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Brooklyn College women’s soccer head coach and former NASL (Memphis Rogues, New England Tea Men) and ASL (New Jersey Americans) pro player Patrick Horne (Black Pioneers of the North American Soccer League) joins the podcast to help shine a light on the largely unrecognized contributions of black players to both the success of North America’s first major foray into pro soccer, and the growth of the sport’s popularity in the US and Canada in the decades since. While no one disputes the significance of the June 1975 signing of Brazilian superstar Pelé to the league’s flagship New York Cosmos as the watershed that legitimized soccer’s viability as a professional sport in North America (major world-class talent like Portuguese legend Eusebio and Brazilian star defender Carlos Alberto quickly followed), black players from various corners of the globe had already been plying their trade in the fledgling NASL years before – some as early as the competing 1967 leagues (NPSL and USA) that preceded it.  And many of them