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

AUGUST 27, 1978 | NY COSMOS 3, TAMPA BAY ROWDIES 1 (GIANTS STADIUM)

The Cosmos cruised through the 1978 regular season with a 24-6 record. Since ’75, each Soccer Bowl had been scheduled for a neutral site, but with a regular season title, the Cosmos had earned home field advantage through the playoffs up to the Soccer Bowl, and the title match just happened to be set for Giants Stadium in 1978.

The Cosmos had won Soccer Bowl ’77 as a sendoff for Pelé. The retired superstar was back on the Cosmos bench for Soccer Bowl ’78, but this time in street clothes, yet another spectator among the crowd of 74,901 to pack a sold out Giants Stadium. Dennis Tueart was signed from Manchester City with the impossible task of replacing the world’s greatest footballer, and in Soccer Bowl ’78 he rose to the occasion with an MVP performance.

Keen to spoil the party in front of the partisan crowd were the Cosmos’ archrivals, the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The animosity was still at a fever pitch, but at kickoff the Rowdies talisman, Rodney Marsh, was, like Pelé, in street clothes on the bench, having sustained an infected right shin four days prior in the semifinal against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

Two injured Cosmos were also game-time decisions, but both played. Vladislav Bogićević suffered a separated right shoulder four nights prior against the Portland Timbers and Captain Werner Roth had an injured ankle taped inside and outside his boot. Playing through intense pain, both “Bogie” and Roth featured prominently in the title match.

Tampa had the first clear scoring opportunity. In the 10^th minute, Steve Wegerle sent a corner that was headed backwards by Arsène Auguste towards a waiting David Robb, open in the Cosmos six-yard box. Somehow, Bogićević intercepted the cross and cleared, denying what seemed an easy goal.

Both teams used a 4-3-3 formation, but the Rowdies opted for man-marking, Auguste assigned the task of marking Tueart. The mismatch on the day was apparent by the 12^th minute when a Tueart blast from 20 yards was tipped wide by Rowdies keeper Winston DuBose.

Twenty minutes later, Stevie Hunt launched a cross from 30 yards out by the left touchline, far right of Rowdies’ penalty area. An onrushing Tueart had escaped his marker, and he placed a right-footed volley to the far post past DuBose for the 1-0 Cosmos lead.

With seconds left in the half, a Hunt shot was deflected by DuBose, but Giorgio Chinaglia was ready and waiting at the penalty spot with a diving header to send the game into intermission with the score 2-0 to the Cosmos.

The game seem settled and confidence climbed in Cosmos Country, but Tampa came back in the 74^th minute when Robb stole the ball and left it for Mirandinha, who fired a shot with the outside of his right foot from 36 yards out that curled inside the near post, beating Cosmos keeper Jack Brand.

Three minutes later, the Cosmos stifled any threat of a Rowdies comeback. Werner Roth received the ball at midfield, dribbling past former teammate Joey Fink. Then approaching the Rowdies’ penalty area, he played the ball in the channel between the Tampa left back and center back for the waiting Tueart, who dribbled to the right of Dubose and, with a tight angle to goal, put it away for a goal to seal the score at 3-1.

The Cosmos became the first (and only) club to repeat as NASL champions, winning their third title that Sunday afternoon in the Meadowlands. Considered by many the best squad ever assembled in North American soccer history, the 1978 Cosmos put in a powerhouse performance to claim the Soccer Bowl title at home in Cosmos Country.

SEPTEMBER 21, 1980 | NY COSMOS 3, FTL STRIKERS 0 (RFK STADIUM)

Soccer Bowl ’80 pitted the Cosmos, making their fourth appearance in the NASL title game, against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, making their Soccer Bowl debut. The rivals had traded home wins in two regular season matches that year, the Cosmos having cruised to a third straight regular season first-place finish with a record of 24 wins and eight losses.

A temperature of 97 degrees with 75% humidity at kickoff meant a sweltering setting at RFK, the crowd of 50,768 including some 8,000 fans from Cosmos Country. But the Strikers, their fans, along with the growing contingent desperate to break up the Cosmos’ dynasty, thought the neutral site of RFK Stadium in Washington DC would favor the Floridians, especially given the heat, humidity and the natural grass surface.

The oppressive conditions meant the contest would be all the more of a chess match between the managers, both highly accomplished Europeans in their first and only season coaching in the NASL, Cor van der Hart of the Netherlands leading the Strikers and Germany’s Hennes Weisweiler in charge of the Cosmos. Indeed, both coaches’ decisions factored greatly in the final result.

As with the Cosmos’ last Soccer Bowl appearance two years prior, Pelé joined the team on the bench in street clothes. The big surprise was to see his 1970 World Cup winning captain, Carlos Alberto, joining him on the bench. The Cosmos were blessed with the two best sweepers in the world on the squad, but Franz Beckenbauer moved into midfield when Carlos Alberto joined the side in 1977. A game-time decision by Weisweiler saw Beckenbauer drop back into the sweeper position for what he had planned to be his last competitive game for the Cosmos (though he would return in 1983).

The desire to send Beckenbauer back to Germany as a champion provided the Cosmos with motivation for Soccer Bowl ’80, just as they sought to send off Pelé as a champion in Soccer Bowl ’77.

For the Strikers, van der Hart’s decision not to start ex-Cosmos forward Francisco Marinho enraged Marinho so much that he refused to sit with the team on the bench. They would regret the lack of backup firepower as the match wore on, but the Strikers were confident they could match the Cosmos’ star-studded squad with stars of their own in Peruvian midfielder Teofilo Cubillas and Germany’s greatest goalscorer, Gerd Müller.

For the first 25 minutes of play, Fort Lauderdale dominated possession, stray passes plaguing the Cosmos efforts to launch any threat.

Shockingly, Müller dropped deep into midfield, perplexing Cosmos defender and Rookie of the Year Jeff Durgan. This strategy would wind up haunting the Strikers when late in the first half Müller injured his right leg clearing a ball from his own penalty area. His departure prior to intermission meant Fort Lauderdale would have to match the Cosmos firepower without their own world-class forward for the second half.

The Cosmos of course had their own elite finisher in Giorgio Chinaglia. At 33 years old the Italian was at the peak of his powers in 1980, with 32 goals in the regular season and 16 goals in six playoff games heading into Soccer Bowl ’80. Englishman Ken Fogarty was charged with marking Chinaglia, and for much of the match, despite an ankle injury, Fogarty succeeded in denying the Italian any scoring chances.

The Strikers came out charging after intermission, with Müller’s replacement, striker Koos Waslander, missing on two early chances. The first chance hit his hand as he dove towards goal but with the second chance, a cross got behind Durgan, leaving Waslander to shoot from point-blank range. Miraculously, Cosmos keeper Hubert Birkenmeier smothered his effort from six yards out. The Strikers would quickly rue these missed opportunities.

In the 48^th minute, Strikers defender Arsène Auguste fouled Chinaglia at the edge of the penalty area. On the ensuing free kick, Chinaglia’s shot deflected off the Strikers wall to the belly of Julio Cesar Romero, who controlled the ball and passed it into the back of the net from twelve yards out to give the Cosmos a 1-0 lead.

From that point on, the Cosmos dominated play. The introduction of the fresh legs of midfielder Rick Davis for defender Andranik Eskandarian in the 57th minute meant greater control in the midfield for the Cosmos.

Wim Rijsbergen and Davis passed the ball between themselves from out of the Cosmos defensive third, then from 35 yards out, Davis picked out Chinaglia at the edge of the penalty area, who stepped over the ball quickly to create space from Fogarty. Despite the English defender’s best efforts, “Long John” would not be denied, and he buried a left footed shot into the far right post.

Chinaglia then continued to threaten to add to his tally. Finally, in the 88^th minute, Roberto Cabañas headed a rebound from a Chinaglia shot off Strikers goalkeeper Jan van Beveren back to Chinaglia, who controlled the ball with his back to goal and turned to put the game out of reach from six yards out. His fiftieth goal in competitive play for the year earned Chinaglia MVP honors for Soccer Bowl ’80.

With their fourth Soccer Bowl win in 1980, the Cosmos overcame the frustration of a semifinal exit the year prior and with their third win in four years, added to the club’s collection of silverware, furthering the Cosmos’ claim as North American soccer’s greatest dynasty.