TiVo Alert: Once In A Lifetime

Once In A Lifetime
Wednesday, October 18
ESPN. 8-10 p.m. EST

This past summer a small, independent movie chronicling the rapid rise and fall of the New York Cosmos called Once In A Lifetime was released, and I went and watched it one day after work. It was outstanding, so I was naturally suprised to find that ESPN was somehow involved, until I read somewhere that they didn't sign on until after the film had been made, which explains why it is so good and not on par with Playmakers, Brain Dennehey doing Bob Knight, or 3. It is well done and worth watching, and the soundtrack is super-disco-tastic. Hell, there is one completely insane black and white highlight of Pele that alone makes the movie worth watching.


Pele plays to a packed stadium. In America.

Anyhow, ESPN is re-airing the movie tomorrow night from 8-10 p.m. EST. I highly recommend checking it out. Although Pele didn't participate in the film, Beckenbauer, Alberto, Chinaglia, and the rest did; excellent interviews from the major palyers on and off the field give a great behind the scenes account. The story of the Warner exec who funded the team and the signing of the best player in the world to a nothing league (Pele) are particularly interesting, and seeing 80,000 people at a soccer match in Giants Stadium in 1977 is just flat out trippy. And after hearing the bombast of Chinaglia, you might not be suprised to hear that he is involved in the latest in an interminable series of Italian soccer scandals.

I don't think that you have to be a soccer freak to like this movie; I think any fan of sport in general, especially the business of sports and sociology of sports, will find this movie interesting and enjoyable.