>>154627409
I'm not quite sure whether I understand you
Is the question about the NASL surviving due to the US hosting the 1986 World Cup?

In our timeline, the NASL folded in 1984. It primarily seemed to struggle with developing players rather than just taking old veterans from Europe and South America on a profitable last ride. Viewer interest was quite low everywhere except for Cosmos. Things were beginning to get shaky before 1984 already. It makes me think ends wouldn't have met, so to say. I kind of think the league was doomed to fail anyway, but a huge push combined with clever marketing could have sufficed ... but I think the foundations of the league were a bit too weak. Just my personal opinion as a layman, of course
Some diplomacy would have been needed to ensure the Eastern Bloc's participation, but I think they would have likely been there. Might have been a close call, but I think this would have worked. Gorbachev had just entered office by then. Things were calmer in general in 1985/86 than a few years prior, although they still had to shit on the 1984 Olympics out of revanchism. An advantage here might have been that the FIFA World Cup wouldn't have garnered as much public attention in the US as the Summer Olympics, so less anti-Soviet sentiment perhaps

>>154627409
Nah NASL was just popular for like 2-3 years and then everyone realized how shitty it is. If you want to see what the NASL was like just look at the Saudi league. It's more a novelty than an actual league

>>154627736
>I'm not quite sure whether I understand you
Is the question about the NASL surviving due to the US hosting the 1986 World Cup
Yes. Considering MLS wouldn't have really happened without FIFA I thought perhaps if the WC were hosted here by that time it could've put them on life support, at least. Yeah, realistically as you've said the ends wouldn't have been met and we'd still get MLS, lol.
>Gorbachev had just entered office by then. Things were calmer in general in 1985/86
Gorby wouldn't be leader until then. Europe would still have to go through qualification 4 months earlier. But perhaps FIFA might learn from the Olympics failure of preventing the '84 boycott, after all, the Soviets were willing to send their squad to Spain 20 years ago.
>An advantage here might have been that the FIFA World Cup wouldn't have garnered as much public attention in the US as the Summer Olympics, so less anti-Soviet sentiment perhaps
I'm not so sure. Soccer fans are definitely a lot more open-minded than other sports fan here, but this was also a different time, so I can't say it'd be very tolerant. Now, I'm a zoomer so I can't comment on this but wasn't 94' very shilled at least in the metropolitan areas? The football tournament in LA did pretty well in 1980, wouldn't it had built momentum around that?