Cosmos Are Right Where They Want to Be The New York Cosmos are unbeaten on their home field at Hofstra University during the N.A.S.L. fall season. Around the North American Soccer League, a lament that rang true in the heyday of the league more than 30 years ago - the Cosmos are using their vast resources (Warner Communications then; an international group backed by the Saudi-based Sela Sports now) to buy championships - is again being heard from some less well-heeled clubs. As the reborn Cosmos appear ready to clinch first place in the league's fall season and advance to Soccer Bowl "13 against the host Atlanta Silverbacks (winners of the spring season) on Nov. 9, the team's chairman, Seamus O'Brien, said he was impressed and overjoyed by the team's performance on the field. "The bit I knew I could never control was how 11 guys kicked a lump of leather around on the field," O'Brien said during an interview Thursday at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. I always said that we were doing the hardest thing you can do in sport. You have 28 guys who had never met each other. So we were coming through stone cold nothing, and no one realizes that we were building everything from scratch, from scratch. I told Gio to go out and do it, and he's gone out and done it. You hope for the best, but you never know. The odds were so heavily against us. O'Brien was referring to the team's coach, Giovanni Savarese. Savarese, a native of Venezuela who was a star for the MetroStars in the early days of Major League Soccer, may see his team clinch the fall title with a victory over visiting Edmonton on Sunday afternoon at Shuart Stadium on the campus of Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. The Cosmos, winners of five straight and unbeaten in eight, have not lost a match at home. The club could clinch first place even before stepping on the field Sunday if Tampa Bay loses to San Antonio at home and Atlanta does not win at Fort Lauderdale on Saturday. Savarese has constructed a team that is strong up the middle, anchored by the Spanish veteran Marco Senna (who is signed through 2014), with the Brazilian defender Roversio and the young Venezuelan striker Diomar Diaz. Senna? There's probably not a better player in North America today," O'Brien said. He runs his socks off for 90 minutes, flat-out every game. Diaz is a class act up front with pace over short distance. And in Roversio, I challenge you to find a better center back in America. O'Brien said that the club's average attendance had been a bit more than 5,000 a game and that the club was on target for "modest losses" because of start-up costs associated with spending about $500,000 to improve the team's training complex at Mitchel Field and an aggressive advertising budget. After proving itself viable on the field, the club is anticipating adding additional sponsors to its current list, which includes Emirates, the Middle Eastern airline, and Nike, he said. "We're building a professional franchise," O'Brien said. Next year the U.S. Open Cup will be a big focus for us. Want to win the league and host Soccer Bowl next year. Right now, we're 10 weeks old and heading to the championship game. Next year we've got a full season and we hope by then to have a stadium approved. The club's proposal to build a privately financed $400 million stadium at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., which O'Brien had hoped would be resolved in June, will probably not be resolved until after elections have been held in New York state and in Nassau County, where the stadium is located. "I have to say this for me is the icing on the cake," O'Brien said. To sit here potentially a game away, 3 points from a chance of winning the club's sixth N.A.S.L. championship. On Day 1, if any one would have told me that I would have said that, I'd take that any day of the week. Notes O'Brien said the club planned to play a series of exhibitions through the end of November, then give the players time off in December and January. Training camp will convene Feb. 1, and the club has tentative plans to train in Bermuda (where the former Cosmos player Randy Horton is the speaker of the House of Assembly) and in Dubai, the home of its sponsor, Emirates. ... Soccer Bowl "13 on Nov. 9 will be carried live on ESPN Deportes and ESPN3.com. ... A trove of old Cosmos games, packaged as "Cosmos Classics" and carried on SNY, continues to draw healthy ratings, according to figures from the Mets" cable network.