Explaining the Cosmos

Nice end to the week. I sit in the conference room with the boss, nursing cappuccinos and watching New York Cosmos get trounced by Manchester United as my co-workers stare through the glass, jealous of my new proximity to power. Of course, it’s not all fun and games. The boss needs a crash course in the history of the sport.

‘Who are these two guys?’ he asks when Pele and Eric Cantona walk onto the field to hand Paul Scholes a Cosmos shirt.

‘Well, let’s start with the older man. That would be Pele. Some say he was the greatest ever to play the game.’

‘What’s he smiling so much about?’

‘Back in the seventies, he made a whole lot of money out of the Cosmos when he was way past his best as a player.’

‘And?’

‘And now that the club is reborn he’s going to make a whole lot more just by turning up to endorse the new Cosmos.’

‘But surely he knows a lot about the game if he was that good a player.’

‘Not sure about that. He told us Freddy Adu was going to be world-class and regularly offers the opinion, usually when talking to American media curiously enough, that the US is going to win a World Cup sometime soon.’

‘Who is Freddy Adu?’

‘That’s a story for another day.’

‘So what about the other guy, the smug smirk?’

‘That would be Eric Cantona, barstool philosopher, Frenchman, and now the Cosmos’ director of soccer.’

‘He must be experienced to get that job.’

‘Now that you mention it, his last job in the sport was managing the French beach soccer team.’

‘Beach soccer? That sounds like something you do on vacation.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Has he done other stuff?’

‘He played a bit back in the day, Kung Fu-kicked a mouthy fan once, pretended to like bad poetry a lot and came over all pseudo-intellectual by wearing his shirt collar up.’

Boss looks at me bemused while checking his own collar.

‘Oh and he’s done a bit of acting too.’

‘Wow, this guy will be huge in New York.’

‘You’d think so.’