Soccer Bowl '78
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| Event | Soccer Bowl | ||||||
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| Date | August 27, 1978 | ||||||
| Venue | Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Dennis Tueart | ||||||
| Referee | Jim Highet (Canada) | ||||||
| Attendance | 74,901 | ||||||
Soccer Bowl '78 was the North American Soccer League's championship final for the 1978 season. It was the tenth championship game in the NASL's seventeen-year history, and the fourth under the Soccer Bowl name.
The match was played at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on August 27 between the American Conference champion Tampa Bay Rowdies and the National Conference champion and defending Soccer Bowl champion Cosmos. Seeing the large home crowds the Cosmos had drawn during the 1977 NASL season, the league awarded Soccer Bowl hosting duties to the club. The match drew a Soccer Bowl-record 74,901 fans, more than doubling the previous year's attendance at Portland's Civic Stadium. To date, it remains the largest crowd for a professional club soccer championship game in North America.
The Cosmos won the match by a 3–1 score, capturing their third league title and becoming the first repeat champion in NASL history.
The Rowdies started off 5-8, but would eventually tie the New England Tea Men for first place in the American Conference's Eastern Division with 165 points. New England won the division on the NASL's total wins tiebreaker (19 to the Rowdies' 18), and relegated Tampa Bay to fourth place in the American Conference's playoff standings. After beating the Chicago Sting in the first round, the San Diego Sockers were defeated by a Rodney Marsh overtime goal in a mini-game tiebreaker and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers fell in a mini-game shootout in the American Conference finals. It would be the Rowdies' second trip to the Soccer Bowl in four years. Marsh led Tampa Bay in scoring with 18 goals and 16 assists for 52 points, good for fourth in the league. Near the end of the deciding match between the Rowdies and Strikers, he had gotten spiked in the shin by Maurice Whittle of Fort Lauderdale. There was concern about his playing status, but all indications leading up to match day had looked positive.
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