NASL Final 1974 was the championship match of the 1974 season, between the expansion Los Angeles Aztecs and the Miami Toros. The match was played on August 25, 1974 at the Orange Bowl, in Miami, Florida. The teams played to a, 3–3, draw, and after a short break the game moved directly to a penalty shoot-out. Los Angeles won the shoot-out, 5–3, and were crowned the 1974 champions. This was the second consecutive year that an expansion team won the NASL title
Background Los Angeles Aztecs The Los Angeles Aztecs qualified for the playoffs by virtue of winning the Western Division with 110 points. The point total earned them a quarterfinal bye in the playoffs. The Aztecs defeated the Northern Division champion Boston Minutemen, 2–0, in a semifinal game played on August 17, 1974 at ELAC Stadium in Monterey Park, California to advance to the finals.
Miami Toros
The Miami Toros qualified for the playoffs by virtue of winning the Eastern Division with 107 points. They were also given a quarterfinal bye in the playoffs. The Toros defeated the Central Division champion Dallas Tornado, 3–1, in a semifinal game played on August 17, 1974 at Tamiami Stadium to advance to the finals.
Game site controversy Although the Aztecs had a league-best record and points total, and rightly should have hosted the championship final, CBS intervened and strongly influenced the NASL's decision to play the match in Miami. CBS was under contract to air the game live and was unwilling to black-out the large Southern California viewing audience. At the time it was the standard in many U.S.-based sports for the host market not to broadcast games locally unless they were sold out. At the time, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum had a capacity of 94,500 and, even in a best-case scenario, an Aztecs sell-out was unlikely. Moreover, in an effort by CBS to capture more viewers during the peak East Coast time slot, a Los Angeles-hosted game would have begun at 12:30 (PDT) local time.
The league recognized that both these factors would be detrimental to ticket sales and agreed to move the game to the Miami Orange Bowl with a 3:30 (EDT) local start. CBS had also stepped in the previous week and forced the Toros to play their semi-final match at the much-smaller Tamiami Stadium in Tamiami Park. This was done so that if Miami did win, CBS's production crews would have a full week for set-up in the Orange Bowl stadium.
Match details
GK 1 Osvaldo Toriani DF 14 Selris Figaro DF 5 Ralph Wright DF 6 Ken Mallender DF 15 Alan Hamlyn MF 2 Rafael Argüelles MF 4 Esteban Aranguiz MF 11 Warren Archibald FW 7 Steve David FW 9 Derek Watts FW 10 Ronnie Sharp (c) Substitutes:DF 3 Roger Verdi FW 8 Roberto Aguirre GK 18 Bill NuttallManager: John Young
GK 1 Blas Sánchez DF 2 Ricardo De Rienzo DF 3 Ramon Moraldo (c) DF 5 Mario Zanotti DF 12 Julio César Cortés MF 6 Pedro Martinez MF 8 Renato Costa MF 10 Luis Marotte MF 11 Tony Douglas FW 7 Doug McMillan FW 9 Uri Banhoffer Substitutes:FW 15 Jose Lopez DF 16 Yeprem NersepianFW 18 Peter Filotis Manager: Alex Perolli
1974 NASL Champions: Los Angeles Aztecs Finals MVP:
Assistant referees: Paul Avis Bob Sumpter Television: CBS Announcers: Frank Glieber, Clive Toye, Kyle Rote, Jr.
Match Statistics Statistic Miami Los AngelesGoals scored 3 3Total shots 25 26Shots on target 14 12Saves 9 12Corner kicks 8 4Fouls 11 12Offsides 5 2Yellow cards 2 2Red cards 0 0
See also 1974 North American Soccer League season
References
External links