The Sigla Blog

I don’t have time today to review Once in a Lifetime but Harry Guerin has a spot-on review over on the RTE site. The documentary charts the ephemeral life of New York soccer team The Cosmos. Built from scratch as a result of the vision of one man - Warner Music boss Steve Ross - it’s fascinating on lots of levels. Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, Rodney Marsh and the supremely arrogant Giorgio Chinaglia played for the team and the doco is full of super archive footage - not just of the games, but of the people, the city, the extravagant lifestyles. There are interviews aplenty (often with widely different versions of the team’s success and subsequent decline) and although I’ve got enough new music to keep me going, I’d buy this soundtrack just to have all these songs on one easily accessible CD (I’ve a chunk of them on vinyl).

Pelé (who declined to be interviewed for the film) will be on tonight’s Late Late Show and signing copies of his autobiography in Eason’s tomorrow.