Orangetown: New York City FC unveils high-tech training facility, academy

ORANGETOWN - Players from World Class FC, a youth program in this soccer-obsessed town, watched recently as the bus carrying World Cup winner David Villa and his New York City FC teammates rolled out from the pro team’s sleek training center that sits just across the street.

“I was able to tell our boys, 'Hey, they’re probably looking out their (bus) windows at our games,'” said Gordon Miller, who's president of the Orangetown Mighty Metros program, which includes World Class FC at the multi-field complex on Old Orangetown Road that’s impressive in its own right. “So it creates a lot of excitement and a real point of pride.”

On Tuesday, Villa — whose five goals helped propel Spain to 2010 World Cup glory — helped Major League Soccer’s NYCFC open the doors to its cutting-edge training center in the Orangeburg hamlet to more than 20 news organizations from around the world. Villa, whose career has included winning a European championship at juggernaut FC Barcelona, called NYCFC's training facility "one of the best."

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But he's also noticed what's going on across the road too.

"I love this sport, I love the growing of this sport, and when you see the facility across the street, it's really amazing for soccer, for youth soccer, and for the future," Villa said.

At NYCFC's training center, the Etihad City Football Academy, a camera system captures players' movement on the immaculately cut training fields from four angles, so staff can do things such as home in on what can be improved. There are massive touch-screen televisions, a massage room, a media room, and a dining space where a chef cooks meals tailored by sports scientists for the players. The players' dressing room is a spacious, circular space.

Famed architect Rafael Viñoly designed the building, which is meant to share elements in common with training facilities/academies of NYCFC's sister teams, such as English powerhouse Manchester City, which come under the City Football Group.

NYCFC's training facility sports an exterior cladding style that Ian Wilson, who's been helping NYCFC's project and is head of infrastructure of a sister team in Australia, said is referred to as a "bespoke design."

And this is a place to train for matches. NYCFC plays homes matches at Yankee Stadium but in the future may have its own stadium.

And when Manchester City arrives this summer for a U.S. tour that will pit it against other European soccer behemoths, plans are for it to do some training at the Orangeburg facility.

Fantasy come true

Town Supervisor Chris Day described it as something of a fantasy come true, like having Yankee Stadium across the road from your Little League fields.

“They add so much to our town,” Day said. “It’s not just the world-class football club across the street, it’s our entire youth soccer program for the town of Orangetown.”

Day said his 2-year-old daughter will start to play in the Kiddie Kickers program for 3- and 4-year-olds next fall. “And she’ll be able to play right across the street from the pros,” he said. "I mean, to grow up having that opportunity ... you can't quantify it."

NYCFC has provided expertise — the latest training methods, for instance — to the youth programs across the road, Miller said. Meanwhile, some of NYCFC's academy teams use the multi-field complex that Miller helps to oversee. And the two facilities may partner in more ways in the future, said Miller, who also coaches at the multi-field complex and at Pearl River High School.

And the town's effort have borne fruit: One of its own, Tommy McNamara, is part of the NYCFC squad.

In Orangetown, Miller said, you’re as likely to see kids wearing jerseys of Europe's soccer titans as you are NFL, Major League Baseball and NBA teams. While youth soccer dates back more than 50 years in town, the new century has brought a key difference: The sport has taken off in the U.S. on television and on mobile devices.

American viewers can watch most of Europe's best teams play from dawn to dusk. The Premier League in England, La Liga in Spain, Serie A in Italy, as well as from South America, Mexico and the U.S.’s Major League Soccer, are on week in and week out.

Meanwhile, competitions that pit national teams against each other such as the 2014 World Cup have drawn U.S. television audiences that rivaled or beat post-season baseball.

The global audience for the culminating matches of the month long World Cup? Well, that's been put in the hundreds of millions and even billions.

But a sport so gargantuan felt closer to home on Tuesday. NYCFC’s McNamara, who played on his first recreational team in town when he was 3 or 4 years old and grew up amid Rockland’s soccer scene, said “for me, it’s probably coming full circle.”

“I know how popular soccer is,” he said, and “to have [NYCFC’s starting team] here, it gives the opportunity for the young kids to look and see us and be like, 'wow, this is attainable as professionals.' So hopefully it continues the growth of soccer and kind of galvanizes the sport.”