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BOY FROM BULAWAYO . . . Zimbabwe international forward, Lucky Mkosana, celebrates after scoring for the New York Cosmos

Sports Reporter —

ZIMBABWE international forward Lucky Mkosana is celebrating his second straight title with iconic United States football franchise, the New York Cosmos, after his club defeated Indy Eleven 4-2 in a penalty shootout on Sunday night to win the North American National Soccer League championship.The 29-year-old dreadlocked forward has now helped the New York Cosmos, the club where Brazilian legend Pele, widely considered by many as the greatest footballer of all time finally called time on his glittering career in which he won three World Cup titles, win the NASL championship in each of the two years he has been part of the iconic franchise.

Mkosana scored four times in 25 appearances for the New York Cosmos this season.

The Cosmos might be playing in the NASL, the second-tier professional league in football in the United States, but it’s a very powerful and popular franchise, steeped in the history of popularising the game in America at a time, in the 70s, when the game was losing its appeal in that country and considered a dying sport.

Pele, who joined Cosmos in 1975 just five years after he and his fellow Samba Boys illuminated the Mexican skyline as they turned on a vintage show — en-route to World Cup glory — considered as the finest performance by a nation at the global football showcase, was being paid a cool $1,3 million a year, quite a substantial pay cheque for an athlete back then.

Of course, Pele’s retirement brought an end to the romance, and good times, which had seen the Cosmos, at their peak, recruit players like legendary Germany’s World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer and as the club lost its way as attendance figures spectacularly dropped and sponsors fled.

The Cosmos went into decline and were only relaunched in 2010 and joined the NASL — a 10-team league that has eight clubs from the United States, one from Canada and one from Puerto Rico — and although the league is a second-tier in a country whose top-flight league is the Major Soccer League, the New York club remains an iconic franchise.

“With Manchester City and the New York Yankees’ NYC FC getting the nod from MLS, the Cosmos are in a tricky long-term situation (to try and join the MSL),” the sportslens.com website noted.

“With NYC FC and the New York Red Bulls already in the New York City metro area, there is precious little chance, at least in the foreseeable future, that the Cosmos will be elevated to MLS.

“So instead of playing in MLS, the Cosmos have been a thorn in MLS’ side.

“There are only two things at this club: It’s run by smart, talented people and it’s still the Cosmos.

“Before (Spanish international) Raul, the club signed Euro 2008 winner Marcos Senna. It swiped Vancouver’s first round MLS draft pick last year with a superior contract offer. The Cosmos have gotten the better of the Red Bulls with a number of player transactions and knocked the MLS side out of the US Open Cup in the year gone by.

“Raul and Senna, are players MLS could have used. But they both chose to drop down a division and join the Cosmos instead.

“That’s worrying for MLS, especially if the league’s plan is to keep the Cosmos on the outside looking in.

“What we may be seeing here is a bit of a resurgence, a bit of a renaissance and a bit of an outsider challenging MLS — one of the few obstacles MLS hasn’t had to deal with in their first twenty years of existence.”

Raul has since retired and is in charge of the Cosmos Academy.