June 26, 2025 • 29 mins
Soccer lifers John Fitzgerald and Ronan Weissman share their journey from coaching youth teams to leading Long Island's soccer development, while discussing how the American Soccer Club NY is creating new pathways for talented players.
• LIJSL remains one of America's largest youth soccer leagues with 50,000+ registered players and about 100 community clubs
• The league is reviving its annual convention and the historic Liberty Cup tournament for its upcoming 60th anniversary
• Modern soccer development faces challenges with numerous competing leagues creating confusing pathways for players and families
• American Soccer Club NY demonstrates its commitment to youth development by signing 16-year-old Dylan Lopez from Ronkonkoma
• The club aims to rebuild Long Island as soccer's epicenter by developing pathways for local talent to reach professional and international levels
• Fighting Tomcats are making a playoff push with their final regular season games approaching
Thank you for listening! Visit us at ASCNewYork.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, good morning and welcome to the American Soccer
Club Zone on KJOY Radio 98.3 FMin Farmingdale, new York,
overlooking the beautifulshopping center and the Republic
Airport.
We're in the center of LongIsland and it's a great place.
This show is brought to you bythe incredible sponsors and
partners of the American SoccerClub New York, lifevac, our
Jersey Front partners.
(00:29):
Lifevac has saved over 4,000lives to date.
We're proud to have them on ourjersey.
The CEO and founder, artie Lee,and his LifeVacers around the
country are on a mission to savelives.
The American Soccer Club arepartners in that noble endeavor.
Orlin Cohen Orthopedic GroupDivision of the Northwell Health
are jersey-backed partners.
Incredible Orlin Co andOrthopedic Group Division has
(00:49):
state-of-the-art facilitiesacross the island.
They also help athletes getback in the game, especially
these days We'll talk about theAmerican Soccer Club.
We have a lot of athletes thatthey're getting back in the game
quickly.
We're proud to say is Bologna,italy-based Macron, their
official apparel partner.
We only wear Macron.
Their motto is to be your ownhero.
We love it.
And Macron US headquarters isin Bridgeport, connecticut, a
(01:13):
short ferry ride from PortJefferson.
We also have great sponsors inthe Bargino Law Firm in Garden
City, new York, long Island'sbest personal injury law firm
and A-Turf America's topsynthetic turf manufacturer.
A-turf fields last an industry14.5 years, from the Buffalo
Bills Stadium to the Sousa FCOrland and Cohen Sports Complex
in Central Islip.
(01:33):
A-turf provides a playingsurface most like natural grass
in pristine condition.
And BQE Soccer Partners thearchitects of the American
Soccer Club behind the scenes mypartner, kevin Reardon and I
put Soccer Partners together tolaunch this American Soccer Club
and finally, todd Shapiro andAssociates, the top PR agency in
(01:54):
the country.
Todd is outside of Jim Vogt,maybe the most connected man in
America.
To learn more about ASC NewYork, go to ASCNewYorkcom Buy
tickets.
Our next match is 7-5,.
July 5th, saturday night, 7 pm,critical must-win game against
Hofstra at Hofstra UniversityCaptain's Field.
(02:20):
Our guests today are two soccerlifers, two people that have
grown up in different countriesbut have come together in
partnership, not only in LongIsland Metro New York Soccer but
now with the Long Island JuniorSoccer League.
And we have John Fitzgerald,sporting director and director
of coaching, education headcoach, and also the head coach
of American Soccer Club New York.
John will tell you abouthimself a longtime college coach
, youth NASL, usl and then he'lllet you know how we got to this
(02:45):
point where he's the head coachthat I've chosen for the
initial season of the AmericanSoccer Club.
By the way, my name is JimKilmeade and I'm the general
manager managing partner of theAmerican Soccer Club.
We'll talk about some of thethings that we do in conjunction
with our guests today, soon.
And our other guest is RonanWeissman, one of the most
well-known soccer gentlemenprofessionals in this New York
(03:07):
metropolitan area.
He hails from Dublin, ireland,I believe.
What's the city?
Dundalk?
Oh, dundalk.
I scratched that from therecord.
It's Dundalk.
It starts with a D.
I got it wrong.
He's also the LIGSL technicaldirector.
He was a great college playerat Adelphi University.
He had a great pro career aswell, and you'll hear more about
those.
(03:27):
We have some great topics today, but I'd like to welcome
everybody to the show, john andRonan welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Thanks, jim, thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Good morning.
So, john, let's start with you.
You and I met, I believe,coaching 13 and 14-year-olds in
the Long Island Junior SoccerLeague as the only non-parent
coaches, I think, at that timethe largest league in the United
States of America, the LIJSLyou for the Hicksville Hawks and
me for the Massapequa Celtic.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Remember those days, yeah, we had some good rivals.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, name a couple of great players that played for
you, and I'll name a few thatplayed for me.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, so that was a good start, jimmy, for us.
As you said, long Island JuniorSoccer League was one of the
largest leagues in the countryand is still, to this day, one
of the largest youth soccerleagues in the country, getting
ready to celebrate our 60thanniversary coming up next year.
So that's a big deal.
So that says a lot about thestaying power and the importance
of the league and about youthplayers on Long Island and, as
(04:20):
you know, in American SoccerClub, most of our players came
through the LIJSL ranks and arenow playing for us, so they have
great starts in the communityclubs.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, it's true, and we started as young coaches in
the LIJSL.
One of our common denominatorsand mentors in life was the late
great Peter Collins, us SoccerHall of Famer, from Hicksville
via, I believe, sligo, irelandI'm not too sure but we'll have
to check on that and a longtimeLoco executive.
(04:50):
Peter Collins inspired all ofus and created what I consider
the 107 Derby, which isn't whatit used to be Massapego,
hicksville, but it's still there.
And, rona, welcome to the show.
You came to us via Ireland intocollege ranks and then never
left Long Island.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Correct yeah, for all my sins.
Yeah, I was recruited by BobMontgomery, came over to Adelphi
, spent four great years there,then stayed on to do my graduate
degree at Adelphi also, andthat was when I first started
getting into coaching as agraduate assistant, and I've
been living here ever sinceLifetime.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And you're in East Meadow.
Now, john, you're in Smithtownand I'm in Northport.
So you went across an ocean andJohn went a little bit to
Suffolk County.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I went to another county.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And I did the same.
So we had a probably 25-milecommute and the room was 3,000.
But 25-mile commute and Roman'swas 3,000.
But here we are in the sameroom together, so it's great.
So today we want to talk about alittle bit of the history of
the LIJSL, what's happeningtoday, where the LIJSL is going,
and you guys have a leadershiprole in a great league that has
(05:59):
given me a lot of opportunitiesand a league that I've tried to
give as much back to as possible, with Kevin Reardon and others
over the years helping with thesoccer park development, the old
Soccer Zone TV show these areall great ideas of Peter Collins
and he somehow could getanybody to do anything at any
point in time, no matter howmuch time you didn't have.
You just said, okay, where doyou want me?
And that's what it is today.
It's hard in this new marketwith volunteers and time, but
(06:22):
it's still being driven by humanbeings and great people.
And so let's talk a little bit,a little history, and then
we'll get into what's going ontoday.
And the great news is theAmerican Soccer Club is a club
that was formed by Kevin Reardonand I and a great group of what
I call Band of Brothers localLong Island, new York,
metropolitan Connecticutinvestors that have a vision to
(06:44):
specifically put the Long IslandMetro New York area back as the
leadership, the mecca of soccerdevelopment and professional
soccer in the country.
We had that title as kids.
The Cosmos helped us get thattitle, helped inspire the Long
Island Junior Soccer League,gordon Bradley, living in
Massapequa Pele, coming to thearea.
The rest is history and it'sone of the reasons we're sitting
here.
(07:04):
But I think that because of theconfusing nature of soccer,
which we need more than a halfhour to do for today's show, to
figure out what's happeningtoday, I don't know if we hold
that title anymore, but we knowthat there's a lot of players
here in our clubs.
American Soccer Club New Yorkis here to work with LIJSL, all
its member clubs, academies,whatever you want to call them.
If you're for soccer, we'rebehind you to develop the next
(07:26):
players that we think we canlaunch into European careers and
to the US national team.
And we'll talk about a coupleof major moves that have been
made over the last two weeks,with the signing of Dylan Lopez,
16 years old, which is right toour manifesto.
It goes right to the bottomline.
But LIJSL, just talk about yourposition, john, and then I'm
going to run into where you aretoday and then we'll talk about
the challenges and also somereally cool developments in
(07:48):
LIJSL, with the return toLiberty Cup, the conventions
coming back post-COVID, so we'lltalk about that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But start with your role and we'll take it from
there.
My role is the title ofsporting director, so I oversee
the operations of the league.
There's a board of directorsthat oversees the league itself,
who I report to, and then wehave a full service, fully
staffed office.
As you mentioned, Ronan is ourtechnical director, and then we
have a full office.
(08:16):
We've got an operations manager, program and events manager,
full-time bookkeeper.
We've got a soccer park inPlainview Peter Collins Soccer
Park.
We've got a person who worksthere full-time that oversees
that, and then we have otherpeople who also work in the
office full-time.
So we've got about a dozenfull-time employees and then a
lot of people that help us outcommittee members and how many
(08:36):
kids roughly in the league thesedays?
So there's about 50,000 playersregistered through LIJSL and
there is over 100,000 kids onLong Island playing soccer.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Through East New York State.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, but Long Island alone has about 100,000, and we
have probably a little bit morethan half of them registered
through us.
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Ron, why don't you tell us your role, how you and
John work together and how youwork within the structure of the
LIJSL?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Sure, my position is the technical director for the
league.
I also am the director ofcoaching for our academy program
, which was formerly known asthe select program.
Our academy play in what wasformerly known as the Super Y
League, which is now called USLYouth, and that's a supplemental
program that trains and playsthroughout the summer.
(09:24):
We're just this weekend comingup as our first weekend of games
.
So kids, you know, from allaround the island, from uh, you
know every club you couldimagine.
You know they come to, they tryout from ages u10 all the way
up to u19.
We select teams to boys andgirls to play in the league and
then we go forward and the teamsplay probably anywhere from
(09:44):
eight to ten games throughoutthe summer and then middle of
August they go back to the clubs.
If, during the season, any ofthose teams win their division,
they qualify to go to the USLNationals which is held in
December down in Tampa Florida,and we've been quite successful
in sending teams in there.
We had three last year, we hadfive the year before, so we've
(10:07):
always had teams make it tonationals.
So we're hoping to do thatagain this year.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's amazing because you mentioned the select program
.
A lot of us had an opportunityto coach.
If you got a chance to coach orinvited to coach in the Long
Island Junior Select Program,you had to be one of the either
up-and-coming coaches or one ofthe top college coaches in the
area.
And I remember the days,primarily in my early 20s, when
I was in college at Hofstra,that the Select Programs were as
(10:35):
good as the State Programs andthat's how much talent was here.
And we'll talk more about mytheory that I'm kind of trying
to see if it's still backed uptoday.
Do we have more good playersthan we've ever had as a country
and definitely as an island?
I don't know if we have moregreat players, and I think
that's a topic we'll get intonext, because that's probably
three shows, but we'll talkabout just one.
(10:55):
So yeah, so the LIJSLincredible history 60 years next
year, john right, yeah.
And then the programs have hadto adjust to what's going on in
US soccer, which is a lot ofgood but a lot of not so good,
but a lot of people chasing thedollar, which we think is a good
thing, but at the same timesometimes that's not driven by
what's the best thing to do forthe sport.
John, what do you think thebiggest challenge is for the
(11:17):
Long Island Junior Soccer Leagueright now?
Which was the only way you wentthere, which was the only way
you went?
There was no other league,there was no other upturn.
You got to Division I and LIJhad seven or eight divisions.
It was very orderly, verystructured.
You made the select team, madethe state team, the regional
team, national team.
Now it's a bit of a cluster andhow is LIJ trying to adapt to
(11:38):
that?
Because I think it has recently.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
The market's grown itself right.
So there's a lot of privateclubs, pay-to-play clubs.
We talked about Peter Collinsbefore, Can't go without saying.
So Peter Collins, he was fromIreland, but he might have been
the proudest American that I'veever met.
As well from Hicksville andthat's where I grew up and
that's Mr Collins was one of myfirst coaches, so he introduced
me to the game and then learnedto love the game even as a young
(12:05):
player.
And, as you said, as we all gotolder, Mr Collins knew how to
tap into the right people andyou could never say no to him,
and it was based on volunteerism.
He was very proud of that.
As the market changed and youknow, as he got older and
generations changed, as you justsaid, volunteerism is not as
(12:26):
plentiful.
So now you know most peoplethey'll do the work, but you
also have to make sure thatyou're paying for that.
So Long Island Junior SoccerLeague has tried to keep true to
the roots of community clubs.
We have about 100 clubs underour umbrella, which is amazing.
That's what makes us one of thelargest leagues in the country
(12:46):
and those are community clubsand that's where most young
players get their start and it'sthrough those community clubs
who are run by presidents andboards who are volunteers
themselves.
So they're doing the yeoman'swork.
They're doing the amount ofwork that nobody's paying for.
I mean, I could tell you, in thelast 24 hours I had three
presidents that I spoke topersonally who are having issues
(13:07):
, and each one of them made apoint to say look, I'm taking
valuable time away from myfamily to do this.
However, I still love this andI want to help out the kids in
my community, but sometimes youknow some people who are asking
them to do that extra work don'tunderstand everything they go
through.
So thank goodness for peoplelike that that are still
involved in the game.
So we've got a mix ofvolunteers, We've got a mix of
(13:30):
pay to play, We've got a mix oftrainers and professional
coaches, so the game itself hasgrown to such a great level.
As you know, we're hosting theWorld Cup next year.
This is the second time ourcountry has hosted the World Cup
, so as a country, ourexpectation, as in anything, is
that it goes to the highestlevel and the same thing here
locally.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And now with all these new leagues like EDP and
the.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
League du Jour, the US.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Club coming into play .
It's like whatever 10, 15, 20years ago, I don't know.
Whatever it was.
It does make you, and I'llweigh in on one thing as a coach
in the North Port Coal HarborSoccer Club for my last son
going through the program, jack,and my stepson James Diaz, to
keep our team together with MarkLugris as kind of our head
coach at the time, from 2009 to2019, it was unrecognizable
(14:17):
where this team played.
It was so difficult to keep ittogether.
You have academies dropping inyour lap like Barcelona,
valencia, boca Juniors, allplaying in the US club banner.
Then the EDP comes into play,trying to take the top divisions
away.
So it became very difficult asa volunteer coach to even and
I'm predisposed to actuallyunderstand this and I had a
(14:38):
deferred mark.
I'm like what do we do with theteam?
I didn't want to pull it out ofLA JSL.
We finally got up to Division Iand now all Division I left.
So there's some real issues.
Now it looks like the leaguehas kind of rebounded, based on
what I can see from the outside,and found its niche again, and
I think a lot of clubs arehaving to do that too.
They have to say you know whatthis top 5% of players and I've
(15:01):
told you guys this offline Peterasked us to do.
Peter Collins asked Kevin and Ito do a focus group I mean 20
years ago and we came back withthe results of the focus group
and he said all right, what'syour results?
And we all said well, you'respending.
The biggest problem we have isyou're spending 95% of your time
worrying about 5% of yourplayers, and he asked me what
the answer was he goes stopdoing it.
(15:22):
However, it's hard to stopdoing it, but it's the same
problem today.
So I don't know if there's anyanswers, ronan, but outside of
trying to wish for the good olddays, it doesn't do us any good.
So do you have any thoughts onthis right now?
Are you optimistic?
Do you feel this is ever goingto get any better?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, definitely the good old days are gone, that's
for sure.
But I am optimistic about thefuture.
The development of the game atthe higher levels has definitely
improved, but there is still,you know, the alphabet soup of
leagues that's kind of there atthe bottom, and you know to wade
(16:01):
through that to find out what'sthe best pathway.
You know for your team, forexample, what would be the best
pathway.
It can be challenging sometimesand the powers that be US
soccer and so on, if they bringin maybe a different structure,
more of a permit system similarto what they do in Europe, it
(16:22):
might help clarify a pathway forkids at different levels,
because you're always going tohave that.
And the better playersrightfullyfully so should go to
the higher level leagues andteams and that's how we develop
those players to improve ournational team and so on and so
forth.
So I am optimistic about it.
There's a lot of good peopleinvolved in the game.
(16:43):
I think that will persevere inthe end.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Let me just let everybody know.
If you're just tuning in, thisis Jim Kilmeade, the host of
American Soccer Club Zone, atthe beautiful studios of KJOY
98.3 FM in Farmedale, new York,talking to John Fitzgerald and
Rona Weissman, the leadership ofthe LAJSL and guys with
extensive backgrounds.
Yeah, we can't go back to thegood old days.
(17:08):
So now it's man.
What are we going to do?
So let's just focus on a coupleof things that are happening
that have come.
The board directors and youguys and your staff have come
back to a couple of new excitingdevelopments.
The convention is coming back,which was a huge piece of soccer
, business and development onthe island, and the Liberty Cup,
which was you know.
Tell people about that, john.
(17:28):
Why don't you just bring us upto the good news of next year?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
so the convention this year too actually, if
people don't know, theconvention is one of the largest
uh youth soccer conventions inthe country.
That long island junior soccerleague hosted for many years at
the huntington hilton inmelville, new york, um.
And then what happened was whenCOVID hit, the convention was
forced to shut down and thenhadn't returned since.
(17:54):
So we've decided internallythat this is something that
should come back.
The presidents have mentionedit.
We have a lot of our ownconstituents that really enjoy
that.
When you come together, it's ameeting of the minds.
We bring in speakers, we bringin clinicians, we hold coaching
education courses.
We have meetings.
Presidents get to get togetherin smaller meetings as kind of
(18:17):
like you talked about focusgroup.
They get to talk about some ofthe things that are more
intimate to them instead of ahuge setting.
Coaches and players come,there's some vendors there, so
there's a bit of buzz andexcitement, and it's held late
February, early March each yearto kick off the spring season.
So it's always been somethingthat has been a positive.
Other leagues come in, you knowmeetings from leaders around
(18:40):
the state and around the region.
So that's coming back, andespecially in time to mark our
60th anniversary, which is a bigdeal.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And you have the Liberty Cup coming back, which I
know has had Irish connections,Russian connections.
Ronan, tell us a little bitabout the Liberty Cup.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Actually, I'll just say first the Liberty Cup is
coming back, because Ronan saidhe wanted it to come back.
Really he's the one thatstepped up and said we've got to
get this going.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Tell us about it so the Liberty Cup started back in
the 80s.
It's small to begin with andgrew from there and, as you
mentioned, an arm of it went toIreland and another one to the
old USSR and then it kind offaded away and didn't exist for
(19:28):
a while.
So I felt, you know, for ouracademy clubs teams, I'm sorry.
We have a program where thoseteams play in two tournaments
throughout the summer and weused to send them to travel up
to Rhode Island or Connecticutor over to New Jersey.
So I thought, instead ofputting people on the road in
the middle of summer, let'sbring people here, have our
(19:50):
academy teams play here andbring in teams local teams or
teams from outside of our directarea and grow it from there the
first year that it's reallycoming back.
We realize that it's going tobe a slow grow but just like all
the other stuff that we'redoing at the league, we put the
(20:11):
time and investment into it.
It's going to bear fruit in theend.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Well, that's great.
Well, you know what?
To me, I just like the wholeidea.
We're all sitting here,everybody complains about, oh,
what's going on with thisacademy and this, that, and
everybody's worried about whateverybody else is doing.
At one point they controlthings yourself.
So kudos to you and the leagueto support you in getting this
back on Long Island.
(20:35):
I think that it's a good step inthe way of reestablishing an
order and keeping the relevanceof the league and just starting
a new entity with a greathistory and I know from the
American Soccer Club standpoint,we're going to back that and be
involved in any way that canhelp you.
Obviously, it goes very closelyin line with what we're doing is
trying to establish Long Islandand New York metro area as the
epicenter of soccer, and we dohave a connection already
between LIJSL and this littleclub that's becoming a big club
(20:59):
called Rexham, and I think withRexham I feel a symbiotic
relationship with them, becauseif people that hear me speak
about our new American soccerclub, new York and the MPSL,
which I'll describe what that isin a minute is that we're a
small club with a big plan, well, wrexham was a small,
incredibly historic club andthey've got a big plan and look
what they've done and nowthey're a household word and
there's a camp now down in myhometown of Massapequa, at Burns
(21:22):
Park, where the American SoccerClub trains all the time and
they'll be the first camps thisyear.
And how do people register forthose camps, john?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
So it's on our site, lijsoccercom Gotcha.
They can find it there and it'sput out.
There's a link there and theyhave the dates in there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Right and you're going to find that link also on
ascnewyorkcom.
Let's get into ASU New Yorkright now.
We're at the tail end of theinitial season of an endeavor
that started the beginning ofthis year, really never had an
offseason, and we hit the groundrunning at Hofstra University,
my alma mater at Captain'sFields, a great soccer venue.
Our crowds have increased pergame.
We've had some of the mostchallenging weather, but people
(22:00):
have come out in the rain, thecold and now the 103 degrees.
So we've seen it all.
I wonder what the July 5th isgoing to be.
It can only be cooler than thelast game.
But you know, john brought youin as the head coach.
You've put a great stafftogether with Juan Palacio, vic
Muntin, van Koch and RobMelichio, and we've got a great
(22:21):
medical team behind us, prettymuch made up of all local guys,
and everyone here lives on LongIsland.
But how would you encapsulatethat story real quick and your
experience with this club?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Well, first of all, these local guys are all
accomplished coaches.
You know well.
Our one coach, our one youngcoach, our match analysis person
is Ben Koch.
He's a young up-and-comer, butthe other coaches are
established, have been around,so they bring a ton of
experience.
So you know, I appreciate thatmanagement has given me the
(22:52):
freedom to go pick my staff, beable to put together what we
think is the best staff that wecan have for our first season.
And, as you mentioned before,I've been involved in USL, in
NASL and NPSL, very proud to saythat when I was with the New
York Cosmos, I was coaching ourCosmos B team, our reserve team,
with Aleko Eskandarian and wewon the national championship
(23:14):
that year in front of 18,000fans down in Chattanooga.
So, cosmos, you know, we had agreat team in NESL as well under
Gio Savarisi, so we had a goodorganization running through.
Having been involved with teamsin those leagues, I can say
that this has the closest feelto the top professional level,
(23:36):
mainly because, in thebackground and, as you know,
you're one of the gentlemen,you're not just one of the
owners, you're the generalmanager you and Kevin have
stepped back and let us do whatwe need to do on the soccer side
and given us tons of supportthrough Orlin and Cohen, who are
just amazing, fantastic.
I've already been on the phonewith them twice this morning
about players.
Their follow-up is tremendous.
(23:56):
So anyway, it's been going verywell for us, very happy with
the players we have.
You mentioned a young playerthat we just brought in, so
we're looking to help developyoung players as well as bring
in experience.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Let's talk about that young player.
He's a big story.
The New York Post recentlybecame intrigued with the
American Soccer Club of New Yorkand our development and wrote a
great story and it came out tothe Cradle of Aviation.
We took a great iconic picturethat we're sharing online now of
everybody outside the originalFighting Tomcat, which is the
nickname of the team, drawing onthe history of aviation,
(24:30):
history of Long Island andGrumman Corporation, which most
everybody's family worked for,especially in Hicksville, and we
have an iconic picture next tothat at Fighting Tomcat Jet with
all of our team.
But one of the biggestdevelopments is that the club,
instead of just going out tohire another 30-year-old
superstar that can justguarantee us getting the
playoffs, we brought in a28-year-old star that's already
(24:55):
scored his first goal in a week.
We also did what we said wewere going to do we're going to
give local Long Island players,and so we brought in, we signed
Dylan Lopez from Ronkonkoma,lake Grove, newfield Soccer Club
and Kinequad High School, andDylan has played in two games,
john.
So you know, when we broughthim in together as an
organization we never said playhim, just let's get him in there
(25:19):
, see if he can handle it.
Let's give him an experience.
Let's invest in him, take achance.
So how did he get from thatpoint to the point where you had
enough confidence to put him inat an away game, in a tough one
, a 1-1 draw and then again athome in another must-win game
for a 1-1 draw, and he held hisown.
But was it nerve-wracking ordid you know that he could do it
?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well, it wasn't nerve-wracking for me, but I
think he was a bit nervoushimself, as a 16-year-old should
be playing at that level.
It was kind of out of necessityalso.
So it's good timing for him,because we did have some
injuries, unfortunately, so wehad the need for a central
midfield player, which is wherehe plays and does it very well.
The older players have done agreat job of bringing him in,
(26:00):
putting their arm around him,keeping him grounded, helping
him out, and he is mature,beyond his years already and has
handled it very well.
So he got on the field.
He was mostly a positive, hadpositive impact for us, so we're
very happy with him and howhe's handling it.
And now our job is to keep agood eye on him, take good care
of him and help him to grow andget to that next level, whether
(26:21):
it's with us or pushing him onto a higher level, if that's the
case.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Because, as you know, that's what we're here for, and
he did say in his interviewthat his ultimate goal would be
to play in Spain.
So, ultimately, we're going tohave players that we're going to
look at.
Who's the next?
Joe Scali, us national teamplayer from Lake Grove playing
in Bundesliga for BündchenGlambach.
We think that Dylan is ourfirst try to reach down.
We will have a fully fundedyouth academy.
Ronan, give me a quick summaryfrom what you've seen, not just
(26:50):
outside the club, and what'syour viewpoint in having played
for the Rough Riders with me,having coached the Rough Riders
with me and played for multipleother professional teams, give
us your thoughts.
Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I came to one of the games I brought my kids.
I live close to Hofstra so it'sa convenient trip for me.
You know, my first impressionscoming in was that the
environment.
It was very, very professional.
I was pleasantly surprised withthe way it was set up.
I sat and watched the game andI look at it probably with a
different set of eyes than mostpeople.
(27:20):
I was overall impressed fromthe layout of the field, the
promotional stuff that you hadaround the field.
I looked at the referee crewand how they behave, and the
teams and how they were playingthe level of play.
Even the coaches on thesideline I'm watching them and
how they were playing the levelof play.
And you know even the coacheson the sideline I'm watching,
you know them and how they'reacting.
It's just how I look at thegame and I was very impressed.
(27:43):
So I hope it and I'm sure itwill go on to bigger and better
things in the future.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, it's been a dynamic.
It's been a real dynamic year.
But that's an interestingassessment.
Great respect for your opinion,ronan and John, you know.
Two more games to go thisSaturday at Yale Reece Stadium
versus New Haven United Team.
We beat 2-1, our first victoryever.
And then we finish with thoseguys too, so we're not going to
(28:08):
be too fond of each other afterthese next two weeks.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
We're in the playoff hunt too.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
so Alright, quick thoughts on that before we wrap
up our show the boys are all in.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
The culture is great.
The boys are all sold.
I mean they're chatting aboutit more than we are.
We certainly don't push that.
We want to.
You know we control our effortand attitude.
We don't control the results.
So they know that.
They understand that.
I have to tell you the traininghas been the highest level.
They're very professional aboutit and they love the
competition.
So looking forward to thesenext two games.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Well, great job, john and Rona.
Thank you for coming in today.
Lhsl straight ahead andAmerican Soft Club New York
straight ahead.
To find out information, go toASCNewYorkcom about the American
Soft Club.
You can watch us on a livestream with Game and Frame, a
great broadcasting team we'vedeveloped at Hofstra University
and we'll be able to link onthat.
Thank you to our sponsors,lifevac, roland Korn, orthopedic
(29:01):
Group, division of Northwelland Macron, our great Italian
partners, who make us look goodon the field.
So straight ahead for theAmerican Soccer Club as we make
a playoff run by the time we getto our next show, we'll update
you on that.
My name is Jim Kilmeade, yourhost, and it's been a pleasure.
Thank you to KJOY 98.3.
Hey, good morning and welcome to the American Soccer
Club Zone on KJOY Radio 98.3 FMin Farmingdale, new York,
overlooking the beautifulshopping center and the Republic
Airport.
We're in the center of LongIsland and it's a great place.
This show is brought to you bythe incredible sponsors and
partners of the American SoccerClub New York, lifevac, our
Jersey Front partners.
(00:29):
Lifevac has saved over 4,000lives to date.
We're proud to have them on ourjersey.
The CEO and founder, artie Lee,and his LifeVacers around the
country are on a mission to savelives.
The American Soccer Club arepartners in that noble endeavor.
Orlin Cohen Orthopedic GroupDivision of the Northwell Health
are jersey-backed partners.
Incredible Orlin Co andOrthopedic Group Division has
(00:49):
state-of-the-art facilitiesacross the island.
They also help athletes getback in the game, especially
these days We'll talk about theAmerican Soccer Club.
We have a lot of athletes thatthey're getting back in the game
quickly.
We're proud to say is Bologna,italy-based Macron, their
official apparel partner.
We only wear Macron.
Their motto is to be your ownhero.
We love it.
And Macron US headquarters isin Bridgeport, connecticut, a
(01:13):
short ferry ride from PortJefferson.
We also have great sponsors inthe Bargino Law Firm in Garden
City, new York, long Island'sbest personal injury law firm
and A-Turf America's topsynthetic turf manufacturer.
A-turf fields last an industry14.5 years, from the Buffalo
Bills Stadium to the Sousa FCOrland and Cohen Sports Complex
in Central Islip.
(01:33):
A-turf provides a playingsurface most like natural grass
in pristine condition.
And BQE Soccer Partners thearchitects of the American
Soccer Club behind the scenes mypartner, kevin Reardon and I
put Soccer Partners together tolaunch this American Soccer Club
and finally, todd Shapiro andAssociates, the top PR agency in
(01:54):
the country.
Todd is outside of Jim Vogt,maybe the most connected man in
America.
To learn more about ASC NewYork, go to ASCNewYorkcom Buy
tickets.
Our next match is 7-5,.
July 5th, saturday night, 7 pm,critical must-win game against
Hofstra at Hofstra UniversityCaptain's Field.
(02:20):
Our guests today are two soccerlifers, two people that have
grown up in different countriesbut have come together in
partnership, not only in LongIsland Metro New York Soccer but
now with the Long Island JuniorSoccer League.
And we have John Fitzgerald,sporting director and director
of coaching, education headcoach, and also the head coach
of American Soccer Club New York.
John will tell you abouthimself a longtime college coach
, youth NASL, usl and then he'lllet you know how we got to this
(02:45):
point where he's the head coachthat I've chosen for the
initial season of the AmericanSoccer Club.
By the way, my name is JimKilmeade and I'm the general
manager managing partner of theAmerican Soccer Club.
We'll talk about some of thethings that we do in conjunction
with our guests today, soon.
And our other guest is RonanWeissman, one of the most
well-known soccer gentlemenprofessionals in this New York
(03:07):
metropolitan area.
He hails from Dublin, ireland,I believe.
What's the city?
Dundalk?
Oh, dundalk.
I scratched that from therecord.
It's Dundalk.
It starts with a D.
I got it wrong.
He's also the LIGSL technicaldirector.
He was a great college playerat Adelphi University.
He had a great pro career aswell, and you'll hear more about
those.
(03:27):
We have some great topics today, but I'd like to welcome
everybody to the show, john andRonan welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Thanks, jim, thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Good morning.
So, john, let's start with you.
You and I met, I believe,coaching 13 and 14-year-olds in
the Long Island Junior SoccerLeague as the only non-parent
coaches, I think, at that timethe largest league in the United
States of America, the LIJSLyou for the Hicksville Hawks and
me for the Massapequa Celtic.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Remember those days, yeah, we had some good rivals.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, name a couple of great players that played for
you, and I'll name a few thatplayed for me.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, so that was a good start, jimmy, for us.
As you said, long Island JuniorSoccer League was one of the
largest leagues in the countryand is still, to this day, one
of the largest youth soccerleagues in the country, getting
ready to celebrate our 60thanniversary coming up next year.
So that's a big deal.
So that says a lot about thestaying power and the importance
of the league and about youthplayers on Long Island and, as
(04:20):
you know, in American SoccerClub, most of our players came
through the LIJSL ranks and arenow playing for us, so they have
great starts in the communityclubs.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, it's true, and we started as young coaches in
the LIJSL.
One of our common denominatorsand mentors in life was the late
great Peter Collins, us SoccerHall of Famer, from Hicksville
via, I believe, sligo, irelandI'm not too sure but we'll have
to check on that and a longtimeLoco executive.
(04:50):
Peter Collins inspired all ofus and created what I consider
the 107 Derby, which isn't whatit used to be Massapego,
hicksville, but it's still there.
And, rona, welcome to the show.
You came to us via Ireland intocollege ranks and then never
left Long Island.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Correct yeah, for all my sins.
Yeah, I was recruited by BobMontgomery, came over to Adelphi
, spent four great years there,then stayed on to do my graduate
degree at Adelphi also, andthat was when I first started
getting into coaching as agraduate assistant, and I've
been living here ever sinceLifetime.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And you're in East Meadow.
Now, john, you're in Smithtownand I'm in Northport.
So you went across an ocean andJohn went a little bit to
Suffolk County.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I went to another county.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And I did the same.
So we had a probably 25-milecommute and the room was 3,000.
But 25-mile commute and Roman'swas 3,000.
But here we are in the sameroom together, so it's great.
So today we want to talk about alittle bit of the history of
the LIJSL, what's happeningtoday, where the LIJSL is going,
and you guys have a leadershiprole in a great league that has
(05:59):
given me a lot of opportunitiesand a league that I've tried to
give as much back to as possible, with Kevin Reardon and others
over the years helping with thesoccer park development, the old
Soccer Zone TV show these areall great ideas of Peter Collins
and he somehow could getanybody to do anything at any
point in time, no matter howmuch time you didn't have.
You just said, okay, where doyou want me?
And that's what it is today.
It's hard in this new marketwith volunteers and time, but
(06:22):
it's still being driven by humanbeings and great people.
And so let's talk a little bit,a little history, and then
we'll get into what's going ontoday.
And the great news is theAmerican Soccer Club is a club
that was formed by Kevin Reardonand I and a great group of what
I call Band of Brothers localLong Island, new York,
metropolitan Connecticutinvestors that have a vision to
(06:44):
specifically put the Long IslandMetro New York area back as the
leadership, the mecca of soccerdevelopment and professional
soccer in the country.
We had that title as kids.
The Cosmos helped us get thattitle, helped inspire the Long
Island Junior Soccer League,gordon Bradley, living in
Massapequa Pele, coming to thearea.
The rest is history and it'sone of the reasons we're sitting
here.
(07:04):
But I think that because of theconfusing nature of soccer,
which we need more than a halfhour to do for today's show, to
figure out what's happeningtoday, I don't know if we hold
that title anymore, but we knowthat there's a lot of players
here in our clubs.
American Soccer Club New Yorkis here to work with LIJSL, all
its member clubs, academies,whatever you want to call them.
If you're for soccer, we'rebehind you to develop the next
(07:26):
players that we think we canlaunch into European careers and
to the US national team.
And we'll talk about a coupleof major moves that have been
made over the last two weeks,with the signing of Dylan Lopez,
16 years old, which is right toour manifesto.
It goes right to the bottomline.
But LIJSL, just talk about yourposition, john, and then I'm
going to run into where you aretoday and then we'll talk about
the challenges and also somereally cool developments in
(07:48):
LIJSL, with the return toLiberty Cup, the conventions
coming back post-COVID, so we'lltalk about that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But start with your role and we'll take it from
there.
My role is the title ofsporting director, so I oversee
the operations of the league.
There's a board of directorsthat oversees the league itself,
who I report to, and then wehave a full service, fully
staffed office.
As you mentioned, Ronan is ourtechnical director, and then we
have a full office.
(08:16):
We've got an operations manager, program and events manager,
full-time bookkeeper.
We've got a soccer park inPlainview Peter Collins Soccer
Park.
We've got a person who worksthere full-time that oversees
that, and then we have otherpeople who also work in the
office full-time.
So we've got about a dozenfull-time employees and then a
lot of people that help us outcommittee members and how many
(08:36):
kids roughly in the league thesedays?
So there's about 50,000 playersregistered through LIJSL and
there is over 100,000 kids onLong Island playing soccer.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Through East New York State.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, but Long Island alone has about 100,000, and we
have probably a little bit morethan half of them registered
through us.
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Ron, why don't you tell us your role, how you and
John work together and how youwork within the structure of the
LIJSL?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Sure, my position is the technical director for the
league.
I also am the director ofcoaching for our academy program
, which was formerly known asthe select program.
Our academy play in what wasformerly known as the Super Y
League, which is now called USLYouth, and that's a supplemental
program that trains and playsthroughout the summer.
(09:24):
We're just this weekend comingup as our first weekend of games
.
So kids, you know, from allaround the island, from uh, you
know every club you couldimagine.
You know they come to, they tryout from ages u10 all the way
up to u19.
We select teams to boys andgirls to play in the league and
then we go forward and the teamsplay probably anywhere from
(09:44):
eight to ten games throughoutthe summer and then middle of
August they go back to the clubs.
If, during the season, any ofthose teams win their division,
they qualify to go to the USLNationals which is held in
December down in Tampa Florida,and we've been quite successful
in sending teams in there.
We had three last year, we hadfive the year before, so we've
(10:07):
always had teams make it tonationals.
So we're hoping to do thatagain this year.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's amazing because you mentioned the select program
.
A lot of us had an opportunityto coach.
If you got a chance to coach orinvited to coach in the Long
Island Junior Select Program,you had to be one of the either
up-and-coming coaches or one ofthe top college coaches in the
area.
And I remember the days,primarily in my early 20s, when
I was in college at Hofstra,that the Select Programs were as
(10:35):
good as the State Programs andthat's how much talent was here.
And we'll talk more about mytheory that I'm kind of trying
to see if it's still backed uptoday.
Do we have more good playersthan we've ever had as a country
and definitely as an island?
I don't know if we have moregreat players, and I think
that's a topic we'll get intonext, because that's probably
three shows, but we'll talkabout just one.
(10:55):
So yeah, so the LIJSLincredible history 60 years next
year, john right, yeah.
And then the programs have hadto adjust to what's going on in
US soccer, which is a lot ofgood but a lot of not so good,
but a lot of people chasing thedollar, which we think is a good
thing, but at the same timesometimes that's not driven by
what's the best thing to do forthe sport.
John, what do you think thebiggest challenge is for the
(11:17):
Long Island Junior Soccer Leagueright now?
Which was the only way you wentthere, which was the only way
you went?
There was no other league,there was no other upturn.
You got to Division I and LIJhad seven or eight divisions.
It was very orderly, verystructured.
You made the select team, madethe state team, the regional
team, national team.
Now it's a bit of a cluster andhow is LIJ trying to adapt to
(11:38):
that?
Because I think it has recently.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
The market's grown itself right.
So there's a lot of privateclubs, pay-to-play clubs.
We talked about Peter Collinsbefore, Can't go without saying.
So Peter Collins, he was fromIreland, but he might have been
the proudest American that I'veever met.
As well from Hicksville andthat's where I grew up and
that's Mr Collins was one of myfirst coaches, so he introduced
me to the game and then learnedto love the game even as a young
(12:05):
player.
And, as you said, as we all gotolder, Mr Collins knew how to
tap into the right people andyou could never say no to him,
and it was based on volunteerism.
He was very proud of that.
As the market changed and youknow, as he got older and
generations changed, as you justsaid, volunteerism is not as
(12:26):
plentiful.
So now you know most peoplethey'll do the work, but you
also have to make sure thatyou're paying for that.
So Long Island Junior SoccerLeague has tried to keep true to
the roots of community clubs.
We have about 100 clubs underour umbrella, which is amazing.
That's what makes us one of thelargest leagues in the country
(12:46):
and those are community clubsand that's where most young
players get their start and it'sthrough those community clubs
who are run by presidents andboards who are volunteers
themselves.
So they're doing the yeoman'swork.
They're doing the amount ofwork that nobody's paying for.
I mean, I could tell you, in thelast 24 hours I had three
presidents that I spoke topersonally who are having issues
(13:07):
, and each one of them made apoint to say look, I'm taking
valuable time away from myfamily to do this.
However, I still love this andI want to help out the kids in
my community, but sometimes youknow some people who are asking
them to do that extra work don'tunderstand everything they go
through.
So thank goodness for peoplelike that that are still
involved in the game.
So we've got a mix ofvolunteers, We've got a mix of
(13:30):
pay to play, We've got a mix oftrainers and professional
coaches, so the game itself hasgrown to such a great level.
As you know, we're hosting theWorld Cup next year.
This is the second time ourcountry has hosted the World Cup
, so as a country, ourexpectation, as in anything, is
that it goes to the highestlevel and the same thing here
locally.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And now with all these new leagues like EDP and
the.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
League du Jour, the US.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Club coming into play .
It's like whatever 10, 15, 20years ago, I don't know.
Whatever it was.
It does make you, and I'llweigh in on one thing as a coach
in the North Port Coal HarborSoccer Club for my last son
going through the program, jack,and my stepson James Diaz, to
keep our team together with MarkLugris as kind of our head
coach at the time, from 2009 to2019, it was unrecognizable
(14:17):
where this team played.
It was so difficult to keep ittogether.
You have academies dropping inyour lap like Barcelona,
valencia, boca Juniors, allplaying in the US club banner.
Then the EDP comes into play,trying to take the top divisions
away.
So it became very difficult asa volunteer coach to even and
I'm predisposed to actuallyunderstand this and I had a
(14:38):
deferred mark.
I'm like what do we do with theteam?
I didn't want to pull it out ofLA JSL.
We finally got up to Division Iand now all Division I left.
So there's some real issues.
Now it looks like the leaguehas kind of rebounded, based on
what I can see from the outside,and found its niche again, and
I think a lot of clubs arehaving to do that too.
They have to say you know whatthis top 5% of players and I've
(15:01):
told you guys this offline Peterasked us to do.
Peter Collins asked Kevin and Ito do a focus group I mean 20
years ago and we came back withthe results of the focus group
and he said all right, what'syour results?
And we all said well, you'respending.
The biggest problem we have isyou're spending 95% of your time
worrying about 5% of yourplayers, and he asked me what
the answer was he goes stopdoing it.
(15:22):
However, it's hard to stopdoing it, but it's the same
problem today.
So I don't know if there's anyanswers, ronan, but outside of
trying to wish for the good olddays, it doesn't do us any good.
So do you have any thoughts onthis right now?
Are you optimistic?
Do you feel this is ever goingto get any better?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, definitely the good old days are gone, that's
for sure.
But I am optimistic about thefuture.
The development of the game atthe higher levels has definitely
improved, but there is still,you know, the alphabet soup of
leagues that's kind of there atthe bottom, and you know to wade
(16:01):
through that to find out what'sthe best pathway.
You know for your team, forexample, what would be the best
pathway.
It can be challenging sometimesand the powers that be US
soccer and so on, if they bringin maybe a different structure,
more of a permit system similarto what they do in Europe, it
(16:22):
might help clarify a pathway forkids at different levels,
because you're always going tohave that.
And the better playersrightfullyfully so should go to
the higher level leagues andteams and that's how we develop
those players to improve ournational team and so on and so
forth.
So I am optimistic about it.
There's a lot of good peopleinvolved in the game.
(16:43):
I think that will persevere inthe end.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Let me just let everybody know.
If you're just tuning in, thisis Jim Kilmeade, the host of
American Soccer Club Zone, atthe beautiful studios of KJOY
98.3 FM in Farmedale, new York,talking to John Fitzgerald and
Rona Weissman, the leadership ofthe LAJSL and guys with
extensive backgrounds.
Yeah, we can't go back to thegood old days.
(17:08):
So now it's man.
What are we going to do?
So let's just focus on a coupleof things that are happening
that have come.
The board directors and youguys and your staff have come
back to a couple of new excitingdevelopments.
The convention is coming back,which was a huge piece of soccer
, business and development onthe island, and the Liberty Cup,
which was you know.
Tell people about that, john.
(17:28):
Why don't you just bring us upto the good news of next year?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
so the convention this year too actually, if
people don't know, theconvention is one of the largest
uh youth soccer conventions inthe country.
That long island junior soccerleague hosted for many years at
the huntington hilton inmelville, new york, um.
And then what happened was whenCOVID hit, the convention was
forced to shut down and thenhadn't returned since.
(17:54):
So we've decided internallythat this is something that
should come back.
The presidents have mentionedit.
We have a lot of our ownconstituents that really enjoy
that.
When you come together, it's ameeting of the minds.
We bring in speakers, we bringin clinicians, we hold coaching
education courses.
We have meetings.
Presidents get to get togetherin smaller meetings as kind of
(18:17):
like you talked about focusgroup.
They get to talk about some ofthe things that are more
intimate to them instead of ahuge setting.
Coaches and players come,there's some vendors there, so
there's a bit of buzz andexcitement, and it's held late
February, early March each yearto kick off the spring season.
So it's always been somethingthat has been a positive.
Other leagues come in, you knowmeetings from leaders around
(18:40):
the state and around the region.
So that's coming back, andespecially in time to mark our
60th anniversary, which is a bigdeal.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And you have the Liberty Cup coming back, which I
know has had Irish connections,Russian connections.
Ronan, tell us a little bitabout the Liberty Cup.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Actually, I'll just say first the Liberty Cup is
coming back, because Ronan saidhe wanted it to come back.
Really he's the one thatstepped up and said we've got to
get this going.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Tell us about it so the Liberty Cup started back in
the 80s.
It's small to begin with andgrew from there and, as you
mentioned, an arm of it went toIreland and another one to the
old USSR and then it kind offaded away and didn't exist for
(19:28):
a while.
So I felt, you know, for ouracademy clubs teams, I'm sorry.
We have a program where thoseteams play in two tournaments
throughout the summer and weused to send them to travel up
to Rhode Island or Connecticutor over to New Jersey.
So I thought, instead ofputting people on the road in
the middle of summer, let'sbring people here, have our
(19:50):
academy teams play here andbring in teams local teams or
teams from outside of our directarea and grow it from there the
first year that it's reallycoming back.
We realize that it's going tobe a slow grow but just like all
the other stuff that we'redoing at the league, we put the
(20:11):
time and investment into it.
It's going to bear fruit in theend.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Well, that's great.
Well, you know what?
To me, I just like the wholeidea.
We're all sitting here,everybody complains about, oh,
what's going on with thisacademy and this, that, and
everybody's worried about whateverybody else is doing.
At one point they controlthings yourself.
So kudos to you and the leagueto support you in getting this
back on Long Island.
(20:35):
I think that it's a good step inthe way of reestablishing an
order and keeping the relevanceof the league and just starting
a new entity with a greathistory and I know from the
American Soccer Club standpoint,we're going to back that and be
involved in any way that canhelp you.
Obviously, it goes very closelyin line with what we're doing is
trying to establish Long Islandand New York metro area as the
epicenter of soccer, and we dohave a connection already
between LIJSL and this littleclub that's becoming a big club
(20:59):
called Rexham, and I think withRexham I feel a symbiotic
relationship with them, becauseif people that hear me speak
about our new American soccerclub, new York and the MPSL,
which I'll describe what that isin a minute is that we're a
small club with a big plan, well, wrexham was a small,
incredibly historic club andthey've got a big plan and look
what they've done and nowthey're a household word and
there's a camp now down in myhometown of Massapequa, at Burns
(21:22):
Park, where the American SoccerClub trains all the time and
they'll be the first camps thisyear.
And how do people register forthose camps, john?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
So it's on our site, lijsoccercom Gotcha.
They can find it there and it'sput out.
There's a link there and theyhave the dates in there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Right and you're going to find that link also on
ascnewyorkcom.
Let's get into ASU New Yorkright now.
We're at the tail end of theinitial season of an endeavor
that started the beginning ofthis year, really never had an
offseason, and we hit the groundrunning at Hofstra University,
my alma mater at Captain'sFields, a great soccer venue.
Our crowds have increased pergame.
We've had some of the mostchallenging weather, but people
(22:00):
have come out in the rain, thecold and now the 103 degrees.
So we've seen it all.
I wonder what the July 5th isgoing to be.
It can only be cooler than thelast game.
But you know, john brought youin as the head coach.
You've put a great stafftogether with Juan Palacio, vic
Muntin, van Koch and RobMelichio, and we've got a great
(22:21):
medical team behind us, prettymuch made up of all local guys,
and everyone here lives on LongIsland.
But how would you encapsulatethat story real quick and your
experience with this club?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Well, first of all, these local guys are all
accomplished coaches.
You know well.
Our one coach, our one youngcoach, our match analysis person
is Ben Koch.
He's a young up-and-comer, butthe other coaches are
established, have been around,so they bring a ton of
experience.
So you know, I appreciate thatmanagement has given me the
(22:52):
freedom to go pick my staff, beable to put together what we
think is the best staff that wecan have for our first season.
And, as you mentioned before,I've been involved in USL, in
NASL and NPSL, very proud to saythat when I was with the New
York Cosmos, I was coaching ourCosmos B team, our reserve team,
with Aleko Eskandarian and wewon the national championship
(23:14):
that year in front of 18,000fans down in Chattanooga.
So, cosmos, you know, we had agreat team in NESL as well under
Gio Savarisi, so we had a goodorganization running through.
Having been involved with teamsin those leagues, I can say
that this has the closest feelto the top professional level,
(23:36):
mainly because, in thebackground and, as you know,
you're one of the gentlemen,you're not just one of the
owners, you're the generalmanager you and Kevin have
stepped back and let us do whatwe need to do on the soccer side
and given us tons of supportthrough Orlin and Cohen, who are
just amazing, fantastic.
I've already been on the phonewith them twice this morning
about players.
Their follow-up is tremendous.
(23:56):
So anyway, it's been going verywell for us, very happy with
the players we have.
You mentioned a young playerthat we just brought in, so
we're looking to help developyoung players as well as bring
in experience.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Let's talk about that young player.
He's a big story.
The New York Post recentlybecame intrigued with the
American Soccer Club of New Yorkand our development and wrote a
great story and it came out tothe Cradle of Aviation.
We took a great iconic picturethat we're sharing online now of
everybody outside the originalFighting Tomcat, which is the
nickname of the team, drawing onthe history of aviation,
(24:30):
history of Long Island andGrumman Corporation, which most
everybody's family worked for,especially in Hicksville, and we
have an iconic picture next tothat at Fighting Tomcat Jet with
all of our team.
But one of the biggestdevelopments is that the club,
instead of just going out tohire another 30-year-old
superstar that can justguarantee us getting the
playoffs, we brought in a28-year-old star that's already
(24:55):
scored his first goal in a week.
We also did what we said wewere going to do we're going to
give local Long Island players,and so we brought in, we signed
Dylan Lopez from Ronkonkoma,lake Grove, newfield Soccer Club
and Kinequad High School, andDylan has played in two games,
john.
So you know, when we broughthim in together as an
organization we never said playhim, just let's get him in there
(25:19):
, see if he can handle it.
Let's give him an experience.
Let's invest in him, take achance.
So how did he get from thatpoint to the point where you had
enough confidence to put him inat an away game, in a tough one
, a 1-1 draw and then again athome in another must-win game
for a 1-1 draw, and he held hisown.
But was it nerve-wracking ordid you know that he could do it
?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well, it wasn't nerve-wracking for me, but I
think he was a bit nervoushimself, as a 16-year-old should
be playing at that level.
It was kind of out of necessityalso.
So it's good timing for him,because we did have some
injuries, unfortunately, so wehad the need for a central
midfield player, which is wherehe plays and does it very well.
The older players have done agreat job of bringing him in,
(26:00):
putting their arm around him,keeping him grounded, helping
him out, and he is mature,beyond his years already and has
handled it very well.
So he got on the field.
He was mostly a positive, hadpositive impact for us, so we're
very happy with him and howhe's handling it.
And now our job is to keep agood eye on him, take good care
of him and help him to grow andget to that next level, whether
(26:21):
it's with us or pushing him onto a higher level, if that's the
case.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Because, as you know, that's what we're here for, and
he did say in his interviewthat his ultimate goal would be
to play in Spain.
So, ultimately, we're going tohave players that we're going to
look at.
Who's the next?
Joe Scali, us national teamplayer from Lake Grove playing
in Bundesliga for BündchenGlambach.
We think that Dylan is ourfirst try to reach down.
We will have a fully fundedyouth academy.
Ronan, give me a quick summaryfrom what you've seen, not just
(26:50):
outside the club, and what'syour viewpoint in having played
for the Rough Riders with me,having coached the Rough Riders
with me and played for multipleother professional teams, give
us your thoughts.
Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I came to one of the games I brought my kids.
I live close to Hofstra so it'sa convenient trip for me.
You know, my first impressionscoming in was that the
environment.
It was very, very professional.
I was pleasantly surprised withthe way it was set up.
I sat and watched the game andI look at it probably with a
different set of eyes than mostpeople.
(27:20):
I was overall impressed fromthe layout of the field, the
promotional stuff that you hadaround the field.
I looked at the referee crewand how they behave, and the
teams and how they were playingthe level of play.
Even the coaches on thesideline I'm watching them and
how they were playing the levelof play.
And you know even the coacheson the sideline I'm watching,
you know them and how they'reacting.
It's just how I look at thegame and I was very impressed.
(27:43):
So I hope it and I'm sure itwill go on to bigger and better
things in the future.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, it's been a dynamic.
It's been a real dynamic year.
But that's an interestingassessment.
Great respect for your opinion,ronan and John, you know.
Two more games to go thisSaturday at Yale Reece Stadium
versus New Haven United Team.
We beat 2-1, our first victoryever.
And then we finish with thoseguys too, so we're not going to
(28:08):
be too fond of each other afterthese next two weeks.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
We're in the playoff hunt too.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
so Alright, quick thoughts on that before we wrap
up our show the boys are all in.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
The culture is great.
The boys are all sold.
I mean they're chatting aboutit more than we are.
We certainly don't push that.
We want to.
You know we control our effortand attitude.
We don't control the results.
So they know that.
They understand that.
I have to tell you the traininghas been the highest level.
They're very professional aboutit and they love the
competition.
So looking forward to thesenext two games.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Well, great job, john and Rona.
Thank you for coming in today.
Lhsl straight ahead andAmerican Soft Club New York
straight ahead.
To find out information, go toASCNewYorkcom about the American
Soft Club.
You can watch us on a livestream with Game and Frame, a
great broadcasting team we'vedeveloped at Hofstra University
and we'll be able to link onthat.
Thank you to our sponsors,lifevac, roland Korn, orthopedic
(29:01):
Group, division of Northwelland Macron, our great Italian
partners, who make us look goodon the field.
So straight ahead for theAmerican Soccer Club as we make
a playoff run by the time we getto our next show, we'll update
you on that.
My name is Jim Kilmeade, yourhost, and it's been a pleasure.
Thank you to KJOY 98.3.
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