Nico Gomez grew up in the Salvation Army Ironbound Soccer Club, named for the Newark neighborhood where it’s based and the bell-ringing charity that funds it.
“I was 3 years old when I started,” said Gomez, 17, a senior at Kearny High School. “But back then, you had to be 4. But my mom, she begged them to let me go. And they’re like, ‘Nah, too much of a problem.’ But they took me. And I enjoyed it. My mom would tell me I was fine, and I would go run off with the coach. I would be so excited to go.”
And he’s still going as a member of the club’s under-19 team that won state and national titles this year and one of seven high school seniors recruited to play for Rutgers University in the fall.
Created by a merger of two modest clubs 20 years ago, the Ironbound Soccer Club, as it’s commonly known, has grown into one of the state’s largest and most competitive youth soccer organizations, with 1,200 players ages 3 to 19 and a roster of alumni who’ve gone on to professional and Olympic competition.
Now, the club is about to take its NEXT step.
Major League Soccer, the NFL of European fútbal in North America, recently announced that Ironbound would be part of an expansion of MLS NEXT, a nationwide network of more than 100 youth clubs created in 2020 to serve as a feeder league to the pro ranks.
“It’s massive,” head coach Nick Lavrador said of the club’s selection to MLS NEXT. “It will create a pathway for somebody who wants to be a professional player.”
The club is affiliated with the New York Red Bulls, whose silvery home arena sits just across the Passaic River in Harrison.
In announcing the expansion in March, MLS NEXT General Manager Justin Bokmeyer said the Ironbound club and eight others were accepted into the feeder league after each one demonstrated “a unique commitment to the highest quality of player development, both on and off the field, which is consistent with our goal of providing the best and most well-rounded educational environments for our young athletes.”
The Ironbound club’s under-13 and under-14 divisions will begin MLS NEXT play in September, with the start of the 2023-24 season, adding older age groups as the years progress, up through under-19, or U19, the oldest division, Lavrador said.
That said, talented and dedicated Ironbound players now 14 and older will remain professional prospects thanks to various existing pathways to the pro ranks, Lavrador said. But MLS NEXT creates a more unified, formal network under the direct auspices of Major League Soccer.
In the meantime, the Ironbound club has continued its winning ways in the various other leagues and associations it belongs to.
On May 13, the club’s U19 boys team, the Ironbound Super Eagles, won the New Jersey Youth Soccer state championship for their age group.
In April, the club notched a pair of prestigious prizes in Tampa, Florida, winning National USL Academy Cup premier division titles for the boys U19 and U13 age groups.
The club’s website includes a pyramid diagram of its structure. The bottom “developmental” level is open to players of any skill level, who compete only against others in the program at a city-owned soccer complex on St. Charles Street that includes the 3,000-seat Eddie Moraes Stadium.
Players who demonstrate a higher level of proficiency compete on the club’s “travel” level, hosting or visiting travel teams from other youth programs. Above that, there’s an “elite” level for even more advanced players and competition.
Because Ironbound is affiliated with the Red Bulls, the club has a fourth tier known as “Red Bulls Academy” for the program’s best players, some of whom may go on to play in college, for the Red Bulls, or for other domestic or overseas pro teams. The top tier of the pyramid diagram is labeled “NY Redbulls.”
In 2021, Ironbound was a founding member of the USL Academy League with 12 other similarly affiliated clubs in the Northeast.
The club encourages academic excellence as much as athletic — Lavrador is Newark’s East Side High School’s information technology director— boasting a 3.43 grade point average among its players. The club says at least a dozen of them enter college every year.
Frank Lozano will be among the club’s seven Super Eagles at Rutgers in September. Lozano, 17, a senior at Elizabeth High School, said having so many Ironbound teammates playing at Rutgers should give them an advantage over other freshmen. He said he’ll major in business administration, but soccer is his passion.
“I like the competitiveness. I like being in that pressure of the moment, especially at this level,” said Lozano, who started playing at age 5 in his native Colombia, three years before moving to New Jersey. “My mom was born in Tomate, and it’s basically like a village-type city, and they don’t really have, like, anything. So the only way they have of coming out is soccer. That’s all they do. I think that’s where I got it from, my mom’s family. They’re all just soccer, soccer, soccer.”
Turning pro is not just a pipe dream for Ironbound’s best players, who have plenty of forebears from the club to inspire them: Red Bulls defender John Tolkin and his teammate midfielder Tyler Adams; Sabrina Flores of New York/New Jersey Gotham SC in the National Women’s Soccer League; and Ariana Ruela, a Portuguese National Team player and head coach of the Rutgers women’s team.
The area straddling the Passaic River in Essex and Hudson counties is fertile ground for soccer talent. St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark won another prep school national championship season in 2022. In December, St. Benedict’s alumnus Gregg Berhalter was head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team in the World Cup in Qatar.
At 16, Eann Vierra is the youngest member of Ironbound’s U19 team and, as such, one of its smaller players. But what the right forward and Harrison High School junior lacks in size at this point, he makes up for in speed, ball-handling skills and grit, constantly challenging defenders in a recent home game against F.A. Euro of Brooklyn, a USL Academy league rival and an MSL NEXT club.
Another thing Eann has going for him is strong family support. His mother, father and sister, Samantha, Danny and Jenna Vierra, were at the F.A. Euro game, which Ironbound won 4-1.
So, does Samantha Vierra identify as a soccer mom?
“I am,” she said. “All day, every day.”
She and Jenna sat in the bleachers while Eann’s soccer dad leaned against a fence at the edge of the field.
“I come to everything,” said Danny Vierra, who grew up in the Ironbound section and played youth soccer, though not at his son’s level.
“There’s a lot of opportunities here, a lot of growth. It’s very exciting,” Vierra added, crediting Lavrador with the club’s success. “The achievements show.”
It wasn’t only the home crowd that was impressed.
Christopher Bravo had driven to Newark from Queens with his younger brother Marlon, a player with F.A. Euro.
“It’s very competitive,” Bravo, 27, a former player, said of the Ironbound club’s inclusion in MLS NEXT. “Not everybody gets that opportunity.”
Nobody knows Jersey better than N.J.com. Sign up to get breaking news alerts straight to your inbox.
Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com