1984 North American Soccer League season
| Season | 1984 |
|---|---|
| Champions |
Chicago Sting (2nd title) |
| Premiers |
Chicago Sting most total points *San Diego best Won/Loss record |
| Matches played | 108 |
| Goals scored | 427 (3.95 per match) |
| Top goalscorer |
Steve Zungul (20 goals) |
| Highest attendance | 52,621 Tampa Bay at Minnesota (May 28) |
| Lowest attendance | 2,267 Tampa Bay at San Diego (August 12) |
| Average attendance | 10,759 |
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← 1983
Final Season →
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The 1984 North American Soccer League season was the 72nd season of FIFA-sanctioned soccer, the 17th with a national first-division league, in the United States and Canada. It would be the 17th and final season of the NASL.
By 1983, the NASL had shrunk to half of the 24 teams that made up the league in 1980. The ongoing salary war with the Major Indoor Soccer League had taken its toll, along with shrinking attendances and a lack of interest from American network TV broadcasters. The league made plans to have both an outdoor and indoor presence, with a 24-game outdoor season and 40-game indoor season scheduled for 1984 and beyond.
The off-season following the 1983 outdoor playoffs saw three more teams fall by the wayside. The Montreal Manic,Team America, and Seattle Sounders would all fold. On top of that, the Fort Lauderdale Strikers decided to move to Minnesota due to a lack of suitable indoor arenas in the local area. Things had gotten so bad for the league that the champion Tulsa Roughnecks almost folded two weeks after winning the Soccer Bowl. They survived, thanks to a fundraiser that put $65,000 in the team's coffers. The league would soldier on with nine teams. While there would not be huge changes on the field, the single game Soccer Bowl would be no more. The league moved to a best-of-three championship series format, as was done back in the 1971 Final. The revised NASL playoff format had the two division winners and the two next best teams qualify. The four teams would be seeded 1 to 4.
When the season finally got underway in May, the nine teams were bunched together for most of the year as six teams finished within five points of each other. A hoped-for renaissance in New York never materialized, as the return of former Cosmos coach Eddie Firmani did not lead the team back to the playoffs. Rumors about a possible return by Pelé proved to be without merit. However, not everyone struggled on the field. In Oakland, Steve Zungul and Branko Segota were able to translate their talents from the MISL to the outdoor game, finishing 1-2 in the league's scoring race. Zungul would earn league MVP honors despite the Golden Bay Earthquakes' last-place finish. For the fifth time (and second year in a row), the NASL's points system rewarded a team other than the one with the best record (Chicago instead of San Diego) the regular season title and number one playoff seed. Moreover, Toronto and Minnesota also had better won-loss records than Chicago. Minnesota would not even qualify for the playoffs, despite having a better record than both Chicago and Vancouver.
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