth NASL championship, a fourth regular season first-place finish and Soccer Bowl winning double, an accomplishment never matched by another North American soccer club. Despite not playing the kind of exciting, attractive soccer that made the Cosmos the most glamorous side in American soccer, or perhaps because they didn’t that day, with their will to win and refusal to lose, the Cosmos proved that ultimately, the club’s legacy is about that championship spirit.

NOVEMBER 9, 2013 | NY COSMOS 1, ATLANTA SILVERBACKS 0 (ATLANTA)

The Cosmos won their sixth North American Soccer League title in Atlanta with a familiar scoreline. The regular season finale, played a week before on the same pitch (despite different lineups on both squads) saw the same 1-0 result. But this was also the same score as the Cosmos’ last Soccer Bowl appearance, the club’s fifth NASL title, won in 1982.

Eight of the New Yorkers’ ten wins in the fall of 2013 were by a mere goal; four of those games finished 1-0 to the Cosmos. The remarkable accomplishment of head coach Giovanni Savarese and his recently assembled squad attaining the NASL championship is all the more astounding when one considers how slim their margin for error was game after game, evidence of how competitive the league was during the Cosmos’ reboot season.

Key to the Cosmos’ success was the goalkeeping of Kyle Reynish. Reynish kept six clean sheets, including the Soccer Bowl. His goals against average of 0.92 in thirteen regular season games earned Reynish the NASL 2013 Golden Glove award. As he did all season, Reynish came up big with crucial saves, scooping up through balls, forcing stray shots and clutching or clearing crosses and corners, including punching away a corner kick from Daniel Berrera, Atlanta’s last scoring threat in stoppage time, to preserve the victory.

Reynish joined the ranks of Richie Blackmore, Shep Messing, Jack Brand and Hubert Birkenmeier to stand in net for the Cosmos goal in title games. All gave stellar performances. In fact, the last goal conceded by the club in a Soccer Bowl came in 1978, when the Tampa Bay Rowdies’ Mirandinha scored in the 74th minute on Jack Brand at Giants Stadium. Birkenmeier’s three consecutive shutouts from 1980-82 (including 0-0 shootout loss against the Chicago Sting in 81) totaled 285 minutes. The Cosmos boast a record of 391 consecutive minutes without conceding a goal in a Soccer Bowl.

Midfielder Marcos Senna earned himself a place in the pantheon of Cosmos greats with his performance in Atlanta, showing the composure of a true champion when he controlled the Silverbacks’ weak clearance of his free kick to slam home a half-volley from eighteen yards out into the upper left corner of the Atlanta goal. With that strike, Senna joined Josef Jelinek, Giorgio Chinaglia and Julio César Romero as Cosmos to score winning goals in Soccer Bowls.

Savarese added his name to the list of Gordon Bradley, Eddie Firmani, Hennes Weisweiler and Júlio Mazzei to coach the Cosmos to Soccer Bowl glory. Like Professor Mazzei’s tactical approach to the Cosmos’ 1-0 win against the Seattle Sounders in 1982, Savarese instructed his squad to take a patient approach in the title tilt, proving once more the cliché that defense wins championships.

Challenged by the reboot to make history happen, with the legacy of North American soccer’s most fabled side serving as inspiration, the 2013 New York Cosmos proved themselves worthy successors, securing a successful ending to their storybook season, earning the club’s sixth star as NASL champions.