Michelle Kaufman

MIAMI -- While the Fort Lauderdale Strikers (formerly Miami FC) try to rekindle the passion South Florida soccer fans felt for the famous defunct club of the same name, legends Pele and Eric Cantona are in New York, working out of a SoHo loft on a reincarnation of the Cosmos.

What's next? Jimmy Carter for President? Bell bottoms and lava lamps?

"We're back!" read the giant video billboard in Times Square. T-shirts, with the familiar Cosmos swirled logo popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, are on sale at soccer shops throughout the city. Pele and Cantona spent last week in Asia, on a publicity tour for the new Cosmos, which so far is nothing more than a brand, as the club is not a member of any league and has no players.

MIAMI -- When word got out that Michael Jordan's son was going to play basketball at the University of Central Florida, the news spread quickly around campus. But very few students knew what he looked like, which allowed Marcus Jordan to enjoy a sense of anonymity he had never experienced in Chicago, where his NBA legend father is still considered royalty.

He remembers sitting on a bench outside a classroom last fall, overhearing people talking about Marcus Jordan, not realizing they were sitting right next to him. He smirked. Those days are over.

It's college basketball season again. That means it's time for Kyle Singler (Duke), Jimmer Fredette (Brigham Young) and JuJuan Johnson (Purdue), among others. If you don't know them, stay tuned for the next five months.

Stop the presses! University of Connecticut women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma, whose team has won 78 consecutive games and back-to-back national titles, recently told reporters that he suspects his team might lose some games this season. Can you imagine? UConn losing games? It has been a while.

MIAMI -- Turns out one of the biggest Manchester United fans in the world is now living on Miami Beach.

And when we say big, we mean really big, as in 7-3 big. New Heat center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the less-hyped player with a Cleveland Cavaliers background obtained over the summer, is a die-hard soccer fan and thrilled to be living in a city that shares his passion.

Is a U.S.-born coach ready to take on an English Premier League club? Heck yes. Why not?

U.S. World Cup coach Bob Bradley is one of the leading candidates to replace Martin O'Neill at Aston Villa, and nobody's laughing.

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Scott Bradley, the Princeton baseball coach and former major-league catcher, is standing on the sideline of the university's soccer stadium beaming with pride. He has ventured away from his corner of the campus on this gloriously sunny Thursday morning to watch the U.S. World Cup team as it trains for its trip to South Africa.