Eski
Photography by Peter Bonilla.
On the corner of Main Street and Banta Place in Hackensack, New Jersey, sits Birkenmeier Sport Shop. There’s a wall covered with rows and rows of the brightest cleats you’ll ever find and racks filled with the latest jerseys from all over the world. Upon first impression, it looks like any other local soccer shop you’d find in an American town. But this one is different.
Venturing further into the store, there’s a room covered in framed pictures from over 40 years ago. Many of them are black-and-white, and others have slowly faded in color with age. Among this overwhelming wall of memorabilia, sits another item. A bright yellow and green jersey. Above the classic number 10, at the front of the jersey, there’s a handwritten note:
“To Hubert and Eski, all the best, Pele.”
This is the shop of none other than Andranik “Eski” Eskandarian. A legend for the New York Cosmos, a World Cup athlete, and former teammate of Pele, Beckenbauer, and Carlos Alberto. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Eski was at the epicenter of the initial soccer boom in the United States, back when the NASL reigned supreme.
In this small room at the side of Birkenmeier Sport Shop is a treasure trove of memories that give a glimpse, through the eyes of Eski, at one of the most important periods in North American soccer.
Andranik “Eski” Eskandarian’s story begins all the way back in Iran. Born to an Armenian family in Tehran, Eski had a natural talent for soccer since he was a young kid. When he was in high school, local clubs were already fighting for his signature, and at the age of 17, he signed his first professional contract with Ararat FC. Soon after, at the age of 20, Eski signed for Esteghlal Tehran FC, one of the top clubs in the country,
“I played for Ararat FC, and they were paying me a little bit and found a job for me as a draftsman,” remembers Eski. “Then, one guy from Esteghlal asked me to go play for them, and they told me the wage they were going to pay me. I had never seen that much money in my life, so I said, ‘you got it, I'm coming.’”
Between 1972 and 1978, Eski would end up making 184 appearances for Esteghlal as a defender, and in 1978, he would be called up to represent Iran at the World Cup in Argentina. It was the first time Iran qualified for a World Cup, and they’d be facing off against 15 other nations with decorated players such as Cruyff, Cubillas, Kempes, Dalglish, and others.
“All of them were top teams from Europe and South American. We were scared, to be honest with you, being at a tournament like that for the first time,” recalls Eski.
Still, Eski has many positive memories from his time at the World Cup. “We had to play against Holland, and they were one of the best teams ever. Who could have stopped them? They were an unbelievable team, so we lost three to zero against them. Then, we tied against Scotland and lost against Peru. We didn’t advance, but we had the lowest chances. We played very fair games, and we were happy. Maybe we could’ve done better if we hadn’t been scared, but we did very well for our first time.”
Off the field, the trip to Argentina was also quite surprising for Eski as the Armenian community in the South American nation welcomed him like a hero because of his Armenian heritage. “When I arrived there, I saw 300 people putting their hands in the air, yelling my name. I had no idea what was going on,” says Eski with a laugh.
This would be Eski’s first real taste of fame and fandom as a pro soccer player, but it would not be the last.
After a successful individual outing at the World Cup, where he managed to lock down Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish, Eski was invited to a World All-Stars friendly match against the New York Cosmos.
“I played against the Cosmos in that friendly, and then they asked me to play in one more friendly match against Boca Juniors from Argentina. I stayed for the weekend, and then they didn’t want to let me go,” says Eski. “I was surprised because I just love to play soccer and never really paid attention to the media or look at the TV. I had no idea they were interested.”
Before making the permanent move to the New York Cosmos in the NASL, Eski returned to Iran to settle his contract with Esteghlal, the club that had given him the chance to play pro at eighteen. After paying his own buy-out clause with some help from the Cosmos, Eski was ready to play for one of the greatest teams ever assembled at the time. Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, Rivellino, and the mythical Pele were all on the squad list.
“After my first week with the Cosmos, we did a tournament in South America -- 15 countries, and games every three days. It was the last tournament Pele played with the Cosmos, and we went to Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and a few others. Every stadium was sold out.”
Eski mentions that getting to play in all those different countries was a great experience, not because of the huge crowds or anything like that, but simply because of getting to play the sport he loved in other countries around the world. His favorite memory from that trip also happened off the field.
“My best memory from that trip was when we stayed at Pele’s house in Santos for one night. It was beautiful. It was like a museum. You walk around the house, and all the trophies and everything he earned in his career, he put it on display in his house. It was one of the most amazing things I ever saw in my life. And he's a great guy. Even today, if you meet him, he's going to hug you and maybe kiss you. With every person he meets, he acts like he’s known them for ten years. When some people do that, it’s fake, but with him, it’s not. And if he does something for kids or his friends or the media, he always does it with his heart. That’s why everyone loves him.”
On the field, Eski has plenty of memories from his early days at the Cosmos, especially regarding the best players he frustrated with his pace and aggressive defending.
“The hardest players I ever had to mark were Maradona, Cruyff, and George Best. I played against Cruyff about two times a year when he was playing for the Washington Diplomats, and then I played against Maradona three times. They would all curse at me,” Eski remembers with a laugh. “With Maradona, I took the ball away from him two or three times, and he dived! Then the next tackle, I really did go in hard, and I said ‘okay, now dive.’”
All the memories are shared with a taste of nostalgia and deep respect.
“These players, when they pass away, they take a part of my heart, you know. I understand that I played against them, and they were my opposition, but I respect all of them. When they pass, they take something away from me, I don't know why, but I feel that way.”
While Eski’s stay at the Cosmos was filled with great times, his first year at the club was quite a struggle.
“When I came from Iran to America, there were tensions between both countries. So the media was always pointing out that there was one Iranian player in Cosmos. That year, we went to play in Miami, and in the last minute of the game, a fan ran onto the field and just grabbed my neck and almost tried to kill me. I had a lot of problems with the fans not saying nice things, but things slowly blew over.”
The next few years at the Cosmos were great for Eski, though, especially getting to be at the forefront of the soccer boom in the United States. In the end, that Cosmos squad was responsible for why an entire generation fell in love with the sport.
“Every week, the Cosmos would give us a schedule to do soccer clinics in the area. For me, I went to at least four or five places to do clinics. On top of that, a ticket to see the Cosmos was $7 for adults and $4 for kids. And all the time we were going to advertise around the city to get people to come to the stadium to watch us. That’s why -- if I’m not mistaken -- we sold 45,000 season tickets and then had nearly 70,000 people at every game.”
According to Eski, part of the reason they were able to cultivate such a following was because of Pele, but also because of the dedication that all the Cosmos players put into soccer on and off the field in New York and New Jersey.
“We had players with unbelievable careers that people wanted to come to see. But they were all performing and not just coming here to collect the money. Sometimes you see these foreign players come here to collect the money, and I feel bad. I don't like it. I feel like back then, the players were coming here to really just try to make the game big in the US and not just for the money. As I said, personally, all our players were doing the same thing. We would go every week to these places to promote soccer.”
And the dedication shown by the players was returned by the community.
“On the weekends, we would sign autographs at shopping centers. One day, I signed autographs with Seninho from Portugal for two hours, and I would see the line get bigger and bigger. It was almost half a mile. Imagine, for Pele and the other players, when they signed autographs, they probably couldn’t leave!”
“Then, when we had open training, we had 15,000 people show up at nine o'clock in the morning, just to watch us train! It was a kind of connection that went both ways. People and players, we were working together. I don't know. It was different back then.”
But the golden era of the Cosmos and the NASL was not set to last, and things slowly began to change in 1983 and 1984.
“It all began to change. In my time, the club was in my heart, and it was the same for all the players. We did everything for the club. But then we had people come just for money, and everything fell apart. They’d see fans in the stands, and they’d just walk away. It changes everything. Then fans got cold because they saw that it’s not the same Cosmos. And those of us who had been there for years saw this and knew that there were people that shouldn’t be at the club. So it just started going down, going down, going down, until the club shut down in ‘85.”
“It was a sad day. I was 34, so I was at the end of my career, but I was upset for all the young people and all the work we did with the clinics. We knew everyone in the community and all the families who would go to the clinics. We would eat dinner with all these people. It’s sad when you have to leave, and there’s nothing left.”
But while Eski’s playing days were over, his drive to help people fall in love with soccer was not. In 1985, Eski bought Birkenmeier Sport Shop from former Cosmos goalkeeper and teammate Hubert Birkenmeier.
“I told my lawyer about signing the lease, and my lawyer told me, ‘are you crazy? There are not many people that play soccer here, are you sure?’ And I just said, ‘Listen, all my life I played soccer, I don’t have anything else to do.’”
Since then, Birkenmeier Sport Shop has been the main place in Hackensack, New Jersey, to buy soccer equipment. From teenagers trying to buy Mercurials instead of Copas -- something that Eski does not recommend -- or young kids choosing their first pair of gloves from Hubert, there’s something for everybody at the shop.
But the most interesting part of every visit will always be Eski’s stories. If you stop by the store, he is sure to tell you more. Many of the memories he keeps in the back room are tinged with sorrow, and others radiating with pride.
Looking at the framed pictures of his Cosmos squad, he points at his teammates that have gone and those that he still calls on the phone from time to time. “We were a family,” he says.
Yet all those pictures of his playing days are not the centerpiece of this room of memories.
Amidst all the memorabilia he collected throughout his career, there are countless photos, posters, and newspaper clippings of something far more important: his son Alecko, an MLS legend and champion in his own right.
Photography by Peter Bonilla.
