Still athletic at 71, Robert “Bobby” Smith receives AFP at his training center for budding soccer players, the “Bob Smith Soccer Academy”, in his native New Jersey, 100km south of New York.
At the edge of his artificial pitches where the children train, Smith looks moved by a giant poster with an autographed photo: he no longer knows which match of the New York Cosmos it is a question, or if it was in 1976 or 1977, of representing Pelé in complete vertical relaxation and him, the defender, raising his arms to the sky as if to celebrate a goal.
Smith, a pro player in Philadelphia in the 1970s, joined the Cosmos in 1976 for $100,000. The Brazilian legend signed a year earlier for at least ten times more, coming out of semi-retirement at 34. Pelé will lead the New York club, thanks to his 31 goals in 56 games, to the title in 1977 in the NASL, the North American football league of the time.
Ten years his junior, Smith has been an absolute “fan” of Pele since childhood: “I couldn’t believe I was going to play with him now”the septuagenarian breathes today, laughing.
“Like Children”
After the American goalkeeper Bob Rigby, who was signed at the same time as Smith, Pelé will attract the Italian Giorgio Chinaglia, the German “Kaiser” Franz Beckenbauer and the Brazilian Carlos Alberto to the Cosmos.
“Every day, around him, we were almost like children”says the former pro player moved to tears, in front of a beautiful shot of the last match, at the end of 1977, of Pelé affectionately caressing the cheek of an ecstatic Smith.
“So warm and humble”, knowing how to “put his ego aside”, Edson Arantes do Nascimento “was a great teammate who took care of all his partners and, no, he wasn’t just a superstar”sweeps Smith in reference to the impressive record of Pelé, the only player in history to have won three world titles (1958, 1962, 1970).
World icon when he hung up his boots in October 1977 during a friendly between the Cosmos and his former Brazilian club Santos at Giants Stadium in New York, the eternal Brazilian number 10 also had “the greatest influence” for the rise in the United States of a “soccer” still in its infancy in the 70s and 80ssays Smith.
“Legitimacy”
“Bringing him here definitely gave the sport such legitimacy. People wanted to see him. He was playing in New York in front of 70,000 people and he brought all these stars,” Smith said of the European champions. Johan Cruyff, Bobby Moore or George Bestwho came to participate in the North American championship.
“We wouldn’t have had a national program without Pelé here. We’d be years and years behind (…) It’s incredible, that’s the impact it had. That’s all,” Smith slices.
Does soccer in the United States need a new Pelé, in front of whom Smith will remain “impressed” by his qualities as an “athlete” and above all by his “vision” of the game on the pitch?
“It is important for a country like ours to develop its American players. We needed Beckenbauer, Alberto, Best, but now we are growing, our national team did much better during this World Cup” in Qatar, replies the former defender with confidence, four years before the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
