The NPSL championship trophy will be awarded July 31st in Madison, AL.

The reigning Southeast Region Champion Rocket City United will host the 2010 edition of the NPSL Final Four to be held in Madison, AL from July 29-31.  Team President Andy Zorovich revealed several details about the Final Four in a ribbon cutting ceremony and press conference at the team’s new offices in the Southern Convention Services (SCS) complex in Madison.

The 2010 edition of the league’s championships will expand from a two-day, three game mini-knockout tournament to a three-day event.  Thursday, July 29th will see the four NPSL Region Champions take the field in the semi-finals.  A third-place match followed by the NPSL All-Star match will be contested on Friday, July 30.  And finally, Saturday, July 31st will feature the NPSL Final between the winners of Thursday’s semi-finals.

“What we’re doing with the Final Four is making it more than just some soccer games,” said Zorovich.  “We are working with the Madison City Chamber of Commerce to make this a soccer fest.”  The festival of soccer will include a parade from downtown Madison to the stadium, youth soccer games prior to the main event, and hospitality events within the stadium.

All of the NPSL Final Four matches will take place in the Madison City Schools Stadium.  The MCSS was built in 2003 and seats around 5,000 and will serve as the home stadium for Rocket City United during the 2010 NPSL regular season.

When Max Ferdinand came onto the scene with FC Reading Revolution in the 2009 NPSL season, many of the coaches and team owners were talking about his ability, knowing that there was something special about Max as a player.

He only remained with the FC Reading Revolution men’s team for one season, quickly snapped up by the Baltimore Blast in the MISL.

In his first professional MISL Season, Ferdinand was named Player of the Week thanks to his hat trick against the Rockford Rampage.

While the Blast are having a less than stellar season, Ferdinand continues to impress his coaches and teammates during his first run on a professional soccer club, even with the transition from indoor to the outdoor game.  There are plenty of USL/NASL players who take to the turf during the winter months in preparation for the upcoming outdoor season, and I hope that Max does get his shot at a USL/NASL club in the future.

Krystina Lucido at PressBoxOnline wrote up a great article on Ferdinand, where he talks about moving indoors from his career of playing 11 v 11 and also talks about his background growing up in Haiti, where his mother and cousins still live.

We will be sure to follow up on Max’s progression in the MISL and other former NPSL players who continue to make a splash in the professional ranks!

Just after the 2009 season, several fans of Chattanooga FC got together and decided that their club needed an online forum where fans of the team could share their interest in the local NPSL club and the world game in general.  The unofficial team blog called the Chattahooligan was the result.  Since the authors all post under the pseudonym “John Q. Chattanooga”, I was obliged to conduct an email interview, and John Q. graciously responded.  Below is that brief transcript.

NPSL Insider:  How did the Chattahooligan come about?

John Q. Chattanooga:  The Chattahooligan.com is the brainchild of several avid Chattanooga FC fans. In fact, we are all just plain old soccer fans, and we all are well acquainted with the soccer culture of many more established clubs and the many fan sites that they boast. We thought it would be great to create forum for soccer fans in Chattanooga just like those fans of other clubs have… So we took the moniker of the Chattanooga FC faithful – ‘The Chattahooligans’ – and started a blog.

It’s new to all of us doing the writing though, so there has been a bit of a learning curve. Apologies if we aren’t quite so interesting and dynamic as fan sites for Barcelona, or Arsenal or AC Milan… we’ll get there.  Especially once the season starts.

Who is John Q Chattanooga/why the alias?

John Q. Chattanooga was already an alias for a Chattanooga soccer crazy who did his part to keep our collective football enthusiasm high – especially for the US Men’s National Team. For many reasons he wished to remain anonymous (and still does). We use the alias to represent a unified front for several different people doing our blogging and scouting.

We feel that anonymity will allow us to keep our inside sources secret – as well as to allow us to be critical of referees, players, coaches and even the Chattanooga FC board if need be. It helps to ensure freedom of speech that can be a voice of dissent from the CFC ‘party line’ if ever the need should arise.

And it will also allow us to ‘pass the baton’ to new, fresh Chattahooligan voices one day while maintaining a consistent identity and audience.

Do you guys have anything special planned for the 2010 season?

We do: in particular, we are trying to galvanize a strong core group of Chattahooligans to develop some elaborate and entertaining cheers – better than the fans heard last season.

We hope to produce some nice looking game banners, flags and wearables for our faithful… to create an overall enthusiastic presence at games.

We will no doubt have some nice little parties for the Champions League and, of course, the World Cup!

We also hope to galvanize a nucleus of dedicated fans to make the trip to away games (and to charter a bus!). Let us know if you’re into that.

Why do you think Chattanooga FC has been so successful getting fans in the seats?

That’s a great question, and its one that is hard to answer. We believe it is not one thing, but a combination of all these little things:

1. Chattanoogans are very proud of our city, and we want the world to know it. But we don’t have many sports teams, so we don’t have many opportunities to express our collective spirit in the way that sporting events allow for… Our college teams (UTC) and our minor baseball team have been it up until now.  We feel that Chattanooga FC is able to add opportunities to cheer for something distinctly Chattanoogan.

2. Our stadium is very nice, but it is hardly used at all over the course of the year. We think people are glad to have another reason to come to a great venue.

3. This might be a misinterpretation on our part, but to us it seems that in Chattanooga, soccer appears to be interesting to many people who wouldn’t normally be inclined to go to sporting events. It’s odd, but it’s like soccer is a “cool” sport and therefore acceptable for those who never were really that interested in cheering for a team.

4. The environment is fun and easygoing. You can bring your family. You can have a conversation. You can cheer. You can get some great food from local vendors (vs generic stadium food).

5. Beer. We serve it, and it’s cheap, too.

6. It feels like this is just the beginning of something great:

We have MANY international companies opening branches/factories here in Chattanooga. French, Belgian, Brazilian, Spanish and several German (not the least of which is VW!) companies are coming here. While alot of hires will be local, there will no doubt be internationals too – and we expect them to be really happy to see that we have a soccer team.

And, with the current craziness in the world of professional soccer – the USL breakup, the formation of the NASL, some MLS clubs having NPSL development teams – it feels like there might be great opportunities for our team to grow into a really competitive (and perhaps even pro) club.

We think the fans sense all of this, it’s a good vibe and they want to be part of it.

Anything else you’d like to add?

We’re glad that you at the NPSL have noticed our humble little blog, but we don’t seem to have a very large following yet. We’d like every Chattanooga FC fan to be regular visitors – and even contributors – to our site. And we’d love to have folks from all around the country (and the world) join in too.

Thank for this pseudo-interview.

Last weekend the Los Angeles Convention Center played host to the Soccer Nation Exp0.  Saturday and Sunday were filled with all things soccer, including futsal, loads of trade show booths, and an especially noticeable booth ran by San Diego Boca FC, one of the newest entries into the National Premier Soccer League.

A quick post over at OneLoveSoccer.com mentioned the newest San Diego Club’s booth and their aspirations for the future.

One of the more interesting booths was that of San Diego Boca FC. The club was founded in 2009 in order to promote and develop professional and youth soccer in the San Diego Area. The club hopes to build a soccer specific stadium and have an MLS franchise in the next 5 years. Currently, the club is part of the National Premier Soccer League.

Could San Diego Boca FC be the first NPSL club to have it’s own soccer specific stadium?  Only time will tell, but based on the club’s scrimmage with Veracruz and their upcoming scrimmage with Chivas, they are off to a great start.

A bit of good news today for NPSL fans, especially from the Buffalo, NY area (yes, I’m being a bit selfish) as Bobby Shuttleworth has re-signed for the New England Revolution for the 2010 season.

Shuttleworth played for Buffalo City FC, who only played one year in the NPSL in the 2009 season.

The main article was posted on MLSnet.com, and here is the small excerpt about Shuttleworth in the article:

“We’re pleased to bring Mauricio and Bobby back,” Revolution Vice President of Player Personnel Michael Burns said. “Mauricio struggled with injuries most of last year, but we’re expecting him to play an active role on the team this year. Bobby is a young player, but one whom we believe will get better with continued training alongside veterans Matt Reis and Preston Burpo.”

…

Shuttleworth, 22, is entering his second season with the Revolution, having signed with the club as a free agent in June 2009. Shuttleworth spent much of 2009 as the team’s third-string goalkeeper, but dressed as the team’s backup on several occasions when Matt Reis was injured.

Also in the good news category for today, they’ve changed Shuttleworth’s profile page on the Revs site to reflect Buffalo City FC as his last club before signing with the revs.

Taken from RedBulls Reader…

The club [New York RedBull] announced today that it will field an Under-23 team in the National Premier Soccer League.

“We are very excited to enter the NPSL, which is one of the top men’s amateur leagues in the country,” said Red Bulls Director of Youth Programs Bob Montgomery. “It gives the Red Bulls a chance to keep the top homegrown players through their college careers.”

The league has 32 teams from around the country competing in four conferences. The New York Red Bulls will join the Atlantic Division of the Northeast Conference. The Maine Sting, New Hampshire Rapids, New York Athletic Club, Morris County Colonials, Brooklyn Italians and Long Island Academy FC comprise the remainder of the Atlantic Division. The Red Bulls will play home and away fixtures with each divisional team for a total of 12 regular season games. Division champions will compete in Conference Championship on July 17 or 18, with the winner advancing the National Finals from July 29–31.

The team’s roster will include the core players from the 2009 Super-20 League National Championship team that defeated Chivas USA 7-0 in the final on Aug. 2.

I got the chance to hang out with Bob Montgomery after the NPSL Northeast AGM in October. He gave us a drive by of the new Red Bull Stadium which looked amazing and we were able to take in the last game at Giants Stadium in which RedBull ousted Toronto FC from the playoffs Disclaimer: I am a Toronto FC fan being 1.5 hrs from Buffalo.

The NPSL is excited to have RedBull’s U23 in the league this year and look forward to working with them in the future!

Igor Popovich thrills the crowd for Rocket City United

Igor Popovich is a bit of an NPSL vagabond. A hardworking young Brazilian midfielder with a touch of class, Popovich is a guy who is not afraid of a change of scenery. As you’ll see in this interview, he is looking to fulfill his dream of playing professional soccer by developing his skills in the NPSL. His NPSL career started in Huntsville, Alabama with the 2008 Rocket City United side and the following season was spent with Buffalo City FC. He’s now trying to catch on with another NPSL team the upcoming 2010 season and has been identified by Chattanooga FC.

NPSL Insider:
Could you tell me a bit about your life before coming to the USA?

Popovich: My life in Brazil was always dedicated to soccer where during high school I played many youth tournaments and I always would go to the soccer stadium to watch the professional teams. I was not different from most Brazilian young soccer players and I always wanted to be a professional and play for a big team in Brazil. My mother always wanted me to go to college and try something else besides soccer but she never stopped supporting me even though I chose to play soccer. My Father always supported me and wanted me to play. After high school I left home and played for some teams.

NPSL Insider:  Who did you play with prior to coming to the USA?

Popvich:  After graduating from high school I was 16 years old and I spent some time playing for the youth team of Sport Club Corinthians Paulista. After that I left home in Sao Paulo and went to Minas Gerais where I played for the youth teams and I was part of the professional team rosters of URT. The coach in the two years that I stayed on the roster never gave opportunities to the young players and I decided to leave and go to Rio de Janeiro where I played for the youth team of Artsul FC.

NPSL Insider:  What led you to the USA?

Popovich:  I have a friend that came to USA to play tennis for Lee University in TN and he told me about how things worked here with sports and scholarships. I was very interested because in Brazil it was getting really hard to get a professional contract and there is not the opportunity to go to college and play on a good level at the same time. Therefore I ended up at Faulkner University because the assistant coach is from Brazil and he watched my highlight DVD and offered a scholarship.

NPSL Insider:  Tell me a little about your experiences with Rocket City United?

Popovich:  I will always be thankful for Rock City United and Andy Zorovich because I had a sports hernia injury in 2006 and surgery in 2007 where I did not play for the most part of the year. In 2008 I had the opportunity to be part of the Rocket City United team and started to get my confidence back. I had a very good experience there, met a lot good people, and made lot of friends. Rocket City United is a very organized soccer team and I would easily play there again if they called back.

NPSL Insider:  How did you come to play with RCU?

Popovich:  The assistant coach at Faulkner University told me about the try-out that Rocket City United would have and he took me and another friend. After the first tryout I had to go back to another one but I hurt my ankle before that, and could not go. One week before the season started I practiced with the team and got my spot on the roster.

Popvich in action for Buffalo City FC

NPSL Insider:  What lead you to upstate New York and Buffalo City FC?

Popovich:  I went to New York to play for Buffalo City FC after Mike Share, Buffalo City’s head coach watched my highlights and called to speak with me. I got really interested after Mike told me about the connections that he has and how he wants to send players to Europe and professionals teams. I still keep in touch with Mike, I like him a lot as a person and soccer coach, he is my friend.

NPSL Insider:  How was it playing for BCFC?

I liked playing for BCFC, there I made a lot good friends as well. The weather was very nice during the summer, it was not too hot which was great for playing games and practicing. The team was very good, had a very good chemistry, and Mike made us work hard every practice to get in good shape. It was a disappointing to be out of the national tournament.

NPSL Insider:  Was there a difference in playing styles between the two regions of the NPSL?

Popovich:  I did not see any difference. It was pretty much the American soccer style, which consists of a lot of running and strength.

NPSL Insider:  And now, why Chattanooga FC?

Popovich:  I am just looking for my options for next NPSL season and Chattanooga FC is one of them. I always look for the options in the PDL and NPSL, but PDL has many rules about internationals and that makes it harder to get on a team without a good connection.

NPSL Insider:  How has your experience with CFC gone so far?

Popovich:  So far I am just talking with the head coach through email. I could not go to the tryout that just happened. He watched my highlights and he wanted me to go to the next one, I am looking forward to going.

NSPL Insider:  How has playing in the NPSL helped you develop as a player?

Popovich:  Playing in the NPSL had definitely helped me a lot, especially in my first season with Rocket City United, because I was coming back from a long injury. At the NPSL, I have played against good college players and older players that have played professional here in USA and other places, and this always helps you to gain experience and get confidence in your game.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  I came down with a little something you may have heard of called H1N1.  So, please forgive me.

As an apology, I’m going to post the remaining portions of the interview with the NPSL Southeast Region’s Commissioner Andy Zorovich.

Part 3:  Andy discusses the NPSL League meetings at the NSCAA convention and NPSL player rights

Part 4: Andy talks about the challenges of soccer club ownership in the south, how clubs can reach out to the hispanic community, and US Open Cup qualifying news.

Part 5: In the final part of our interview, Andy discusses the uncertainty in US minor league soccer and the 2010 NPSL Final Four.

Rocket City United announced former US National Team player Desmond Armstrong as their technical director today at a press conference at the Madison City Hall in Madison, AL.

New Rocket City United Technical Director Desmond Armstrong

Armstrong, who earned 81 caps for the US National Team, appeared in all three matches during the 1990 World Cup in Italy. He was also named to the 1988 US Olympic team that competed in Seoul. He played for the Cleveland Force and Baltimore Blast in the MISL and several outdoor clubs including the Maryland Bays and Santos FC of Brazil.

After his playing days were over, Armstrong was named head coach of NAIA’s Montreat College in North Carolina. Armstrong holds a USSF “A” coaching license and is a founder of Heroes FC a nationally recognized youth club.

Armstrong will guide Rocket City United after a very successful 2009 season in which they won the Southeast Region of the NPSL with a 5-2-1 league record (8-6-2 overall) and appeared in the NPSL semifinals in Madison, WI.

Rocket City United President Andy Zorovich reminded everyone at the press conference that RCU will play host the NPSL Championships at the end of July. “This year the championship for out league will be held here. It’s going to be a great opportunity… Hopefully, we’ll be playing in that final game on July 31st. That’s the goal that we’ll have for the team.” Zorovich then introduced Armstrong to address the media.

New RCU TD Desmond Armstrong Addresses the Media from Ryan Harbaugh on Vimeo.

In addition to introducing Armstrong, RCU also announced that they will be playing their home matches and the NPSL Final Four at the Madison City Schools Stadium, a 5,000 seat capacity stadium built in 2003.

Here’s part 2 of my sit down with the South Region Commissioner Andy Zorovich.  If you missed part 1, check it out here.

NPSL Insider South Region Commissioner Andy Zorovich Part 2 from Ryan Harbaugh on Vimeo.

Andy discusses the off field success of Chattanooga FC and how the other new teams in the NPSL can learn from their success including the new Nashville team.