International Soccer League

In 1960, William D. Cox, a wealthy U.S. businessman and former owner of the Philadelphia Phillies, a U.S. baseball team, saw a potential market in the United States for top-level soccer. Recognizing that U.S. teams did not play at a sufficiently high level to attract the attention of most fans, he began to consider the possibility of importing European and South American teams during their league off-seasons. Traditionally, tours by European clubs in the northeast United States had drawn well and Cox decided to pursue this approach.

However, soccer in the U.S. was run by the U.S. Soccer Football Association (USSFA). As a member of the soccer's international governing organization, FIFA, the USSFA had the sole power in the U.S. to authorize the creation of a new league, and any league created without USSFA authority would be declared an "outlaw league". Any person playing in an "outlaw league" would then be banned from playing in any other league or team affiliated with FIFA, and as nearly every league and team in the world was affiliated with the world soccer body, this would effectively ban a player from playing soccer anywhere.

To get USSFA approval, Cox worked through the existing American Soccer League, a USSFA-recognized league. This went so far that in 1961, the ASL scheduled only one game during the ISL season in order to keep from drawing fan support from the league.[2] Each year, the ISL played two halves to its season, with different sets of teams; the top team from each half played each other in a season-ending championship game. In order to give the American fans a greater stake in the league, Cox also decided to enter a team of U.S.-based players; this team, called variably New York, the New Yorkers and the New York Americans, was usually a mix of U.S.-based European professionals with some native all-stars. Cox also gained regional television coverage, and the associated revenue stream. While the games were initially played in the New York metropolitan area, as interest in the ISL increased, he expanded the league to Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Los Angeles.

The ISL lasted only through the end of the 1965 season before folding, not so much by its continuing financial losses (some $100,000 over five seasons), but due to the continuing hostility of the USSFA. The ISL's growing success, combined with Cox’ refusal to allow USSFA a part in the league management, led to the USSFA's fear losing control of soccer in the United States. In 1965 the organization forbade Cox from importing teams into the U.S. and threatened to declare the ISL an outlaw league. Cox was forced to fold the ISL, but sued USSFA in federal court for anti-trust violations, a suit he eventually won.[3] While the ISL played its last season in 1965, the model was used again in 1967 when the United Soccer Association (USA) imported foreign teams to populate its league and again in 1969 when the North American Soccer League (NASL) used imported teams for the first half of its season.

In 1967, Cox joined with several other investors to found the National Professional Soccer League, a non-USSFA sanctioned league which, the following year, merged with the US to become the NASL.[4]

Teams were divided into two groups (Section I and Section II) where they played a single round-robin tournament. Teams placed first in each group, played a final match to decide a champion.[5]

Ed.	Year	Champion	1st. leg	2nd. leg	Agg.	Runner-up
1	1960	Bangu	2–0	–	2–0	Kilmarnock
2	1961	Dukla Prague	7–2	2–0	9–2	Everton
3	1962	America (RJ)	2–1	1–0	3–1	Belenenses
4	1963	West Ham United	1–1	1–0	2–1	Górnik Zabrze
5	1964	Zagłębie Sosnowiec	4–0	1–0	5–0	Werder Bremen
6	1965	Polonia Bytom	3–0	2–1	5–1	New York Americans

In 1962, the ISL initiated an annual challenge cup. It would pair the winner of the previous year's Challenge Cup winner with the current season's league champion. Dukla Prague had won the 1961 title, defeating Everton F.C. 7–2 and 2–0 in the championship. Therefore, they were paired in the first Challenge Cup with the 1962 season winner, América RJ. Dukla won and returned for the next three challenge cups, winning each, except for the last in which they fell to Polonia Bytom.

List of champions

(Left) trophy of the American Challenge Cup; (right): plaque with the list of champions

Ed.	Year	Champion	1st. leg	2nd. leg	Agg.	Runner-up
1	1960	Bangu	– [n 1]
2	1961	Dukla Prague	– [n 1]
2	1962	Dukla Prague	1–1	2–1	3–2	America (RJ)
2	1963	Dukla Prague	1–0	1–1	2–1	West Ham United
2	1964	Dukla Prague	3–1	1–1	4–2	Zagłębie Sosnowiec
2	1965	Polonia Bytom	2–0	1–1	3–1	Dukla Prague

Notes

1. No match held. Trophy directly awarded to champion of International Soccer League.

Beginning in 1961, the league champion was awarded the Dwight D. Eisenhower trophy, but from 1962 to 1965 it was given to the league MVP. However, in 1960 and 1961 the best players in the tournament were Ademir da Guia (Bangu)[6] and Válter Santos (Bangu)[7] respectively.

Year	Player	Team
1960	Ademir da Guia	Bangu
1961	Válter Santos	Bangu
1962	Carl Bogelein	Reutlingen
1963	Bobby Moore	West Ham United
1964	Gerhard Zebrowski	Werder Bremen
1965	Uwe Schwart	New York Americans

Winning years are indicated in bold

Team	Year/s contested
AEK Athens	1964
América RJ	1962
EC Bahia	1964
Bangu	1960, 1961
Bayern Munich	1960
Belenenses	1962, 1963
Beşiktaş	1961
Blackburn Rovers	1964
Burnley	1960
Club Deportivo Oro	1963
Dinamo Bucharest	1961
Dinamo Zagreb	1963
Dukla Prague	1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965
Dundee	1962
Elfsborg	1962
Espanyol	19612
Everton	1961
Ferencváros	1965
Glenavon	1960
Górnik Zabrze	1963
Guadalajara	1962
Hajduk Split	1962
Hapoel Petah Tikva	1961
Helsingborgs IF	1963
Heart of Midlothian	1964
Karlsruhe	1961
Kilmarnock	1960, 1961, 1963, 1965
Lanerossi-Vicenza	1964
Mantua	1963
Monaco	1961
Montreal Concordia	1961
MTK Budapest	1962
New York Americans	1960, 1961, 1965
Nice	1960
Norrköping	1960
Palermo	1962
Panathinaikos	1962
Polonia Bytom	1965
Portuguesa	1965
Preussen Munster	1963
Rapid Wien	1960, 1961
Real Oviedo	1962
Real Valladolid	1963
Sport Recife	1963
Reutlingen	1962
Red Star Belgrade	1960, 1961, 1964
Sampdoria	1960
Schwechat	1964
Shamrock Rovers	1961
Sporting Lisbon	1960
TSV 1860 Munich	1965
Újpest	1963
Valenciennes	1963
Varese	1965
Vitória de Guimarães	1964
Wiener AC	1962, 1963
Werder Bremen	1964
West Bromwich Albion	1965
West Ham United	1963, 1965
Zagłębie Sosnowiec	1964

• Annual standings by Dave Litterer on Sover.net (archived)
• U.S. Soccer History Chapter 8. The 1960s: The Birth of the American Soccer Renaissance on Ayso88.org (archived)
• Series on Pitch Invasion.net by Tom Dunmore from 2011 (archived):
  • Part 1: They Even Cheered Technique: The International Soccer League
  • Part 2: In Lieu of Giants
  • Part 3: Expanded Dreams
  • Part 4: Struggling Towards Orbit