Santiago Formoso

Infobox Football biography
playername= Santiago Formoso


fullname = Santiago Formoso
nickname = Santi
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1953|7|4
cityofbirth =
countryofbirth = Spain
height = height|ft=5|in=10
position = Defender
youthyears = 1974
youthclubs = University of Pennsylvania
years = 1976
1977
1978-1979
1980
1980
clubs = Hartford Bicentennials
Connecticut Bicentennials
New York Cosmos
Los Angeles Aztecs
Houston Hurricane
caps(goals) = 24 (0)
25 (1)
43 (2)
11 (0)
10 (0)
nationalyears = 1976-1977
nationalteam = United States
nationalcaps(goals) = 07 (0)
pcupdate =
ntupdate =

Santiago Formoso was a Spanish-American soccer defender who spent spent five seasons in the North American Soccer League. He also earned seven caps with the U.S. national team in 1976 and 1977.

Club career

Formoso grew up in New Jersey and attended Kearny High School, graduating in 1973. He also played with Newark Beira-Mar. After high school, Formoso attended the University of Pennsylvania where he played on the men’s soccer team. In 1976, Formoso signed with the Hartford Bicentennials of the North American Soccer League (NASL). The team moved from Hartford to New Haven, Connecticut between the 1976 and 1977 seasons, making a name change with the move. At the end of the 1977 season, the Bicentennials traded Formoso to the New York Cosmos. He spent two seasons in New York before being traded to the Los Angeles Aztecs. However, he played only eleven games of the 1980 season before moving to the Houston Hurricane for the last ten games of that season.

National team

In 1975, Formoso was called into the U.S. Olympic soccer team as it ran through the qualification campaign for the 1976 Summer Olympics. However, two losses to Mexico in August 1975 kept the U.S. out of the Olympics.

Formoso earned his first of seven caps with the U.S. national team on October 3, 1976. That game, a qualifier for the 1978 FIFA World Cup ended in a scoreless tie with Mexico. Formoso’s next game with the national team did not end so well when the U.S. lost 3-0 twelve days later to Mexico in Mexico City. Formoso then played in two friendlies with Haiti before playing in the U.S. loss to Canada on December 12, 1976 which bumped the U.S. from contention for the World Cup finals. Formoso played two games in 1977, his last was a 1-0 victory over China on October 10, 1977.

MetroStars

Formoso was also a part of the MetroStars marketing department from at least 1988 until his firing in 2001. ^{[http://lmtonline.com/sports/archive/120898/pageb2.pdf]}

Formoso was inducted into the Hudson County, New Jersey Sports Hall of Fame in 1995. ^{[http://www.hciaa.com/hall_of_fame.html]}