1978 North American Soccer League Playoffs
The 1978 North American Soccer League playoffs began on August 8 and ended on August 27 with Soccer Bowl '78 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. 16 out of 24 teams qualified after a 30-match regular season, eight from each conference. Playoff format The top two teams in each division would quality for the playoffs. The other spots would go to the next best two teams in the conference, regardless of division. The top three seeds went to the division winners, seeds 4-6 went to the second place teams and the last two seeds were known as 'wild-cards', a nod to the NFL's playoff format. The winners of each successive round would be reseeded within the conference by point total. The first round and the Soccer Bowl were single games, while the conference semifinals and championships were two-game series. As in the 1977 playoffs, if both teams were tied at one win apiece at the conclusion of Game 2, there would be a 30-minute sudden-death mini-game and a shootout if nece ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

New York Cosmos (1970–85)
New York Cosmos may refer to * New York Cosmos (1970–1985), a team in the North American Soccer League (then the top-tier soccer league in the United States and Canada) * New York Cosmos (2010), a team playing since 2020 in the National Independent Soccer Association (a third-tier soccer league in the United States and Canada) that was formed in 2010 and named for the original team * New York Cosmos B, the B team of the 2010 incarnation of the soccer club * New York Cosmos Stadium The New York Cosmos Stadium was a proposed 25,000-seat soccer-specific stadium and multipurpose facility. It was to be located in the New York metropolitan area in Nassau County, just over the city border. Plans were submitted to New York's ...

Fort Lauderdale Strikers (1977–83)
Fort Lauderdale Strikers may refer to: *Fort Lauderdale Strikers (1977–1983), member of North American Soccer League from 1977 to 1983 *Fort Lauderdale Strikers (1988–1994), member of American Soccer League from 1988 to 1989 and American Professional Soccer League from 1990 to 1994 *Florida Strikers, member of USISL from 1994 to 1997, known as Fort Lauderdale Strikers for the 1995 season *Fort Lauderdale Strikers (2006–2016) The Fort Lauderdale Strikers were an American professional soccer team based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida founded in 2006, that last played in the North American Soccer League (NASL), the second tier of the American soccer pyramid in 2016. The ma ...

David Irving (footballer)
David Irving (born 10 September 1951) is an English football manager and former player who played as a forward. Playing career Irving started his professional playing career with Workington AFC before signing for Everton in the old English Football League First Division for £30,000 – the highest youth transfer fee of the time. Later on he moved to Sheffield United on loan and Oldham Athletic. In the mid-1970s he crossed the Atlantic to play in the United States for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers (1977–83). Whilst with the Strikers, he played alongside such legendary players as Gordon Banks, Gerd Müller, Teófilo Cubillas and George Best. He also played against footballers like Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer. After Fort Lauderdale, he featured for other American teams such as the Tulsa Roughnecks, the San Jose Earthquakes and the Atlanta Chiefs. He signed for Shamrock Rovers in October 1977. He made his debut on the 23rd at Milltown scoring against Drogheda United. He netted ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

John Ridley (footballer)
John Ridley (27 April 1952 – 3 May 2020) was an English footballer. A versatile player able to play as a defender or midfielder, he had a twelve-year professional career in the English Football League, playing for Port Vale and Chesterfield, as well as Leicester City. He also played for non-League Stafford Rangers and for American side Fort Lauderdale Strikers. He was voted Port Vale F.C. Player of the Year in 1975–76, won the Anglo-Scottish Cup with Chesterfield in 1981, and helped Port Vale to win promotion out of the Fourth Division in 1982–83. Qualifying as a teacher before he began his football career, once he retired he returned to the education profession. Early and later life John Ridley was born in Consett on 27 April 1952. His father was a miner and moved the family to Stoke-on-Trent in 1963. He attended Wolstanton Grammar School. He played for Sheffield University and other English Universities, as he earned his degree and qualified as a teache ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Pontiac, Michigan
Pontiac ( ') is a city in and the county seat of Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 61,606. A northern suburb of Metro Detroit, Pontiac is about northwest of Detroit. Founded in 1818, Pontiac was the second European-American organized settlement in Michigan near Detroit, after Dearborn. It was named after Pontiac, a war chief of the Ottawa Tribe, who occupied the area before the European settlers. The city was best known for its General Motors automobile manufacturing plants of the 20th century, which were the basis of its economy and contributed to the wealth of the region. These included Fisher Body, Pontiac East Assembly (a.k.a. Truck & Coach/Bus), which manufactured GMC products, and the Pontiac Motor Division. In the city's heyday, it was the site of the primary automobile assembly plant for the production of the famed Pontiac cars, a brand that was named after the city. The Pontiac brand itself was di ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Pontiac Silverdome
The Pontiac Silverdome (also known simply as the Silverdome) was a stadium in Pontiac, Michigan. It opened in 1975 and sat on 199 acres (51 ha) of land. When the stadium opened, it featured a fiberglass fabric roof held up by air pressure, the first use of the architectural technique in a major athletic facility. With a seating capacity of 82,666+, it was the largest stadium in the National Football League (NFL) until FedExField in Landover, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. expanded its capacity to over 85,000 in 2000. It was primarily the home of the Detroit Lions of the NFL from 1975 to 2001 and was also home to the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1978 to 1988. In addition, the Silverdome also served as the home venue for the Detroit Express of the North American Soccer League and the Michigan Panthers of the United States Football League, as well as two college bowl games: the Cherry Bowl and the Motor City Bowl. In 2012, the Silv ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Trevor Francis
Trevor John Francis (born 19 April 1954) is an English former footballer who played as a forward for a number of clubs in England, the United States, Italy, Scotland and Australia. In 1979 he became Britain's first £1 million player following his transfer from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest. He scored the winning goal for Forest in the 1979 European Cup final against Malmö. He won the European Cup again with the club the following year. At international level, he played for England 52 times between 1976 and 1986, scoring 12 goals, and played at the 1982 FIFA World Cup. Between 1988 and 2003 he was a football manager, most notably with Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham City. His final managerial post was at Crystal Palace, whom he left in 2003. Early life and education Francis was born in Plymouth, Devon, and educated at Plymouth's Public Secondary School for Boys. He was an agile and skilful forward and joined Birmingham City as a schoolboy. Club career Early ca ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Seattle Sounders (1974–83)
Seattle Sounders Football Club is an American professional men's soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete as a member of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The club was established on November 13, 2007, and began play in 2009 as an MLS expansion team. The Sounders are a phoenix club, carrying the same name as the original Sounders franchise that competed in the North American Soccer League (NASL) from 1974 to 1983. The club's majority owner is Adrian Hanauer, and its minority owners are the estate of Paul Allen, Drew Carey, and 14 families from the Seattle area. Former USL Sounders coach and assistant coach Brian Schmetzer took over as head coach in July 2016 after the departure of Sigi Schmid. The Sounders play their home league matches at Lumen Field, with a reduced capacity of 37,722 seats for most matches. Along with several organized groups, a 53-member marching band called "Sound Wave" supports the club at each home match. Seattle has long ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Toronto Metros-Croatia
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world. Indigenous peoples have travelled through and inhabited the Toronto area, located on a broad sloping plateau interspersed with rivers, deep ravines, and urban forest, for more than 10,000 years. After the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase, when the Mississauga surrendered the area to the British Crown, the British established the town of York in 1793 and later de ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]