31: Giorgio Chinaglia-Soccer

Sports' Forgotten Heroes

One of the most flamboyant soccer players to ever play here in the U.S. was Giorgio Chinaglia. He was a star on a team filled with some of the world’s best, the New York Cosmos. He played with Pele, Beckenbauer, Alberto and so many others. And while he might not have been as skilled as them, the one thing he did better than anyone was score goals. In fact, he was, for lack of a better term, a goal-scoring machine. In 213 games in the NASL, America’s premier soccer league before the MLS, Chinaglia scored 193 goals. He led the Cosmos to four championships in five appearances. He once scored seven (7) goals in one game. And, while New Yorker’s loved him, many opponents – and their fans – despised him. He was a star in a city filled with stars at a time when the likes of Reggie Jackson ruled the roost. Before he came to New York, his career in Italy and elsewhere was anything but rosy. Kartik Krishnaiyer from World Soccer Talk returns to SFH to take a look back at one of the most polarizing players in the history of U.S. soccer – Giorgio Chinaglia.

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