THE BILLION EURO DROP
When you can put a shark in a bathtub, you can pretty much achieve anything.
The best player of his generation had teamed up with the star of one of the world’s greatest national teams, and an awesome goalscorer in his prime, thanks to the biggest spending spree in history. In one of the globe’s most famous cities, the triumvirate had just one season to deliver, before their much-hyped partnership was scheduled to come to an end.
Before Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, came Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia at the New York Cosmos. United by the finances of Steve Ross, chief of Warner Communications, they faced sky-high expectations, as they attempted to win the North American Soccer League in their one and only campaign together before Pele hung up his boots at the end of 1977.
“It mostly meshed, occasionally jammed, but when it worked it really was a thing of beauty,” was how one team-mate described the combination. The Cosmos lost 11 of 26 matches during the regular season, but they eventually succeeded in style. Bonded by off-field japes that included Beckenbauer stuffing grasshoppers into players’ socks, and Pele smuggling a small shark into a bath at the team hotel, they went on to win six out of six in the play-offs, cruising to an 8-3 victory over the Fort Lauderdale Strikers – formerly the league’s best defence – en route. Sure, the Cosmos effectively bought the title, but it created a spectacle that’s still talked about 44 years later.
Now, during 2021-22, Messi, Neymar and Mbappe are aiming to link up and achieve a similar feat – possibly without deploying any finned sea creatures. The world may never grow to love Paris Saint-Germain, but after a total financial outlay of approximately €1 billion on just three players, their fabled strikeforce has an opportunity to write this season’s biggest story, in what could be their one and only year together.
On paper, their career accolades already make them one of the finest trios the game has ever witnessed. If they find harmony on the pitch, Champions League glory could be theirs. But that’s a big ‘if’…
WHAT OLYMPICS?
Just as a semi-retired Pele’s 1975 move to the Cosmos was hailed as one of the most sensational deals in football history, so too was Messi’s to the Parc des Princes. PSG had been heavily linked with the Argentine a year earlier, when he made an ill-fated attempt to force his way out of Barcelona armed only with his trusty burofax. But not even Les Parisiens themselves believed there was a realistic chance of snapping up the Flea this summer.
On August 4, the 34-year-old was pictured on holiday in Ibiza with former Barcelona pal Neymar, compatriots Angel Di Maria and Leandro Paredes, plus fellow PSG man
