Historicist: Toronto Metros-Croatia, 1976 Soccer Bowl Champions

Yes, I am still sore at the M-Cs for knocking the Rowdies out of the NASL playoffs in 1976. 

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Historicist: Toronto Metros-Croatia, 1976 Soccer Bowl Champions

The saga of Toronto's 1970s entry in the North American Soccer League, and its underdog championship.

By Jamie Bradburn

Toronto sports fans needed a champion in 1976. The Argonauts hadn’t hoisted the Grey Cup since 1952. The Maple Leafs were nine years into their Stanley Cup drought. The Toros had fled to the hockey hotbed of Birmingham, Alabama. The Blue Jays were preparing to launch their first season, so who knew how long it would be before they reached the World Series?

The Metros-Croatia victory in the 1976 Soccer Bowl was an underdog story the city could embrace. The team endured a strife-filled season, not enhanced by a league which disliked the ethnic tenor of the team’s name and was annoyed that a perennially indebted franchise with meagre attendance made the finals instead of a premier market like New York.

. . .

After four months of negotiations, the Metros announced on February 5, 1975 that half the team was purchased by Toronto Croatia of the National Soccer League. Over two decades, Toronto Croatia had developed a strong organization, winning the NSL championship the previous four years. Under the agreement, they took on half of the Metros’ debts, and insisted the team be renamed Metros-Croatia. When the NASL threatened to prevent the name change, Croatia threatened to walk. Money talked, but the league continued to refer to the team as “Metros” in official correspondence.

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The run to the Soccer Bowl was filled with obstacles, ranging from injuries to several key players to Cimpiel going AWOL. But the team was determined to prove naysayers within NASL who constantly belittled the team, especially when no Metros-Croatia players were picked for either of the league’s all-star rosters.

The league was still hung up on the team name. “We were put in a spot and haven’t forgotten it,” a NASL official admitted to the Star. “This is a group interested not so much in advancing soccer in your city as advancing their own national aspirations.” They were peeved that the Carling O’Keefe offer had been rejected. And they were especially peeved that Metros-Croatia was going deep into the playoffs while the league’s marquee team, the New York Cosmos, had been eliminated. Visions of Cosmos stars like Pele and Giorgio Chinaglia drawing viewers to CBS’s broadcast of the Soccer Bowl vaporized.

Metros-Croatia had won seven consecutive games by the time they arrived at the Kingdome in Seattle to take on the Minnesota Kicks on August 28 for the Soccer Bowl. The league instructed the PA announcer to refer to each team by their city, to avoid uttering the dreaded term “Metros-Croatia.” Toronto officials smiled at the discomfort their presence gave NASL management. “The league is embarrassed that we’re here,” one told Sports Illustrated. “But now they’re just going to have to stand up and take it like a man.”

. . .

It was, as Eusébio scored the winning goal in Toronto’s 3-0 victory before limping off to the dressing room. “When I scored our first goal, I knew we’d win,” he told the Sun. “I didn’t think I could have played the whole game. I thought maybe I’d play 30 or 40 minutes but my teammates asked me to try and keep playing. It was a sacrifice but it was good to do it for this team and for Canada.”

The game drew 25,765, a record for the NASL championship. As the Star‘s Jim Kernaghan observed, “The dust had settled at the Kingdome and the guys from the wrong side of the tracks, the no-name Toronto Metros-Croatia, had grabbed soccer’s top award on this continent and gone, leaving many wondering what happened.” The Globe and Mail‘s Christie Blatchford saw it as a victory for Croatia’s shareholders for all the belittling they received about the team’s name, hoping they might be bold enough to drop “Metros.”

The next morning, around 300 fans greeted several returning members of the team at the airport. A party was held late into the night at the Croatian National Hall on Dupont Street. The rejoicing was short-lived, as the team’s financial troubles made it impossible to match contract offers for free agents like Eusébio and Suhnholz. The league continued to harp on the team’s name—hours after the victory, New York Cosmos GM Clive Toye introduced a motion prohibiting nicknames which weren’t North American. “This is now a major league and there is no longer any place for ethnic names. I admire the tremendous contribution various ethnic groups have made but soccer can stand on its own feet now and doesn’t need to have Scottish, Italian, or any other kind of ethnic name.” One wonders what he would have made of MLS’s later emulation of European team names. The motion failed.

. . .

Toronto proved it could embrace soccer, whether it was playing on the nearest field or spilling out onto city streets to celebrate World Cup victories. And, despite mixed results on the field,. Toronto FC has found the financial success the Metros never discovered. In August 2016, to mark the 40th anniversary of Metros-Croatia’s victory, Toronto FC honoured the achievement.