Tim Sullivan | Courier Journal

Courier Journal

John Hackworth remembers clearing the practice field of broken beer bottles and dog droppings. He remembers playing soccer for a team with no trainer, forcing teammates to tape each other’s ankles, and Astroturf fields so unforgiving that his wounds would get stuck to the bedsheets.

He remembers preparing for a playoff run with the Carolina Crunch when that unbeaten and underfinanced team abruptly folded in 1994.

“Our team was great,” Louisville City FC’s head coach recalled Friday afternoon. “We had some of the best players in our country on our team, but there wasn’t a sustainable league. So you could be on a team where you were 14-0 and the next day the owner says, ‘I’m out.’ Even though I was due a check and I was supposed to be on a plane, the coach came to us and said, ‘Sorry, guys, we’re done.’ "

The current boom in American professional soccer was preceded by false starts, failed promises and deeply flawed financial models. Hackworth says he is slow to share his stories with his players because they have problems of their own — “They grind away like crazy and they are not getting paid what they are worth,” he said — but he is slower still to assume his sport’s domestic prosperity is either permanent or pervasive.

Though Sunday’s USL Championship game reputedly sold out in 96 minutes, though a new soccer-specific stadium is due to open in Louisville next year, and though Major League Soccer expansion fees are expected to rise to $300 million, U.S. soccer’s growth remains uneven and, in many markets, uncertain.

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From Lesotho to Louisville: LouCity FC midfielder Napo Matsoso finds 2nd home

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Louisville City FC's new stadium is shaping up in Butchertown

What Louisville City FC has accomplished — both competitively and constructionally — reflects an ambitious business plan expertly executed. It is not the norm. The USL’s Fresno FC and Ottawa Fury FC have both ceased operations within the last three weeks.

“Fresno had an exceptional year ... and they folded” Hackworth said. “While we celebrate the growth, we still have to be mindful of the fact that this is a precarious situation sometimes, especially if you don’t have your own building. I don’t think our owners could sustain us playing in (Louisville) Slugger (Field) for 10 more years. It doesn’t matter how successful we are.”

Without control of parking, concessions and stadium signage, even winning teams can struggle to get their bills paid. Unable to negotiate a deal on a soccer-specific stadium, Fresno FC owner Ray Beshoff announced last month that his team will “almost certainly” be relocating.

“It is very difficult — if not impossible — for a club to truly thrive without its own stadium,” Beshoff said in a prepared statement. “Having a home venue is the foundation on which a sustainable professional sports organization is built. It is the epicenter of a club’s strength and support.”

It is why the stadium nearing completion in Butchertown is of greater lasting significance than LouCity’s quest for a third straight USL title. Whether it is ever expanded to accommodate an MLS team, Lynn Family Stadium underscores the old adage: “If you build it, they won’t leave.”

USL President Jake Edwards toured the stadium site Friday and afterward called it, “the showpiece stadium in our league.”

“I think this will be a catalyst for the next phase of growth in our league,” he said. “Most of the teams that have built soccer-specific stadiums have built in the 6,000-8,000 range. We have one or two that are getting close to this. We’ve got some impressive stadiums at the 10,000-seat mark. (But) I think this is at another level.”

Edwards is a native of Manchester, England, home of two of the world’s five most valuable soccer clubs, but he played high school soccer in New Jersey and collegiately at James Madison University. He has watched America’s soccer boom at close range.

“The U.S. is becoming a player in a global game,” Edwards said. “I think the next five years, 10 years, we’re going to be in a very different place. With infrastructure and getting the right development programs in place — when all those pieces come together — this would be a powerhouse country.”

That the pieces are coming together more quickly in Louisville is a legitimate source of civic pride. It is not the norm.