— During the last days of the Carolina Lightnin’ and the American Soccer League (AFL) in 1983, Lightnin’ manager Rodney Marsh lured Bobby Moore to serve as an assistant coach for the Charlotte-based club. Moore, who Pelé once said was the greatest defender he ever faced, won a total of 108 caps for the England national team and was their captain when they won the 1966 World Cup. He captained West Ham for 10 of 16 decorated seasons with the club. There are statues of Moore erected outside both Wembley Stadium and Boleyn Ground in London.

As injuries riddled the Lightnin’ roster, the 42-year-old Moore laced up his boots for the first time in five years and muddled through some matches during the summer of ‘83. The last at Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, the Lightnin’s home ground, was against the Philadelphia Stoners before several thousand supporters.

Soccer journalist and announcer Glenn Davis, then a defender for the Stoners, set the stage during a 2012 interview: “Bobby was probably 42 years old and he obviously can’t move. He’s kicking everything and everybody that he can get close to. And we’re just going ‘Oh my God, it’s Bobby Moore.’”

Thirty-two years later, another aging soccer legend in the twilight of his illustrious career trod a North Carolina pitch. The Raúl roadshow came to Cary Saturday night as his New York Cosmos visited the Carolina RailHawks, although the Real Madrid legend didn’t figure much in the outcome of the match.

However, if you want bang for your soccer buck, you can do a lot worse than a RailHawks-Cosmos match. Last September, a nil-nil halftime score exploded into nine second half goals as the RailHawks defeated the Cosmos 5-4.

For 90 minutes Saturday night before 7,217 partisans at WakeMed Soccer Park, it appeared that the RailHawks, star-crossed and injury-plagued throughout the early 2015 season, would again work their Cosmos magic. They led New York 2-0 and were a few clearances and curtain calls away from handing the league-leading Cosmos their first loss this year.

Then seven minutes (out of five announced) of added time saw the RailHawks revert to their feckless form, surrendering two shock goals to immolate their win for a 2-2 draw and give the Cosmos their first point in Cary. Meanwhile, Carolina still has only one win in seven games this season.

An intense RailHawks’ lineup featured Futty Danso and Wells Thompson, who have missed the better part of the NASL spring season with injuries. Nazmi Albadawi also returned after missing the last two games with an ankle sprain. And leading scorer Nacho Novo was back in the starting XI after missing last weekend’s loss at San Antonio.

But it was an old reliable that helped Carolina strike early and often. In the 7th minute, Ty Shipalane flashed his legerity to get behind the Cosmos defenders for the second time , and his short cross along the end line found Neil Hlavaty in the goalmouth. Hlavaty’s volley pinged off Cosmos keeper Jimmy Maurer and over the line for a 1-0 lead.

“Mark [Anderson] saw me as I was pulling wide,” Shipalane said. “I was double-teamed and I was able to beat two defenders and saw three guys in the box. All of them were in good positions. Nacho made a good early run in front of the goalkeeper, and Neil [Hlavaty] came underneath. I was able to slot it down to Neil and he put in the back of the net.”

Cosmos midfielder Marcos Senna left the game in the 9th minute with a hamstring tweak. Although his early departure took some steam out of New York’s step, the remainder of the half was a back-and-forth stalemate.

RailHawks goalkeeper Hunter Gilstrap had a largely solid game, highlighted in the 64th minute. First he lept onto loose ball in the box before it could cross the goal line. Seconds later he executed a leaping fingertip grab to snare another apparent score.

In the 72nd minute, second half Carolina sub Blake Wagner had an open angled shot from the left side of the box, similar to the goal he converted against Atlanta last month. However, this time the midfielder pushed his shot wide right. A minute later a curler from distance for the Cosmos’ Walter Restrepo carried just over the crossbar.

That man Shipalane appeared to put the game away in the 76th minute. Driving to his left off the right wing, Shipalane penetrated the box, found space, then uncorked a left-footer that curled past Maurer into the far net for a 2-0 lead.

“I got a ball from Neil pulling out wide,” Shipalane recalled. “I saw the defender coming out, so I cut inside and the goalkeeper was off his line a little bit. So I stayed composed, picked a spot and put the ball on my left foot, which doesn’t happen a lot. But I was able to pull it off.”

Defensive-for-offensive substitutions late in games are common. However, when RailHawks manager Colin Clarke took Novo out for loanee Dzenan Catic—who arrived in Raleigh last night on loan from the Philadelphia Union—and Shipalane out for Chris Nurse two minutes later, it removed two threats that kept the Cosmos defenders honest all night.

With the RailHawks now burrowing in for the win, the Cosmos began attacking at will. As the 4th official signaled five minutes of second half added time, a cross by Restrepo deflected off Danso in the six-yard, rebounded off the fingertips of a prone Gilstrap, then carromed back off Danso’s shin before crossing the goal line for a Keystone Cops-worthy own goal.

Gilstrap saved another near-own goal three minutes later. But at the death, a Cosmos free kick was cleared out to second-half sub Andres Flores atop the area arc. Flores’ one-touch blast found its way through the area, including Kupono Low in front of a shielded, and thus wrong-footed Gilstrap for the improbable equalizer.

As the Cosmos erupted into hysterics, the RailHawks players and coaches angrily protested the fact that the equalizer came nearly seven minutes into added time, a running clock being visible on the stadium’s video board.

“You want to play until the final whistle,” Shipalane said. “But for some reason they got seven minutes [of added time] and it was supposed to be five, and they scored their second goal in the seventh minute. I don’t know where [the referee] got all that time, but it’s very disappointing because we worked our socks off all week, and to give up three points we needed is very disappointing.”

Clarke split his concern between the referee’s timekeeping and his team’s inability to finish out an apparent win.

“A lot of extra time,” Clarke said. “I don’t know where we get six and a half minutes from. But we didn’t make good enough decisions. Take the ball into the corner to run a little bit of clock. Be smarter and better. We gave up too many easy fouls and gave them an opportunity to put balls in our box. Didn’t clear our lines well enough. It became a little bit of a panic.”

As for his late-game substitutions, Clarke said Shipalane began to feel his hamstring tighten a bit, while Novo hadn’t finished 90 minutes of play in some time.

“I’d loved to kept that group together the whole way through,” Clarke said, “but I thought [my team] was very organized and had a good shape to see the game out. But I forced into having to make some changes.”

That said …

“I didn’t think our subs were good enough when they came on,” Clarke admitted.

The Cosmos (4-3-0, 15 pts.) had lost all three of their previous visits to Cary since joining the new iteration of the North American Soccer League in 2013.

The RailHawks (1-4-2, 7 pts.) now hit the road for two straight NASL games, at the Fort Lauderdale Strikers next Saturday and at the Jacksonville Armada on May 30. Carolina’s next home game is Wednesday May 27, when it hosts the winner of the Charlotte Independence-Upward Stars FC game next week in the third round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.

In the meantime, Clarke chose to celebrate the return of some of those of-injured players and tonight’s glimpse what his team can become if and when it becomes healthy.

“We looked like a different team tonight than what we’ve done up to this point in the year,” Clarke said. “And I’m looking forward to moving ahead.”

BOX SCORE

LINEUPS

CAR: Gilstrap, Low, Danso, Tobin, Knight, Hlavaty, Thompson, Shipalane (Nurse-87th), Anderson (Wagner-60th), Albadawi, Novo (Catic-85th)

NYC: Maurer, Ayoze (Stokkelien-78th), Mendes (C), Roversio, Gorskie, Szetela (Flores-62nd), Senna (Moffat-10th), Fernandes, Raul, Restrepo, Mkosana

GOALS

CAR: Hlavaty (Shipalane) - (7th), Shipalane - (76th)

NYC: Danso (own goal) – (90th+), (Flores) – (90th+)

CAUTIONS

CAR: Low (45th), Gilstrap (74th), Wagner (79th), Nurse (90th)

NYC: Szetela (30th), Raúl (32nd), Ayoze (52nd), Mkosana (67th)

EJECTIONS

CAR: --

NYC: --