Pro soccer comes to Phila. again

On Saturday, Philadelphia sports fans will see something they haven't seen for 30 years: a pro soccer game, played here by a hometown, major-league team.

The Philadelphia Union will take the field at 6 p.m. for their inaugural home game, returning soccer to the city for the first time since 1980, when the Fury limped out of town to Montreal.

"The long gap has seen a whole generation of Americans grow up on the sport," said Union chief executive officer Nick Sakiewicz, who in 1980 was a 19-year-old Olympic soccer hopeful. "Today they're 35-year-old soccer fans who have kids and are buying soccer gear and soccer tickets."

The Major League Soccer match promises to be both competition and celebration, drawing fans of all ages to Lincoln Financial Field. Soccer legend Walter Bahr will be honored before the 0-1 Union battle 0-2 DC United. A parade of pioneers will recognize past teams, including the Atoms and the Fury, both of the old North American Soccer League.

A City Hall pep rally is set for noon Friday, to feature all the team players.

"It's been a long time coming," said Catherine Kulp, who coaches girls' soccer at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School in Towamencin Township. "There are thousands and thousands of kids in the region who play soccer. This shows them this is not just something you do as a little kid. It shows them that this is something you can aspire to."

Culp, a Union season-ticket holder, is buying six to 10 extra seats for the opener, anticipating that family will want to attend.

Sakiewicz expects opening-day attendance to reach 30,000. "It's going to be very emotional, and very electric," he said.

The Union will play their first two home games at the Linc while an 18,500-seat stadium, PPL Park, is completed on the Chester waterfront. The first game at PPL Park is scheduled for June 27, versus the Seattle Sounders.

In a way, Sakiewicz said, it's good the first games will be at the much-larger Linc, "because PPL Park is going to be sold out," and this will let more-casual fans "see us play live at least a couple of times."

Of course, plenty of soccer has been played here since the Fury left. The first-ever event at the Linc was a 2003 exhibition between Manchester United and FC Barcelona. Women's soccer and indoor teams have come and gone and come again.

But for ages Philadelphia lacked a pro men's outdoor team. How long has it been?

When the Fury were leaving town, the second Star Wars movie was arriving in theaters. Arcades featured a new game called Pac-Man, and TV executives in Atlanta launched a network called CNN. The U.S. boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow to punish the Soviets for invading Afghanistan. And the Phillies won their first World Series, ending futility that dated to 1883.

Only three Union players were alive in 1980 - and they were babies. Coach Peter Nowak was a teenager.

Another thing that's changed is how the market for soccer has grown.

The Fury, in their third year, drew a paltry average of 4,778 a game. The Union, before playing a home game, have sold more than 11,000 season tickets - and plan to cap sales at 12,000. Thirty years ago, it was rare to find soccer on TV. Today, MLS has contracts with ABC Sports/ESPN, the Fox Soccer Channel, Univision, and HDNet.

Most changed, perhaps, is the model for running the pro game.

In the old NASL, team owners functioned like those of any other league, competing for players, fans, and revenue. But MLS operates as a single entity, all 16 teams owned by the league, the owners sharing profits and losses.

In the days of the Atoms and Fury, soccer teams were usually the second tenant in their stadiums, dependent on ticket sales for revenue. The stadiums were often gigantic, American-football venues that sat 60,000, making even respectable crowds seem small.

Today, MLS seeks to place teams in "soccer-specific" stadiums that seat 20,000 to 25,000. The arenas usually are built just outside the host cities, where land is cheaper. That's why the New York Red Bulls play in Harrison, N.J.; the Los Angeles Galaxy in Carson, Calif.; and the Union, soon, in Chester.

Through the stadiums, the teams keep control of millions of dollars from parking, food, and luxury suites.

Still, after 14 seasons MLS fights for attention; it's treated as the country's fifth sport. Even Philadelphia, with its strong soccer history, has not always supported the pro game.

In 1967, the Philadelphia Spartans, led by Temple University star Walter Chyzowych, a future national-team coach, lasted a single season in the non-sanctioned National Professional Soccer League, drawing an average 5,261 fans to 16 games.

After the season, the NPSL and its competitor, the United Soccer Association, merged to form the North American Soccer League.

The Atoms joined the NASL in 1973 - and won the championship in their first season. Fans loved the team, which drew nearly 22,000 to its home opener and averaged more than 11,000 a game, roughly twice the league average. Goalie Bob Rigby appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the first soccer player to land there.

It seemed like soccer had arrived.

Carl Cherkin, fresh from Temple, was the Atoms' first public-relations officer. "The way the Philadelphia market embraced the Atoms was great," said Cherkin, now the Union vice president of communications.

As the NASL evolved, it made a practice of signing top international players - or, rather, top but edging-toward-retirement players. Still, fans got to see the great Pele, German national team captain Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff of the Netherlands, and Italian striker Giorgio Chinaglia.

In Philadelphia, what in 1973 looked like a solid start turned out to be the high point. The Atoms missed the playoffs the next year. By 1976, attendance had fallen to an average of 6,449.

The Atoms folded at season's end.

Two years later, the city got a new team. The investors in the Fury had bigger names than the players; the group of moneyed rock stars included Peter Frampton, Paul Simon, and Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman.

The team's big signing was Peter Osgood, the English scoring machine known as the Wizard of Os. But Osgood proved a disappointment, scoring once in 22 games. And Veterans Stadium proved it was still a lousy place to watch soccer.

After the 1980 season, the Fury were sold to Molson Breweries and became the Montreal Manic.

The NASL folded four years later. Here, minor-league teams rose and fell. MLS started play in 1996, but struggled to place a team in the nation's fourth-largest TV market.

That changed with an ownership group led by iStar Financial CEO Jay Sugarman and a public-private partnership to fund the stadium. In 2008, Philadelphia was awarded the league's 16th team.

Cherkin, the Union spokesman, was a sports reporter at WTMJ in Milwaukee when the Fury departed. He later returned to his hometown as a popular TV sports anchor. He knows what the atmosphere will be like Saturday:

"Amazing. Nothing short of amazing," Cherkin said. "For a lot of people, it will be literally the manifestation of their dreams coming true."