A brand-new beach soccer league for men and women is about to get underway in the USA
The all-new United States National Beach Soccer League is here!
Organised by the Stars & Stripes Head Coach Francis Faberoff as well as US international beach soccer player Aldo Balsano, the event is set to kick off on Saturday 11 December at 10am Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5). The league will have both a men’s and a women’s catagory.
“This is a new league and the purpose is help develop beach soccer in the US”, Francis Faberoff told BSWW.
“For me as the new head coach of the US since July 2nd, I understand that our players need a national league to showcase their talent and get more experience to play at the high level internationally and to make the US one of the top teams in the world.”
This new competition, the NBSL ID Cup, will take place over two days, 12 and 13 December, at Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida.
As many as 80 players from all over the USA, including California, Ohio, Michigan and Colorado, will travel to the southern state of Florida to take part in the competition, which will feature four men’s and four women’s teams.
Many national team players will be present in the league, including Lucas Roque and Aldo Balsano from the US men’s squad, as well as Luisa Mesa (fresh from her Euro Winners Cup adventure with New Team Brussels), Meghan Wharton and Lauren Leslie from the US women.
If you haven’t read about Lauren’s amazing story of cross-country adventure and Euro Winners disappointment yet, then click here!
The beach soccer action will be intense, as each side will play all three of their groupstage matches on Saturday, to decide the semi-finals which, along with the final, will take place on Sunday 13 December.
And the good news is that you can watch the finals live on the NBSL Instagram page!
The organisers have already staged some on the beaches of Florida in recent months, as three men’s teams took part in a preliminary competition on 10 October, and 16 teams from U-10 to adult category participated in the NBSL Showdown, which began on 14 November.
If you want to learn more about the development of beach soccer in the United States, then check out the latest episode of Sand Talk – The Beach Soccer Podcast, where we talk to US team captain Nick Perera – click here to listen now!
