The last time Lothar Pospich, Manfred Norstadt and Eberhard Herz lifted the U.S. Open Cup trophy together, there were just a few thousand people in the quiet stands at Wrigley Field, a largely abandoned minor league baseball stadium in South L.A.
That was 1964, when the tournament, the oldest national soccer competition in the country, was played by largely amateur teams representing mostly ethnic clubs and neighborhoods. The players were immigrants or the sons of immigrants, playing a game that was considered a national pastime in the old country but little more than a waste of time in the new one.