American Soccer Club New York Announces Title Sponsor, Looks Forward to 2025 NPSL Season
By Michael Lewis/NPSL.com
Putting together a soccer team from scratch certainly can be a daunting task.
Then multiply the degree of difficulty by several times when you’re trying to accomplish that on Long Island.
What’s that, you might say, doesn’t the New York City metropolitan area have hundreds of talented players from which to choose?
Yes, there is an abundance of adept and well-rounded players here. But many of those players have several options to play in leagues and teams. But making a full commitment to the American Soccer Club New York is demanding and at another level.
So, ASCNY head coach John Fitzgerald and his staff have been doing their homework while making some difficult player personnel decisions for the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) expansion team.
Fitzgerald noted that players have the option of performing for a myriad of area clubs.
“We’re flooded with so many different opportunities for players in this area,” he said, adding that there is another NPSL team just to the west in Brooklyn, a USL League Two side, and teams in the United Premier Soccer League and the Long Island Soccer Football League.
“Even though they’re beneath us, it’s still a lot of players who like to play there, because of its flexibility,” Fitzgerald added. “They can sign for multiple teams. They’re not fully committed to training. They have a real job, and they want to play. They can still play in those areas.”
Fitzgerald will be running the show as close to a professional club can, having a minimum of three, if not four, training sessions a week. That is a lot to be demanded of an amateur player.
“We’re asking for more because we’re a higher level,” he said. “This is a professionally run organization, so they have to be training [regularly]. They’ve got to be willing to commit to us and not to these other entities. That’s a little bit of a challenge. Some guys have to take a leap of faith and say,’ Well, I’ve been doing this for a while,’ like with the N.Y. Greek Americans and N.Y. Pancyprian Freedoms [two leading amateur teams in the area] who have been good for them. But sorry, if we’re going to try this, we want to get to the next level. That was a challenge.
The other part is recruiting. Recruiting is everything. As a coach in college for 28 years, I know all about recruiting.”
Former Adelphi University defender Matthias Adamek, who hails from Whitestone, Queens, west of the team’s home in Nassau County, has taken that leap of faith.
“It’s a lot of moving around, especially coming from Queens and hopping around Long Island,” he said. “I’m currently still doing that for a couple other clubs, and also for pickup to keep myself in shape. I really don’t see it as a chore. I enjoy doing it. It’s not like, oh, I have to go to practice today. It’s something that I’ve always enjoyed to do since I was a kid.”
It’s about chasing a dream. You don’t know where a successful season will lead to.
“If they’re serious, this is where they want to be,” Fitzgerald said. “A lot of these guys, they see this as part of their life. They’re chasing the dream. I fully encourage them to do that. That’s what I would have done if I was them. We didn’t have as many dreams to chase when I was younger, but these guys do.”
Fitzgerald was talking to the media after a press conference that introduced LifeVac, a choking rescue device credited with saving more than 3,700 lives globally, as a partner with ASC NY. The Long Island company are sponsors of the front of ASC NY jerseys throughout their inaugural season.
Arthur Lih, inventor and founder of LifeVac, played for ASC NY managing partner and general manager Jim Kilmeade at the Massapequa Soccer Club years ago.
“It’s an honor to be part of this new soccer club, as LifeVac has saved countless children — and there are many ways to save a life,” Lih said. “Sportsmanship and teamwork are among them. Jim Kilmeade was my coach, a mentor who inspired me, and these players and coaches have the power to do the same for today’s youth. There’s more than one way to save a life.”
“The American Soccer Club New York is extremely gratified to partner with a great Long Island-based company LifeVac,” Kilmeade stated. “Our players will proudly display the LifeVac logo both at home and across the country. I’ve known LifeVac founder Artie Lih since his days at Massapequa Soccer Club. He was a uniquely driven young man whose passion and work ethic have produced a product that saves thousands worldwide. Together, LifeVac and ASC NY will spread that message and save countless more lives.”
Only a certain number of players will wear the uniform with the LifeVac logo.
More than 150 players contacted the team prior to tryouts. That was whittled down to more than one hundred trying out, which included one session in sub-freezing temperatures in January. Fitzgerald and his staff looked at video while trying to separate the best from the middle of the pack.
“That’s spending a few hours on just a small batch of players to try to find out as much info as you can, and then watch them live in a tryout, which is only two hours long each time,” he said. “So that became a little challenging.”
And sometimes you have to be accommodating as well.
Last week St. John’s University head coach Dr. Dave Masur contacted Fitzgerald about two players he might be interested in.
“My roster is full, but Dave Masur says he’s got a couple good players we’re willing to look at,” he said.
Fitzgerald has been around the game long enough to realize there are times to keep your foot on the proverbial pedal and when to make a turn or even a U-turn. He has credentials at every level of the game, from youth to college to pro. He coached the Long Island Lady Riders to the W League crown and was an assistant coach of the New York Cosmos B’s NPSL championship side in 2015. He has coached the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association ODP boys. He also spent two decades as an assistant coach for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Fitzgerald also was director of coaching education for the Long Island Junior Soccer League for more than 20 years.
Since the team hadn’t played a game, Fitzgerald admitted that he didn’t know how it would fare on the pitch.
“I’m very optimistic, because I think we have good people within the team, like I talked about before,” he said. “I’ve interacted with them a lot over the last few months, just to try to get to know them a little bit more because the difficult part about such a short season is trying to build a culture. We don’t have a lot of time to spend together doing that. You have to be creative, try to find out yourself. We did it through Zoom meetings. If they’re local, I’ll meet them for coffee. We’ll grab lunch. I’ve been on the phone with them. When they make an appearance, try to hang out with them a little bit. I feel good about them as people, which I think we have to feel good about each other first before we get on the field.”
“We have a very cultural mix, players of varying backgrounds,” Fitzgerald added. “That comes into play, too. But I still think that we can be the type of team that can be entertaining. We’re going to play for possession. We’re going to look to press high when we can. Those are all things that sound great now, until we start getting out to play.”
There are several ways to measure success, whether it is a .500 season, reaching the playoffs, winning your conference, going deep in the playoffs and winning the national championship.
Fitzgerald said that playing in the postseason would be considered a “major success.”
“If we go deep into it, if we get there, I’m sure if you asked me the same question then, I’ll have a stronger feeling about who we are, what we’re about, and what I think we can do with that goal,” he added. “I do believe winning our conference is something that is a reachable goal.”
Midfielder Stalyn Acosta, a Brentwood, N.Y. native who performed for the Brentwood Soccer Club (LIJSL), is optimistic.
“I think we can take it all the way, win the nationals,” he said. “We have the talent for it. I think that’s our goal, but we’ve got to take it step by step. Each game we’ve got to play like it’s our last and just keep on working, head down.”
Because the team starts its season at home against Osner’s FC on Sunday, May 4 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., ASCNY might not have all of its players due to their college commitments.
“The first couple of games are probably going to look very different than the next few games, because we’re not going to have all of our personnel,” he said. “So, who’s available we can play with, and we’re going to use them to their strengths. Then we may have to change and tweak. That also depends on your opposition. It’s like driving when the road’s open, you can drive a certain way. When the road’s crowded, you’ve got to change how you operate a little bit.”
Adamek realized that his and his teammates’ responsibilities weren’t just for the present.
“It’s also giving us the opportunity to be the leaders of the next generation, too,” he said. “Like they had the youth kids coming to the club and watching us and signing autographs and all that stuff, kind of inspired the little kids. It’s the way that I got inspired by certain professional teams that I went to see play.”
Photo Credit: Sean McCaffrey/Long Island Soccer Magazine
