Julian Boehning, all of 9 years old, wants you to know something up front: “It’s not just kick the ball around. Here, we actually play soccer.”
That drew nods and several enthusiastic assents from the rest of the pre-adolescent youngsters gathered around him, all members of Manhattan Kickers Football Club. Seven of them were gathered at a synthetic soccer field in East River Park not far from the Williamsburg Bridge, participating in a final practice before they jetted off to Brazil. For some, it would be the first trip out of the country.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” said Tarek Fahmy, who at 4-foot-2 views the many towering opponents he faces as just another challenge. “I’m looking for a lot of skill, a lot of fun and hopefully some people that are taller than me.”
But a trip to Brazil was not mere soccer tourism. These kids meant business. And if Boehning, Fahmy and their teammates didn’t make it clear in conversation, their performance on the field did all the necessary speaking.
Broken into two squads with their coach, Curt Rosenthal, acting as an extra player to even out the numbers, the Kickers played an informal game of keep away, moving the ball around a small box hemmed in by cones and working toward minuscule goals at either end of the miniature field.
Informal, yes, but also very intense. The operating principle was constant movement, players running overlapping patterns, passes sent to open space, ball control above all else. There were even slide tackles—not clumsy roughhousing but carefully calculated defensive maneuvers.
New York City has never lacked for youth soccer leagues, but there has been a scarcity of clubs for top talent; programs that funnel promising players to a far higher level of competition.
Rosenthal, who formed the Kickers from a related recreational league five years ago, wants to turn the situation around. A former college soccer player from Ohio who also has some experience overseas as a professional, he has molded his club into a wellspring of young stars. And for the past several years, he has taken some of his players to train at the Brazilian Football Confederation’s facilities in Teresopolis, a city near Rio de Janeiro.
All seven of the young soccer prodigies spoke about the Brazilian game with nearly magical tones of awe. Clearly, they had been watching some international games. Tyrrell Moore’s favorite player is megastar Brazilian midfielder Kaka, though most of the other Kickers favored the attacking skills of the young Argentine dynamo Lionel Messi.
Boehning, for one, was hoping that Brazil would offer him, in no particular order of preference, “sand, no rain, heat, good teams, good competitions, a lot of fun and swimming.”
Noah Leeds’ goals were a little less extensive: “Playing against other teams that are really great.”
There was small chance that they wouldn’t.
The Kickers, who made their ten-day trip in mid-August, were scheduled to enjoy a rigorous practice schedule in Brazil that included matches against the youth teams of top local clubs like Fluminense, Botafogo and Flamengo.
Futsal, an indoor, hardcourt variant of soccer that is intensely fast-paced, is a big part of the Kickers’ year-round training program and where they’ve seen a ton of success recently. The “1996” team (squads are designated by birth year) won the New Jersey state championship in futsal in February. Trophies from last year include the national championship for the 1997 kids and the New England/Mid-Atlantic Regional title for both the ’97 and ’96 groups.
On grass or turf, the Kickers have won the Cosmopolitan Junior Soccer League championship (1998), the YMS Columbus Cup (1998) and the Eastern New York State Cup (1996).
Top players from the program have moved on to top national and regional training systems, and one even pulled up stakes and headed to Spain to join the youth team of professional club Atletico Madrid. Another is now a member of the Under-15 U.S. National Team.
Most recently, the Kickers have made plans to merge with Blau Weiss Gotschee, a much older youth program based in Queens. The new organization will be known as BW Gotschee NYC. Together, the two clubs hope to become the main developer of top talent in the city, a direct feeder into the U.S. Soccer Development Academy.
With a solid record of success and only big plans for the future, Brazil just might be a breeze for the Kickers.
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For more info:
www.manhattankickersfc.com
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