SEATTLE — International soccer will sweep into Seattle this summer. Not for the first time. On April 9, 1976 — 50 years ago last week — Brazilian icon Pelé opened the Kingdome with appropriate panache. In the concrete dome’s sporting debut, the 35-year-old’s New York Cosmos met the Seattle Sounders in a North American Soccer League exhibition. It was an exhibition — “a public showing,” per ...

In an undated image, Pele of New York Cosmos in action during an American Soccer League match.

Allsport UK/Allsport/Getty Images North America/TNS

SEATTLE — International soccer will sweep into Seattle this summer.

Not for the first time.

On April 9, 1976 — 50 years ago last week — Brazilian icon Pelé opened the Kingdome with appropriate panache. In the concrete dome’s sporting debut, the 35-year-old’s New York Cosmos met the Seattle Sounders in a North American Soccer League exhibition.

It was an exhibition — “a public showing,” per Merriam-Webster — in size, scale and spectacle.

A capacity crowd of 58,128 flocked to the Kingdome, smashing an attendance record for soccer in the United States. It was also the 14th-largest gathering for any Seattle sporting event, trailing 13 UW football games … only because some Kingdome seats had yet to be installed.

Five decades later, the Kingdome is a massive, rickety memory, but Seattle soccer remains on the map. The Sounders have won two MLS Cups, a CONCACAF Champions League trophy and a Leagues Cup title (defeating Argentine maestro Lionel Messi and Inter Miami in front of 69,314 at Lumen Field). Seattle Reign FC was one of eight inaugural members of the National Women’s Soccer League. And on Tuesday, 36,128 fans attended the U.S. women’s 1-0 loss to Japan, the largest crowd for a stand-alone women’s soccer match in Seattle.

It all culminates this summer, when Seattle hosts six matches of the FIFA Men’s World Cup.

But this moment was five decades (or more) in the making.

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“It put us on the map,” former Sounders communications director and Seattle soccer historian Frank MacDonald said of Pelé’s Kingdome debut. “People took us seriously. Pelé was there. [The Sounders] had Geoff Hurst, who was a big name to all the Anglos around here, because he’d been on the World Cup team 10 years before for England. So it was a marquee matchup … probably the first marquee matchup the Sounders could ever claim.”

Certainly the first marquee matchup the Kingdome could ever claim.

As Seattle Times columnist Hy Zimmerman marveled the next morning:

“Nearly 60,000 persons last night helped shape Seattle’s sports history — into the form of a soccer ball.

With a dome on top.

And Phil Woosnam, commissioner of the North American Soccer League, looked enthralled at the largest soccer gathering in the history of English-speaking North America, and said: ‘I didn’t expect anything like this soon. This turnout in this great Kingdome will be a great stimulant to our sport.’

Then, perhaps a little carried away by it all, he added, though more serious than exuberant: "Within a decade, soccer will be the No. 1 sport in this country. This is a big night for soccer.”

It was perhaps an even bigger night for Seattle, considering the Kingdome would soon welcome both the Seahawks and Mariners as well. Zimmerman dubbed it “the most superb sports facility west and north of New Orleans.”

And Pelé was just the player to suit that stage.

“If you didn’t know anything about soccer, you may not have known how to pronounce it correctly, but you had heard his name,” said MacDonald, a Centralia, Wash., native and UW alum. “Because he was the first name out of the mouth of anybody talking about soccer.

“A couple years [after that game] I was working for the Lewis County Parks and Rec, teaching soccer. We would go to these rural communities in Lewis County, and they would equip us with a few balls. But you had a reel where Pelé shows all his skills and highlights, and you’d show that. That was part of your camp that week. He was ubiquitous.”

He was a global phenomenon even before cable television cast its wider web, a three-time World Cup champion, a balletic goal-scorer with astonishing aura. He was both man and myth, immortalized in the intro for “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.” He was the inspiration for soccer being branded “the beautiful game.”

Then, suddenly, he was here.

And it was beautiful.

Granted, his first goal didn’t qualify as such.

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In a 3-1 win, the Cosmos were awarded a free kick in the third minute, while the Kingdome’s inaugural guests were still cascading in from the concrete concourses. As Pelé stood at the 30-yard line, the Sounders’ goalkeeper — 22-year-old Canadian Tony Chursky — knew precisely what was coming.

“I had seen Pelé play on a couple occasions, and I knew he was always looking to take a quick free kick if the goalkeeper was out of position,” Chursky told The Seattle Times this week. “So before the game I was trying to convince the coaches, ‘Look, I’m not the one who should be setting up the wall. You need to have a player set up the wall, because he always looks to catch the goalkeeper off guard.’”

Seattle’s coaches balked at that suggestion.

You can guess what happened next.

“I was setting up the wall and looking at Pelé, and he started to run towards the ball,” Chursky said. “So I started to move across to the space where he was shooting. But as I was moving that way, his free kick hit the end of the wall and bounced back into the space where I had been standing originally. That drove me crazy. It was just amazing.”

Pelé’s second and final goal was more amazing, as he ripped a liner past Chursky on another free kick to put the game away. Unsurprisingly, Pelé made a lasting impression on Seattle’s goalie.

Just not in the way you might imagine.

“After the game there was a reception for both teams, and I ended up in the same elevator with Pelé. The thing that just struck me, that I could not believe, was that he only came up to my shoulder,” said Chursky, who has lived in Federal Way since signing with the Tacoma Stars in 1983. “He was 5-foot-6. (He was listed officially as 5-8.)

“So you think of him as larger than life, but when you actually meet him in person, it was just incredible. What a great testament that is, that people don’t have to be huge to be masters of the game.”

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Like Pelé, appropriately nicknamed “The King,” a little exhibition made a big impact.

As Zimmerman wrote: “It was a start. And, in years to come, mythomania will enlarge this crowd to hundreds of thousands. But those who were physically present, soccer buffs or no, cheered all night. For the dignitaries, the players, the plays. And Walt Daggatt, managing general partner of the Sounders, hit a chord with: ‘Thank you, the world’s greatest sports fans. If this is a dream, don’t wake me up. ”

Five decades later, Seattle soccer fans are about to live a different dream. Of course, the World Cup also comes with complications and controversy, as price points and political conflict, etc., could taint the sprawling soccer tournament. While June approaches, questions continue to loom.

But as a soccer city, Seattle has earned another first.

That, in itself, is worth celebrating.

“To be actually be involved in the first game of the Kingdome and have that kind of crowd was just phenomenal,” Chursky said, looking back 50 years later. “It made you shiver, the atmosphere was so terrific.

“How can you not feel some sense of pride? Records can be broken. Firsts are always firsts. To be in the very first game of the Kingdome, it was an incredible source of satisfaction and pride for me.”

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