The Yankees. The Mets. The Knicks. The Cosmos? For a time, New York City fueled a nationwide interest in the worldwide activity that America ignores the most: soccer. The documentary “Once in a Lifetime” (directed by Paul Crowder and John Dower) chronicles the adventure of both a franchise and the importation of a sport.

I, like many others, perceive soccer as a sport that is simply not played by adults in America. Little kids, sure. Hell, I ate orange slices and wore shin guards with the rest of my class in middle school, but in the 1970s, most Americans had never even seen a match. To Steve Ross, president of Warner Communications in the ‘70s, the fact that soccer was not a household term was a problem. He wanted the passion of the sport to come to the States and so, funded with millions of his company’s dollars, brought to New York City its first “professional” soccer team: The Cosmos.

I say “professional” with quotes since the early years of the Cosmos were described by former team members as “a disgrace of a team.” Ross wanted to bring passion to America, but he had only created indifference in the Big Apple and the rest of the nation. To generate interest in the game, he would have to hire the greatest footballer ever: Pelé. The Brazilian carried a heavy price tag (a fact that is still true, he asked for $100,000 just to be interviewed for this film), but Warner was soaring, and so Pelé came to play for New York.

Interest in soccer grew with the foreign acquisition, and fans started pouring in to Giants Stadium. When Pelé was recognized at a New York Mets game and had to be taken onto the field since the crowd in the stands could not be controlled, the film presents America at a crossroads, its national pastime in danger of being overshadowed by the international phenomenon. The Cosmos grew with more and more imports from Europe, and the team would eventually represent fourteen countries.

It’s hard to grasp how large the Cosmos team name was, living in the time when the most exposure to soccer Americans have is watching Zidane’s headbutt. When saying “I’m with the Cosmos” got yourself into Studio 54, you knew you were dealing with true fame, one of the interviewees tells us.

The drama that kept me engaged was, “Why don’t we care now?” Indeed, the film contains many shots of people genuinely excited about the sport. Normal 70s New Yorkers, too: the crowd shows quite a few mustachioed men sporting aviators, truly a sign that the every-man was behind this sport, and the film convinces the audience that soccer could have become a national sport. Unfortunately, every American sport requires television to survive, and the movie illustrates how the handling of North American Soccer League on network television was bungled. Additionally, the egos of the players and grudges held by the executives behind the team led to internal conflicts about how the team was managed. The league itself disbanded only months after the Cosmos dissolved, and so, we are left in practically the only soccer-less country in the world.

Co-director Paul Crowder seems enamored with telling the stories of unappreciated sports. His last two films, “Dogtown and Z-Boys” and “Riding Giants” chronicle the rise of skateboarding and surfing, respectively. While I’m no X Games expert, Crowder’s storytelling kept me interested in both the characters and the evolution of the sport. His previous films were driven by splendid scenes of kids skating in empty pools or fifty-foot swells drenching the screen in aqua, but while Crowder is able to entertain “Once in a Lifetime’s” audience for a bit by adding arias to cuts of goals, this film is much more character-driven than his previous two sports documentaries. The attitudes of certain characters are developed heavily, but I wish I could have seen a little more focus on the game itself, especially some of the other franchises, which are ignored completely.

“Once in a Lifetime” brings to light a forgotten piece of American history and does so in the classic Crowder fashion, seamlessly integrating archival and stock footage with hard-hitting interviews. Despite some shortcomings in the subject matter, the film should not be missed simply because one hasn’t played soccer in eight years. The movie casts a positive light for soccer’s future in America, but unfortunately cites the statistic that the United States team has qualified in every World Cup since 1990 during the closing credits, eliciting scoffs from the audience at the film’s finish. Oh well, it’s the only way a story about soccer in America could have ended.