For decades now, the relationship between New England and the American soccer pyramid has been fickle at best, with only one team at the top and dozens at the very bottom.<\/p>\n
A combination of low attendance and the United Soccer League consolidating have created a wide gap in the \u201cmiddle pyramid\u201d that are the second and third divisions for the region.<\/p>\n
Clubs that potentially could have made up the northeast market for the USL PRO (third) or North American Soccer League (second) either folded before the huge league sanctions of 2010 (Connecticut Wolves, Boston Bulldogs) or decided against promotion and relegated themselves for financial purposes (Western Mass Pioneers, Cape Cod Crusaders).<\/p>\n
This is the state of things in New England as the Revolution continues to compete in top division Major League Soccer and smaller clubs thrive well-below them in the fourth tier (PDL, NPSL, USASA, etc.).<\/p>\n
Enter the New England Force; a club-in-the-making based in Hartford that first surfaced in early January with low fanfare and an extensive year-long building plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw an opening,\u201d says Force Head Coach Jon Langer. \u201cWe felt there was an opening in the area for another team at a high level. Right now, if you look at the NASL, you\u2019ve got the Cosmos\u2026 and Ottawa coming in but what is there for the NASL in the northeast? Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Head Coach of the star-studded-turned-defunct Austin Posse (which included USMNT members and MLS stars Roy Lassiter and Chad Deering), Langer now oversees the player development and building of a team hoping to be the region\u2019s next stable top-tier club.<\/p>\n
\u201c(There were) a group of people: three different part-owners talking about\u2026 starting the team. I didn\u2019t know how far along they had progressed at the time and they asked me that, if they put the team together, would I be willing to coach? And that\u2019s how it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Operating in 2012 in relative silence, the Force made itself known last January with the launch of their website, stating \u201cthe Force understands that building a top flight organization will take time and we are looking to the challenge with optimism\u201d according to General Manager Nate Millette.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a work in progress: we\u2019re not rushing overnight,\u201d Langer explains. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen a lot of are teams that come and go. What happens is a club comes along, gets a lot of publicity, throws themselves out there by spending a lot of money and the next thing you know, a year later they\u2019re down and floundering.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe figured we\u2019d take a different route, that we\u2019d take our time. We\u2019re going to take 10-12 months to build this team. It\u2019s not an overnight type thing: we\u2019re not trying to impress anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, with EPL veterans like Manchester City\u2019s Emile Mpenza and Stuart Taylor committed as well as several players with international team experience, the Force\u2019s current roster looks more and more ready to play than it did in January when the club was bringing in trialists left and right.<\/p>\n
\u201c(As of April), I\u2019d say we\u2019re somewhere above PDL but really, even though we beat and tied USL teams, we\u2019re not really there yet at the NASL or USL level,\u201d says Langer. \u201cWe did outplay (them): both of our games against Harrisburg and Pittsburgh were predominantly with trialists. We had four guys that are (now) on the roster.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a win versus the Harrisburg City Islanders and tie against the Pittsburgh Riverhounds under their belts, it was also with trialists that the Force faced the New England Revolution on April 5th, losing 4-0 with the Revs using most of their starting lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brought 22 guys that were all trialists (and) if you take away the PK that was a bad call, even Heaps and everyone admitted, and the goal in the last two minutes, it would have been a better game but they outplayed us, they were the better team,\u201d Langer admits. \u201cSo we\u2019re not there yet but the point I\u2019m making is this: we did that with trialists while they\u2019re a team that was five games into their season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, the Force has made a number of changes, including adjustments to its roster, an academy partnership with Sporting Club Accra in Ghana, and announcing an international friendly in Hartford versus C.D. Olimpia for July 23rd.<\/p>\n
But according to Langer, six months into their 10-12 month time table, there\u2019s still work to be done.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely need to work on chemistry and continuity. Most of our guys came in the middle and end of May when most (international) seasons end like in Argentina. But I can\u2019t wait to get them on the field and training and getting our system in place. We picked out the pieces to the puzzle and we\u2019re already a few pieces away. Once we\u2019re there, then we\u2019ll start working them overtime. We\u2019ll take hits, but in the end it\u2019s going to be fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Editor’s Note:\u00a0This article\u00a0originally stated the Austin Posse played in the United Soccer Leagues (USL). We later discovered that this was not the case; the Posse played an exhibition season under Langer (much like the New England Force), but disbanded in 2004 without ever joining a league.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The New England Force hopes to bridge the gap between the top division Revolution and New England’s many fourth division clubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":19959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[104,338],"tags":[408,1313,223],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/forcefeature.jpg?fit=490%2C240","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19958"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19961,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958\/revisions\/19961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}