The offseason this year has felt especially long, including political, weather, social, and pandemic-related disruptions. Spring could not come soon enough, especially if you’re a soccer fan. Leagues across the country are getting ready to launch in the spring, in hopes of regaining some of the headwinds lost in the chaos of 2020. NISA is no exception, with plenty of pressure coming from fans to deliver a fresh season after a promising start.

New Amsterdam Football Club is certainly feeling the desire to get the ball rolling in a new year, after a first season that showed flashes of brilliance, but still managed to disappoint in the win column. The big priority has to be scoring as NAFC couldn’t seem to get the ball in the net throughout the season. The club seems to have taken some positive steps on that front, particularly by adding USL veteran Jose Angula and cross-city rival, Blede Bardic. Now the question remains, who else will step up in the NISA spring season to create a new legacy for the sophomore club? I sat down with NAFC Sporting Director, Maxi Mansfield to talk about his club’s offseason, his approach to player development, and what the shuttering of the NY Cosmos means to him.

- Dan Vaughn

So what’s the offseason been like?

So our season ended in early November, so it’s been quite a long off spell. It’s definitely been tricky to manage that, but we’ve still been getting our guys three days a week, four days a week on a voluntary basis. But a big thing we’ve spent our time and resources with has been growing our youth academy out - so recruiting players, training players, and identifying guys that are in that in-between step that maybe could make a push to make their professional debut this spring.

This is separate from the Fussball Project?

This is the New Amsterdam academy. The Fussball Project has been running and providing an outlet for talented youth players to showcase themselves, but now it’s been about getting those guys from Fussball Project and funneling the ones that fit the profile into New Amsterdam, which is obviously more selective. We’ve been doing that pretty much the last 2-3 months and then we had open tryouts for New Amsterdam as well. Kind of sticking with that theme of giving the overlooked guys opportunities to break into pro soccer as opposed to journeymen or more seasoned players from within the league.

What level of players are you looking for?

I think age provides a bit of a sliding scale, so the younger they are, the more raw, high-ceiling, or unfinished they can be. Where the older they get, at some point we have to ask ourselves “is this realistic - the gap from where he’s at to professional soccer - can he close that gap in 12-24 months?” If so, then maybe we take a chance and if not, then maybe the window is closed?

Where will these players be playing?

They’ll bounce around a little. We’re pretty blessed that our amateur league (EPSL) is that high of a level. But it’s like with anything else in soccer: when there’s money involved and people are backing it financially, it increases the level of play. Not to throw around any numbers, but it’s pretty decent in the EPSL.

Some of your academy players are coming from different backgrounds, can you talk about that?

When we launched our NAFC youth academy, we initially wanted to launch it a year after the pro academy, but the inquiries came in and our finances, up until to now, have allowed us to run a program. I just thought it would be such a difficult task to attract talent, but not having a financial entry barrier has allowed us to attract a really high level of talent that kind of blew everybody’s expectations away, especially inner-city guys that we’ve capitalized on. One of the reasons I’m so excited for the Spring to get going is that some of these kids that have only come into our program in July and August, that are just 16 and 17, 2 or 3 of them are ready to make that jump into the professional set up.

Last year’s art deco inspired kit launch was met with rave reviews from fans. Photo by Jaden Stevenson.

So they are going from not being in a program to professional soccer.

Well, maybe in a program, but not playing or overlooked. We’ve realized that maybe you are the best youth player, doesn’t mean you’ll transcend into the professional level and vice versa. You may not be the best player at a youth team, but at the men’s level maybe you don’t rely on certain things that would have you exposed. So I think that’s been our sweet spot with identifying.

Can you describe the profiles of some of these players you’re referencing?

Yeah, most of them are low-income, inner-city guys, a lot that migrated over to the Bronx and maybe have been in and out of MLS academies, like Red Bull and NYCFC, but certain outside elements have prevented them from succeeding there. In one instance, there was a guy who played at NYCFC but kept arriving late to training, because he didn’t have mommy or daddy driving him - he had to take a bus, a subway, a ferry - those kinds of things are often overlooked. So we kind of scooped him up and we’re just amazed at his level relative to the other guys.

We’ve got another guy who migrated over from Algeria a couple years ago. Got approached by Red Bull, but didn’t speak enough English to understand what the hell they were saying. So he just dazed around for a year or two and now wound up with us.

The team struggled in the final third throughout last season, are you working to fill those gaps this offseason? And are those gaps in strategy or player pool?

Funny you mention that. I was watching Chattanooga’s Youtube channel just this morning and they were doing an analysis of our game against them and the coach was just “wow this team really could have punished us and they had everything to, it was just that last killer instinct.” That’s been the buzz we’ve heard around the club that we are, the foundation is there, it’s just in professional football the gap between win vs loss is so small. I think the signings we’ve made, we just announced the signing of Jose Angula, who bagged a ton of goals in USL, and obviously we brought over Blede (Bardic), who has been a consistent goal scorer for the Cosmos, so I think those two pieces are big. While we still want to rely on the youth guys and overlooked guys, it’s sometimes unfair to ask a guy like that, who is unproven, to come in and immediately start scoring goals. I think it’s just too much stress on these guys, emotionally, to be an impact guy, whereas now, the burden may be on more experienced guys shoulders, which will allow those guys to introduce and carry less of the load.

Jose Angula, one of the newest NAFC attackers.

Looking back over your first year as a club. How do you think it went? Learn any lessons?

I think it will be odd when we are past COVID. Because it seems like now, all we seem to do is put out fires, which makes it seem like you’re not progressing anywhere. It was only when we took a week off in the winter, when I stepped away from it, I was like “Oh wow, this is a thing. Sponsors are coming on board. We have kit suppliers. This isn’t just me in a studio apartment in Manhattan, propping up this dream. This is a real thing now. We have a youth academy, people rely on us.” It’s been great.

I love...I don’t want to call it non-league football…but I love the underbelly of what US soccer has become, not just NISA, but when I look at Providence City shirts, some of the UPSL clubs, the Palm Beach Breakers, just to see that there’s this alternative brand growing in US soccer that continues to survive and thrive, despite a lot of people wanting it to fail or become part of MLS.

Last year, I was flying back from one of the soccer conferences and I saw a guy wearing a Detroit City shirt and I was wearing a shirt that said “100% fan owned” and it had a St. Pauli logo. He was leaving and I was sitting down and he gave me head nod like “we’re one and the same. David and Goliath. We’re in this together.” So as much as we despise or want to beat the other NISA teams, it’s like “woahwoahwoah, we’re all in this together. We all want to survive against the machine.” It’s cool to run into that community, that alternative soccer geek culture.

What’s your read on the Cosmos situation?

As a competitor, I think it’s pretty heartbreaking, because I think our game against them was forming into a rivalry. There was the headstomp, there was a lot of animosity even in the bubble in Detroit. They had us split into these lounges, where everyone would eat in the bubble. A day in, some of our guys were like, “We’re next to the Cosmos, I don’t want that shit. I don’t want to be anywhere near them.” It was forming into something special. And we had this fairytale thing that we drew them, so we were out to get revenge this spring. So when it came, it was certainly a letdown and a disappointment.

While Rocco has done alot for soccer in this country, I also think he somewhat of a moral responsibility to the brand of the New York Cosmos that if it’s not going to be under him and he’s not going to continue with it, he needs to get it into somebody’s hands that will have its best interest in mind. I guess the biggest thing is, that’s ok if you’ve moved on it’s also ok if you haven’t, but the Cosmos are a very real thing, in this country and globally as well, and it deserves the proper attention, whether it’s Rocco and his group or somebody else.