Editor’s note: With the 25th season of Major League Soccer upon us, this story is part of a New England Soccer Journal series with local players reflecting on the return of top-flight soccer to America.
As Mickey Kydes (Norwalk, Conn.) became a two-time All-American at Long Island University in the mid-1980s, he caught wind that the NASL’s New York Cosmos were interested in drafting him.
The only catch, of course, is the old NASL folded in 1985, just as Kydes was graduating and sought a professional landing spot. Dreams of following in Pele and Franz Beckenbauer’s footsteps were humbled by the reality that no professional outdoor league existed in the United States.