“Our coach [Chris Williams] uses the word togetherness a lot,” said DeSilva who came to the U.S. to play college ball at Division Two Coker College and played professionally, if but briefly, with Charlotte area Stumptown Athletic of the new NISA League (he made three appearances and scored one goal at the club). “We’ve managed to create a great culture here and it’s like a family.”
Most remarkable about the Fusion’s achievement in the Second Round of this U.S. Open Cup is that the obvious coherence and togetherness were built on days of training – not weeks and months.
“I think we had maybe six training sessions together before the game in Charlotte,” said Sam Henneberg, born and raised in a small village an hour south of London, and another senior player in the team at 22. “But everyone really just believes. We’re always talking, the group-chats were kicking off right away.”
Being Overlooked Breeds Desire
Some of the players share apartments with the local guys. Others, like DeSilva, are hosted by local families. The togetherness Coach Williams preaches is baked into the system and DeSilva speaks of his adoptive Buckleys, who he’s lived with on-and-off for three years, as “like, real family now.”
Some of the players’ drive to succeed is fueled by being overlooked.
“We’re really hungry,” added Henneberg, who remembers his own trials with professional sides ending with impressed coaches – but no contracts. “A lot of us have had trials with these professional teams and the coaches have told us: you're not really what we need. So for a lot of us it’s [Open Cup] a chance to prove them wrong and show that we are good enough even if we don’t have all the background.”
Most of the Fusion’s players, as hinted at by Henneberg, don’t come from the biggest schools in the collegiate game. “We’re not from your Wake Forests or Marylands or your Clemsons,” added the defender, who did his undergrad years at Catawba College and took an extra year of eligibility at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), where he stood out. “The whole squad is pretty much under the radar. And we like that. You know, we haven't got any big egos and everyone’s sort of on the same page. Humble and hungry.”