Soccer? Where? Here, in the South.

            Living in the South, one is no stranger to the excitement that is felt when the local sports team has a game going on. If it’s fall you hear the roar of the National Football League and college football fans ready to see their teams hit the turf. If it’s late winter into spring, you can bet on basketball fans being ready to watch their teams defend themselves on the court. And if you are a baseball fan well you pretty much have half the year to enjoy endless innings of action packed games.

Being from Georgia means that you learn not to have much faith in local sports teams, otherwise you run the risk of the inevitable: heartbreak. It is known all too well that major sports teams like the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Braves, and Atlanta Hawks have become famous if not for their talented athletes, but for their hard to forget high-steak losses.

            Don’t get too scared sports fans, Atlanta is not a place where giving-up is the thing to do. No, this is a city of Champions. It had been a while since the city won a championship that is true (cheers to the 1995 Atlanta Braves), but redemption was made in December 2018 when Atlanta United FC won the Audi MLS Cup. That’s right, a major league soccer team in Atlanta, Georgia won a championship. Not only did they win the final, they won it at home, in Atlanta in front of more than 70,000 people. Regardless if you like the sport or not, you have to admit that’s a lot of people.

In 2019, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution came out with an article that analyzed the attendance at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2018 during Atlanta Falcons games vs Atlanta United matches. Although there were some discrepancies between the announced attendance and actual attendance, the numbers showed that both teams averaged more than 40,000 people per match-game. These numbers bring us to the conclusion that soccer has become quite a popular sport here in Georgia. But, how did it come to be this way? It wasn’t too long ago that the concept of soccer in Georgia seemed to be fruitless, so much so that the only well known soccer team in the state, the Atlanta Silverbacks, ceased operations in January 2016.

            It can be seen that soccer has always been alive and well globally, but it has had a recent growth at the local level as well. The local growth of soccer is attributed to the multiple organizations and academies in the area that have tasked themselves with developing players from early on to be competitive athletes. Some include Southern Soccer Academy, Metro Atlanta YMCA Soccer Association and the Cherokee Soccer Association. These clubs among others are authorized and associated with the United States Adult Soccer Association, the United States Youth Soccer Association, and the United States Soccer Federation.

            While the development of young athletes is certainly important for the evolution of soccer in the future there are also leagues and organizations specialized for the continued development of adult players such as the United Premier Soccer League (UPSL), Atlanta District Amateur Soccer League (ADASL), and other more localized leagues such as the Liga de Naciones based in Lilburn, GA, Liga Magg based in Doraville, GA, and Liga Premier based in Cobb County, GA. Though some of these leagues are mainly ones where there is no promotion or relegation, meaning that the steaks are not towards moving on to a higher league, there are others that are specifically used to give players, coaches, managers, and even referees opportunities to move on to one that has a more professional status. This is the case of the United Premier Soccer League.

            According to the UPSL website, this league is “The fastest growing pro Development League in the United States, with 400-plus teams targeted for the 2021-2022 season”. As of fall 2020, Georgia has eight teams in the Division I of the UPSL. Those teams include: Cornerstone Top Pro, FC Matata, Forest Rovers FC, Futuro FC, Ginga Atlanta, LSA Limeño, Seas Jamaica United FC, and Potros FC. The league in Georgia currently does not have a promotion and relegation system, but plans to implement it as the league continues to expand in the future.

The way that UPSL works is that it is split into 24 conferences across the country, each conference depending on the amount of teams has one or two divisions. Teams first must play within their division then conference in order to win their conference or region championship. The winner of that championship moves on to the national playoffs where teams now have opponents from anywhere in the country, after getting through the rounds of the playoffs the winner comes out of the best eight, then four, then two teams. This year the total prize money given to the winner has increased from $20,000 to $30,000, and the winner of the golden boot receives a cash prize of $1,000.

            Winning within the UPSL not only gives you the ability to gain cash prizes, but it also gives teams across the country the opportunity to participate in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Qualifying rounds, this due to the league’s affiliation with the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) and the United States Adult Soccer Association (USASA). The winner of the U.S. Open Cup then moves on to the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League, where teams from North and Central America and the Caribbean compete against each other with the hopes of winning and moving on to the Club World Cup. This is where the best teams from conferences all over the world compete to crown a winner. (Quite literally the best team in the world)

            Although no team in Georgia has achieved getting that far, there’s still a chance that it can happen. But what is reassuring, is the fact that these teams have the opportunity to get that far. The road to all of the finals is long, but not impossible. A team that has that optimistic mentality is UPSL newcomers Potros FC.

            Potros FC joined the UPSL during the Fall 2020 season. They came from the ADASL in the hopes of upping their competitiveness all while challenging themselves to a higher level of discipline. Team Founder and Defender Benjamin Uranga states that making the move from the ADASL to UPSL was a big step but one that he feels the team was more than capable of taking.

            “I feel like it’s a big step, because of the way that we see the UPSL. It is a national league and it has a lot of exposure to help our players that want to take the next step, because we have a very young team and the ADASL is a very good league, it’s very competitive, but a lot of times it is a league that has a lot of players that used to play professionally or used to play in college. In the UPSL there are a lot of younger players, that are on their way to make it up. So we see it as a benefit to improve the clubs and as an opportunity for the players to move into the next step as well,” said Benjamin.

            The player development within the UPSL is a big topic of conversation. As Benjamin stated although the UPSL is full of people with different ages, the league is full of mostly younger players that hope to further condition themselves and have a chance to move on to bigger and better teams. As midfielder Gerard Forges mentioned during the Potros FC tryouts, he believes that the competition within the team will be more intense but for the better.

            “It’s more intense you know, especially playing against guys that want to go pro, and that want to succeed in soccer. So of course the intensity is going to be much higher and there will be much younger competition also,” said Forges.

            The Spring 2021 season for UPSL won’t start until March, but Potros FC have already started up their preseason in preparation. The team has included themselves in the Intermediate Sunday Liga de Naciones that is based in Lilburn, GA in order to continue their conditioning for the upcoming UPSL season, and to tryout possible team members. Team manager and goalkeeper Christopher Uranga stated that this is going to be very beneficial for them since they did not get this sort of opportunity before their debut in UPSL in the Fall 2020.

“We went into the last season having only played one friendly against one of the better teams in the league, so we didn’t really get a feel of what our competition would be like,” said Christopher. “But we know what we are up against now, and joining Liga de Naciones will not only help us maintain our form, but will also give us a chance to put our possible new members on trial before the UPSL season starts.”