What is the origin story of Real Central NJ Soccer? Who founded the club and what inspired that to happen?
I've played soccer since 1976, saw Pele at a local club event and was amazed, just fell in the love with the sport. Over the years I not only played but also refereed and coached youth games. As my kids have gotten older and I matured in my professional career I wanted to get more involved in growing the game that I love. In 2019 I looked around for adult clubs to volunteer for and realized there weren't any at the elite amateur level without an hour of where I live. Given the extremely strong soccer culture in the Mercer County area I was surprised. The last club was the Wildcats which played in PDL but had operated for a decade or so, prior to when I moved to the area. Given the lack of opportunities I started asking my soccer friends who were all very enthusiastic about the possibility. Several people jumped on board early, two of whom are now my partners.

In which league(s) do you play and with so many options for clubs these days, how often is that evaluated?
On both the men's and women's sides we looked at all of the available national leagues for our May-July teams primarily for college players. On the men's side we chose USL League Two because of the platform for players to advance into the professional ranks. The cost of entry was higher than the alternatives, but the professionalism of the front office and the links to two professional leagues was very appealing. On the women's side it came down primarily to the geography of other teams. WPSL had the most complete footprint in the area, limiting travel, while offering appropriate competition. We committed to ourselves to play in these leagues for three years before considering other options, so we'll evaluate during 2023.

On the men's side, there was demand for high level competitive year-round soccer. We considered several leagues for that program as well. UPSL, Garden State Soccer League (GSSL), and NISA Nation. During our evaluation process the Eastern Premier Soccer League reached out to us asking for our interest to be a founding member of a new Delaware River Conference. We chose EPSL because it's a high-level regional league, with low barrier to entry, and it has a relationship with the GSSL where our reserve team will be playing starting this fall. It offers the best mix of regional competition, scheduling, and allows us to participate in the cup competitions we are interested in.

Does your club operate or work with a youth organization? If so, are youth players developed to see playing time with the first teams as a goal?
We have partnered with two local youth clubs to develop a seamless player pathway, Match Fit Academy and Next Level Soccer Academy. Both clubs offer high level training, and the leadership get along very well. New Jersey youth soccer politics can be very unfriendly, so we were lucky to find two great clubs who work so well together. Match Fit will be running a Real Central NJ branded boy's USL Academy League team starting in 2024, and NLSA helped to run RCNJ branded girls training programs this past summer. We're keen to have RCNJ branded youth programs be club agnostic, and these clubs had the foresight to see what is best for player development in our area.

In addition to developing players, where does your club draw its players from? Local tryouts? College players?
Our EPSL players come primarily from recruiting and local tryouts. A lot of our players are on the younger side, being of typical college age but for various reasons aren't attending or playing in college, so we give them a platform to compete at a high level with professional coaching. In our second year with an EPSL team, we've attracted some players from other "men’s" league teams who like the idea of professional coaching and a more structured club than just a “Sunday" league.

For our USL and WPSL teams, our coaches recruit from local players attending college anywhere in the country. The primary mission of the club is to give local players a platform to compete at the highest amateur level and be recognized to move to the next level. We have summer U23 teams for players not quite at the first team level, but even those teams are very competitive and there's been players invited up to the first teams in the summer. On the men's side we had a few players from outside the area, but given our mission, we focus on having high level players who live or attend school in the area.

Do you have a rival or a favorite city for an away day? Who or where is that and why?
As we're a young team, we don't have any big rivalries yet. For the USL2 side, going to Ocean City Nor'Easters is a great trip given their location and the New Jersey derby atmosphere. They are able to put together great squads due to their housing availability and location. We're keen to show we have the talent right here in Central Jersey to compete with a team composed of a ton of international players or those from anywhere in the country. While they did hand us our worst defeat of the season (5-2 away), we drew them at home, and lost on the road to them 1-0 in a match we had every chance of winning.

How did you finish this season - regardless of league position, did you meet your goals? What goals are you setting for next season?
This year was a great success overall - our goal is to win everything, so we didn't reach that but regardless we improved in every respect.

This summer, our women's team won the WPSL Mid-Atlantic Conference, and lost on kicks from the mark in the national tournament round of 16. The USL2 team placed third in the Mid-Atlantic Division, a far cry from the bottom of the table finish in 2021; and our U23 men's team lost in the semi-finals on kicks from the mark in the men's summer league they played in - and it took 13 kicks to get there!

The full year EPSL team placed third in the Delaware Valley Division after we lost four starters to injury down the stretch, where we took only three points from our last 12 which moved us from first to third. But we built a strong foundation to grow on.

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