It s An Easily Recognizable Script For American Soccer Fans: A football Legend Coming Off A Historic World Cup Run Is Paid Handsomely To Spend The Autumn Years Of His Career Playing In The United States

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It's an easily recognizable script for American soccer fans: A 'football' legend coming off a historic World Cup run is paid handsomely to spend the autumn years of his career playing in the United States.
This time around it's Argentina's Lionel Messi who is to play for Inter Miami, a low-profile club team owned by a high-profile former league star in .

What's more, various reports have other big names like Cesc Fabregas and Sergio Busquets following the reigning Golden Ball winner to South .
It's the latest volume in a familiar refrain from the MLS, which has previously lured Beckham, Carlos Valderrama, Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Steven Gerrard to the US with varying results.

And like so much in the sport, this well-worn path from an elite club team to the American soccer wilderness was first travelled by Pele, the soccer legend who finally in his native Brazil at 82 on Thursday. 
Pele is pictured before a game in Miami during his three-year stint with the New York Cosmos of the NASL
Pele - #10 of the New York Cosmos - shoots on goal during an NASL Soccer game circa 1977 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City.

Pele' played for the Cosmos from 1975-77
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He was coming off his third World Cup win in 1970, when he was approached by a newly formed club in the fledgling North American Soccer League: the . 
Pele wasn't interested at the time, but he would relent five years later to sign a three-year deal reportedly worth an astounding $7 million - $2 million of which was used to pay his Brazilian tax bill.
But according to Pele, it wasn't the money that convinced him to come out of semiretirement to help popularize soccer in the US - it was Henry Kissinger.
'I am sure your stay in the United States will substantially contribute to closer ties between Brazil and the US,' the former US Secretary of State told him, as quoted by Pele on Twitter.
Pele spoke at greater length about Kissinger with , saying that the German-born diplomat was visiting Sao Paolo in the mid-1970s when he approached the soccer star about promoting the game in America.
'He invited me to go to the cafe with him,' Pele told Esquire.

'And there he said, 'Listen. You know I'm from the United States, and I'm in politics there. Soccer is coming along there - they're playing it in the schools. Would you like to help us promote soccer in the United States?'
'And I said, My God.'
Pele was coming off his third World Cup win in 1970, when a newly formed club in the fledgling North American Soccer league called.

He wasn't interested at the time, but he would relent five years later to sign a three-year deal reportedly worth an astounding $7 million - $2 million of which was used to pay his Brazilian tax bill. But according to Pele, it wasn't the money that convinced him to come out of semiretirement to help popularize soccer in the US - it was Henry Kissinger.

'I am sure your stay in the United States will substantially contribute to closer ties between Brazil and the US,' the former US Secretary of State told him, as quoted by Pele on Twitter
Pele participates in an event for Special Olympians prior to a team practice on June 21, 1977 at Giants Stadium in New Jersey
(Left) Pele' #10 of the New York Cosmos looks on during an NASL Soccer game circa 1977 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford.

(Right) The seven year old son of Brazilian footballer Pele, Edson, pictured playing on the astro-turf of the Giants Stadium, New York, the home of the New York Cosmos
Pele' #10 of the New York Cosmos in action during an NASL Soccer game circa 1976 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx
Initially, Pele did not envision himself spending several seasons in the US, but the team lured him into a longer stay with the signing of Italy's Giorgio Chinaglia in 1976, as well as the additions of Germany's Franz Beckenbauer and Brazil's Carlos Alberto in 1977.

The Netherlands' Johan Cruyff was also rumored to be joining the team, and even played in exhibitions with the Cosmos, but signed with the Los Angeles Aztecs instead.
'I said I would go for a year,' Pele explained. 'But I worried a little bit, because the level of play there was not that high yet.
But then, once we started to promote it, it became very interesting. They brought over Beckenbauer, and Cruyff, and Giorgio Chinaglia.
'That's when I said, Wow, this is great, and I agreed to play three more years. It kept going, they started playing in colleges, and it moved forward.'



The Cosmos were founded in 1970 by Turkish businessmen and brothers Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun of Atlantic Records, Series Turcas 2024 but were acquired by parent company Warner Communications two years later.

And it was that company's CEO, Steve Ross, who became the driving force to bring Pele to the States, ultimately enlisting Kissinger's help.
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox sport" data-version="2" id="mol-5e85d030-87bd-11ed-b1f1-dfd638cdf784" website conquered America in the 1970s, paving the way for Lionel Messi