A `LIFETIME' FOR HARD-HEADED SOCCER FANS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

The hard-sell advertising for the intermittently entertaining soccer documentary ``Once in a Lifetime'' exhorts potential viewers to ``experience the irresistible story of the team that had America at its feet.''

Well ... no. America was no more crazy for the North American Soccer League's New York Cosmos in the 1970s than it was this year for its short-lived World Cup team.

But, yes, there was a brief moment that New York's Cosmos - the team that brought Brazil's Pele to the States and later signed international stars like Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer - sparked an interest in soccer, which swelled the youth league ranks and eventually created the voter demographic known as the ``soccer mom.''

However the team's impact and importance is exaggerated by filmmakers Paul Crowder and John Dower, a couple of Brits who clearly love soccer and disco music but don't know much about American sports or their fans. What they've created is a slick, gossipy documentary that pulses to the strains of James Brown, Parliament and the Love Unlimited Orchestra as it glosses over facts to make its questionable case for the Cosmos.

The film begins with the team's humble origins and kicks into high gear as owner Steve Ross, the soccer-loving chairman of Warner Communications, pours corporate money into signing the past-his-prime Pele. At the time, the team was playing its games in the dilapidated Downing Stadium on Randall's Island where they simulated grass by painting the dirt green. (After his first game, Pele thought he had picked up his fungus; he had to be told it was just green paint on his feet.)

Pele didn't participate in the movie, but we do hear from the controversial Chinaglia, who, like New York's other ego-driven star of the time, Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson, was the ``straw that stirs the drink.'' Chinaglia feuded with teammates (Pele included), got a coach fired and never had the ball passed to him enough for his liking. Two decades later, everyone still hates him.

That makes for great theater, of course. What grates is when Crowder and Dower lionize Ross (at times, ``Lifetime'' plays like a bad episode of A&E's ``Biography'' series) and overstate the importance of their subject. During the very brief time the Cosmos were packing Giants Stadium, the movie notes that fans arrived three or four hours early for tailgate parties as if this was somehow novel and had not been going on for many years at college and pro football games.

But then, the movie disparages football (and baseball fans), with one ``expert'' opining that Americans' disinterest in soccer comes from short attention spans, which doesn't bode well for future growth of the sport, given how our concentration levels are supposedly diminishing by the day. That kind of glib analysis plagues ``Lifetime,'' a movie where the innuendo and music carry more weight than the analysis and reporting.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

ONCE IN A LIFETIME - Two and one half stars

(PG-13: language and some nudity)

Starring: Narrated by Matt Dillon.

Director: Paul Crowder and John Dower.

Running time: 1 hr. 37 min.

Playing: Landmark's Westside Pavilion in West Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Facile documentary about soccer's New York Cosmos has plenty of gossip and great '70s songs but grates by overstating its subject's importance.