“I just love playing soccer,” says Matt Fondy, the oldest member and top-scorer of Bay Area amateur side International San Francisco. “I’m obsessed with staying fit and I’m a little bit crazy about getting out there and playing this game.”
Fondy, at 35-years-old, still knows where the goal is and possesses that extra pinch of class that speaks to his earlier identity as a professional journeyman in the USL and Major League Soccer. Out on the fields of the Open Cup’s annual Qualifying Rounds, traditionally the domain of eager and anonymous amateur strivers, his quality shines right through
Let’s take a look back at Fondy’s unlikely rise to a pro career – in his own words – and the full-circle trip that has him back playing for no other reason than an abiding love for the power of the game.
It all started from the humble position of the sun-splashed campus of UC Santa Cruz. An injury late in his high school playing career meant Fondy, a native Californian, missed out on the main recruiting window for the higher-power college programs. But his nose for goal came alive as a Banana Slug, where he played with distinction in the wilderness of the NCAA’s division three.
“I started to think maybe a pro career could happen for me,” said Fondy, a powerful attacking all-rounder with speed and quality in the air – a keen reading of the game that made him interesting to coaches.
An All-America nod in his junior year didn’t hurt either. “I started to make some connections and get more dedicated to working out and staying fit – getting my extra touches, eating healthy.” In his senior year, having heard of an open try-out with the USL Championship’s Riverhounds, Fondy boarded a Pittsburgh-bound plane with his dad to give it a shot.
“I was all blistered-up after the try-out,” Fondy laughed, remembering how, after the airline lost his bag, he had to play in a pair of brand-new cleats he picked up on the way. “But I played great. I balled out and the coach [Justin Evans, at the time] approached me after the game and wanted me to play”.
It was a long way from the bright lights of the top flight, but it was a job playing soccer – the game he loved – and the realization of a dream. “I signed a four-figure salary deal,” Fondy chuckled from his home in the Bay Area, remembering leaving college with one semester to go. “It was a six-month season back then and you only got paid for the months you played – so you get a sense of how much the league has improved since.
“I was living in a house with eight other guys in the team,” added Fondy. “It was the perfect extension of college for me.”
He was released from the Riverhounds after that 2011 season. “The coach and I didn’t see eye-to-eye,” he said. So Fondy packed his bags and went on another second-division open try-out, this time, nearer to home with the LA Blues [Now Orange County SC]. He signed another blockbuster four-figure one-year deal – but this one coincided with several flirtations with the country’s top flight of MLS.
First up was a trial with the San Jose Earthquakes, and a memorable friendly game against Mexico’s FC Juarez. “I played really well and assisted Wondo [MLS’ top all-time scorer Chris Wondolowski] in a 1-0 win.” Fondy was invited to the Quakes’ pre-season. “Things were going well and it was going to be one of those things, on the last day, I’d either get the offer or get released – and I got released.”
He describes this period as a roller-coaster. And it led to understandable doubts. Should I keep doing this? he asked himself. The answer was yes. Not because of the big bucks or the smooth road ahead – but because he wanted to keep betting on himself and playing the game he loved. After a brief spell with the Seattle Sounders reserves up north, he returned to the USL and the LA Blues.
It was a career-changing moment. He scored ten goals in ten games in 2013 “and that was that.” Fondy’s performances were noticed by Chivas USA coach Jose Luis Real. He made eight appearances with the MLS side that year and then moved over to the Chicago Fire, where he made eight more appearances the following season.
Though Fondy was released by both Chivas and the Fire, it was during his time in the Windy City that he came one win away from an Open Cup Final. “I played in an Open Cup Semifinal,” he said of a 6-0 loss in the 2014 Last Four – after earning the penalty kick in the Quarterfinal that sent the side to the Semis. “And we got smashed.”
It’s no shame losing to the 2014 version of the Seattle Sounders – who went on to win that year’s Open Cup with a side loaded with Clint Dempsey, Obafemi Martins and Ozzie Alonso. “They were stacked, but it was still super-fun to be a part of a big game like that.”
Fondy returned to the USL Championship the following year with Louisville City. “I was established after a few years in MLS,” he said of landing at the Kentucky-based club. He went on to “win everything” there – 2015 USL Most Valuable Player. League Golden Boot. All-League First Team Selection. You name it.
He even returned to Chicago and almost beat the Fire in the Open Cup – “We should have won that game,” he said of the slim 1-0 overtime loss in the Round of 32. “We outplayed them – they knew it – and it was a really memorable one for me.”
It was after that breakout 2015 that his “relationship with the game soured a little,” Fondy remembered. Harboring dreams of a return to MLS – and even an outsider’s shot at the U.S. National Team – he made a wrong turn.
“If I was making decisions based on the love of the game and where I was happy, I should have stayed in Louisville,” he said, about moving on to a succession of short-lived stints in Jacksonville and North Carolina before, eventually, ending up out of the professional playing orbit altogether.
Spend two seconds talking to Fondy and you’ll know that the sour taste in his mouth for the game didn’t last long. He started a Bay Area soccer-based non profit – Oakland Genesis – where his aim is to help give as many opportunities to the city’s kids as he can. And he’s still slamming in the goals on Sunday mornings with International San Francisco – the SFSFL powerhouse who are now two wins away from returning to the Open Cup for a second year in a row.
“You never know what can happen,” said Fondy, a man who knows that truth better than most and loves the idea of taking the Open Cup by storm from the position of underdog. “It’s soccer, so you can win or lose on any day, right?”
Angelo Maduro is a senior reporter at large for usopencup.com