Cosmos Win NASL Soccer Bowl

On balance, by most standards, the 2013 North American Soccer League season was a success for the Atlanta Silverbacks. And a failure.

In the new split-season format for the league, the Silverbacks won the spring season and earned the right to host the season-ending Soccer Bowl championship against the fall season champion.

The game, at Atlanta Siverbacks Park, drew a crowd of 7,211 that watched the home team take a narrow 1-0 loss against the New York Cosmos.

The second-place finish was a huge improvement from seasons past when the Silverbacks failed to make postseason play.

The league recognized that improvement and named Atlanta head coach Brian Haynes the NASL Coach of the Year. However, the second-half slump and failure to beat the Cosmos cost him his job.

If there are questions in the postmortum of the 2013 NASL season, it would have to center around the split-season format. Did it work? Did it accomplish what it was intended to do?

The team with the best two-season record, the Carolina RailHawks, second in both halves of the season, didn’t qualify for the championship game.

But the split season did make for excitement as each of the half-seasons drew to a conclusion.

[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’] Atlanta won the spring league on the last day of the season, edging the RailHawks by a single point. The Silverbacks were 6-3-3 and before Independence Day they were headed to Soccer Bowl ’13.

The Cosmos, an expansion franchise, decided not to launch in the first half of the season, and took to the field for the first time when the fall season began.

In 14 games the Cosmos lost only one time (9-1-4). In the closing weeks they separated themselves from the rest of the league to earn the championship trip to Atlanta.

Meanwhile, the Silverbacks were beginning to struggle, and finished the fall season with a 4-6-4 mark, losing the last three regular season games, and four of the last five.

The last regular season loss was 1-0 to the Cosmos. It was a preview of what was to come in the championship game.

Spain’s Marcos Senna would score the Cosmos’ game-winner in the 1-0 Soccer Bowl victory.

The decision not to exercise the option to renew Haynes’ contract came as a surprise, especially to the 51-year old Trinidad & Tobago native.

Neil Morris spoke with Haynes hours after the announcement in an article in Indy Week. “Yes, of course I am,” Haynes said when asked if he was surprised by the news.

“I did laugh, because I’m looking right now at my NASL Coach of the Year trophy and I’m like, ‘That doesn’t mean anything.’ And as far as the club is concerned, I was the coach of the year for the spring season.”

“We ended the 2013 season on a downward trend and failed to generate any momentum going into the Soccer Bowl, Silverbacks Chairman Boris Jerkunica said in a statement. “The organization didn’t feel good about the direction we were going in 2014, and had to make the tough decision of declining Brian’s contract option.”

Despite how the season ended, there were numerous season highlights for the Silverbacks, including the biggest regular season crowd at Atlanta Silverbacks Park (5,713) and an average home attendance of 4,867.

Beto Navarro’s 2,197 minutes on the field was the most ever by a Silverbacks player. Midfielder Richard Menjivar played all three games for his native El Salvador in the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

The Silverbacks scored 39 goals in all competitions, 34 of which came in league play. Fourteen different players scored for Atlanta. Eleven different countries were represented on the Silverbacks’ roster, which had an average age of 24.

Three Silverbacks, goalkeeper Joe Nasco, midfielder Menjivar and defender Martyn Lancaster were named to the NASL Best XI list, and Pedro Mendes’ 35-yard goal against Tampa Bay was voted Goal of the Season by a league vote from fans.

After the championship game, Nasco offered his thoughts about the season when he said, “It was a phenomenal run and I wouldn’t have it any other way with any other players.

“At the beginning of the year, we weren’t even supposed to be there, and we weren’t even supposed to be here. We are and we are proud of ourselves.”

In his postgame interview Haynes addressed whether the team’s lack of momentum coming into the championship game was a factor in the outcome when he responded to the question by saying, “No, I don’t think so. I think we had our chances in the (championship) game, and we didn’t take them.”

Traffic USA Sells Silverbacks Interest

In his Indy Week article, Morris reported a conversation he had with Silverbacks president and general manager Andy Smith about the sale of the Silverbacks by Traffic Sports USA, their previous majority owner. Traffic owned controlling interest in three NASL clubs last year, including Fort Lauderdale and the Carolina RailHawks.

The new ownership group was not identified, but includes Jerkunica, currently a minority partner. The league allegedly retains a minority share of the club.

Smith said that an announcement of the deal would be made after it was signed off by the NASL and all contracts had been signed.

“It will have occurred once documents are signed,” Morris reported that Smith told him. “The agreement in principle is there. Everything just needs to be signed off on by the league. Let’s just call it ‘pending approval.”‘