OK, clamber into your Time Capsule — we’re swooshing back a few decades, back to Thursday May 6, 1976. Open up your New York Times on that day, turn to page 57 (in the early edition– soccer stories soon got replaced in those days) — and you’d find an article headed “Expert Looks at U.S. Soccer and He Doesn’t Like Brutality.” The byline on the story is Paul Gardner. Yes,I was the expert, though I didn’t write that cumbersome headline. I’d wanted “The Wrath of Pele” — and you’ll understand why if you read on. Here is what that35-year-old article said:

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