'Hockey with a ball you could see': the Major Indoor Soccer League turns 40
Forty years ago on Saturday the Major Indoor Soccer League debuted, an Americanized version of the beautiful game promising end-to-end action and goals, goals, goals
For someone who had forged a reputation as Mr Cool, Shep Messing was one anxious goalkeeper the night of 22 December 1978. After all, it isn’t every day you help usher in a new league. Messing was playing for the New York Arrows as they welcomed the Cincinnati Kids to the Nassau Coliseum in the Major Indoor Soccer League’s debut.
“There’s only been two other times I’ve felt as nervous as this,” Messing said at the time. “One was when I won the [1977 North American Soccer League] championship in Portland with Pele. The other was Pele’s retirement.”
By the end of the evening, Messing could relax: the Arrows dusted off the Kids, 7-2, before a crowd of 10,386 In Uniondale, New York.
Forty years ago on Saturday this Americanized version of the beautiful game leapt from preseason tournaments to a full-fledged league. It promised end-to-end action and more goals than the outdoor game. In many respects, it was hockey with a ball that you could see, rather than a puck.
“It seemed like a very interesting and rewarding thing for players where we could play year-round,” former US international defender Jim Pollihan tells the Guardian. “Play indoors in the winter and go back to the NASL in the spring and the summer. Basically, be full-time professional soccer players.”
It took the audacity of Earl Foreman and Ed Tepper to form a league. They were mesmerized by the performance of the Soviet Union’s Red Army team, who registered a 6-3 victory over defending NASL champion Philadelphia Atoms in February 1974. The advertisement in the Philadelphia newspapers hailed the event as “The Great International Indoor Soccer Incident!”
Foreman, probably best known for owning the Virginia Squires of the American Basketball Association, was an enthusiastic commissioner, with Tepper his assistant.
“This is a novel concept,” Foreman told the Baltimore Sun in 1978. “I think the average sports fan still has a hard time identifying with outdoor soccer. I think soccer has turned the corner, but there are still a lot of dead spots in the game because of the size of the playing field and the poor viewing angles. Indoor soccer makes the game a lot simpler and much faster.”
The MISL started small, with six teams in the 1978-79 season: Philadelphia Fever, Houston Summit, Pittsburgh Spirit, Cleveland Spirit, as well as the Kids and Arrows.
The league attracted one high-profile owner. Baseball legend Pete Rose, about to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies, was one of 10 partners who owned the Kids. Not only did Rose attend the opener, he kicked out the first ball – in an enemy arena. While sitting in the stands that night, Rose behaved like any other fan. “He jumped up and down when his club scored and when he thought a penalty should have been called, he started to yell at the official,” said Foreman. “He gives anything he’s a part of everything he’s got.”
American players welcomed it with open arms. “We needed to play all-year round, not just during one season, the NASL season; 24 games, you were not getting a lot of time on the field,” Pollihan says. “You had a ton of down time in the offseason. We needed as Americans to really grow to compete with the South Americans and Europeans who were coming in to play consistently.”
The MISL helped many players’ outdoor careers too. Dave Sarachan, who coached the US national team during a 13-month stint that ended last month, was one such player. With the Spirit he showed his worth. “If I didn’t have indoor, I don’t know how long my outdoor career would have lasted,” he says. “It was a challenge as an American to get on the field back then, in my position especially because I was a winger, a forward, a midfielder. Usually the Americans who got the real chances were goalkeepers and backs. So, when indoor was available it kept me earning a living.”
It took Eusebio 30 seconds to figure out how to play a ball off the boards and behind a defender back. He was brilliant.
Dave Sarachan
His Buffalo Stallions’ annual contract was $25,000. “It was pretty substantial back then,” Sarachan says. “It was an opportunity that kept me in the game and continued to fuel my interest in staying in it as a career.”
Not everything was rosy. At the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, the turf was laid on the ice use for the hockey team. There was no plywood as a buffer, creating challenging conditions. “It was freezing when we played sometimes,” Sarachan said. “The seams [of the indoor carpet] would split. The only way you could mold the seams together was by pouring water; it would freeze the seams together. But if you stepped [in the wrong place], you would be actually on the ice. It was trial and error.”
There were unique perks though. In Buffalo, Sarachan played with the great Eusebio, then 37, during the 1979-80 season. “It was amazing,” he said. “He had multiple surgeries on his knee. He couldn’t really run, but [what] really amazed me is the first kick, the first time he was out with us, he knew the geometry of passing off the boards. He had never done it. It took him 30 seconds to figure out how to play a ball off the boards and behind a defender back into his either feet or onto an onrushing forward. He was brilliant.”
The Arrows, buoyed by several Rochester players, captured the first four titles behind Yugoslavian scoring machine Steve Zungul before folding up its tent in 1984. Zungul eventually went west, joining the San Diego Sockers and helped that side to some of its 10 indoor crowns under legendary coach Ron Newman (who passed away in August) as the league grew to 14 clubs. Some teams, such as the St Louis Steamers, played to full houses regularly, outdrawing NBA and NHL teams.
The MISL roof caved in 1992, although the indoor game survived in various incarnations – including the Continental Indoor Soccer League, World Indoor Soccer League and Xtreme Soccer League – striving to recapture the original magic.
Today, the 17-team Major Arena Soccer League carries the torch. It doesn’t feature as many outdoor stars; most rosters are comprised of Americans although there are teams in Mexico and Canada and the league has considered expanding.
Some teams are planning events to commemorate the MISL’s anniversary, commissioner Josh Schaub says.
“It’s a question we always get, how do you connect the history of the sport to today’s MASL and what is appropriate because I’ve had a lot of owners saying we need to stand on our own, we need to look forward and not look back to the alphabet soup of leagues and just concentrate on who we are now and find a new audience,” said Schaub, a Wave fan in the eighties. “There’s a little bit of both. You can connect to the past. This league was bigger than the NBA for four straight seasons in the 80s. We also need to talk about where we fit in the American soccer landscape. I do definitely revel in the past in arena soccer.”
Schaub was optimistic that the indoor game will take off again.
“It has stood the test of time. It has a lot of appeal to a lot of people through a lot of iterations and ups and downs,” he added. “There’s such passion among our hardcore fans and the operators in our league that have let it sustain. Ed Hale [Blast owner] said this before and I believe it too: ‘We’re a rocket ship on the platform ready to launch and we just need some rocket fuel.’ With the World Cup in 2026 coming and so much investment in soccer, arena soccer is finally ready to relaunch back into the atmosphere.”
