“In the 1950s people were moving to New York, playing in the German-American League and earning $500 a game,” said Bill Marth, the league’s general secretary. “Even in the top division in England at the time, people were making virtually nothing, so players actually came to New York and were making more money playing in this league.”

Money spoke so loudly only in those days, when teams still largely hewed to ethnic lines and affiliations. In the 1950s, the league was dominated by teams like Hungaria SC — a squad built around players fleeing the response to the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Several top Hungarian internationals played for the team, in a decade when Hungary’s so-called Magnificent Magyars set the standard for the global game and reached the World Cup final in 1954.

The Pancyprian Freedoms, too, emerged out of political trauma. Christopher pinpointed the founding of the team to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on July 20, 1974. He was an expat playing recreational soccer in New York when the invasion occurred, and with a group of friends decided to form a team that they said would not only compete locally, but also would “project the image of Cyprus.” The organization quickly transcended soccer.

“We built the Pancyprian Community Center in Astoria, and from there the club expanded into many more areas than just football,” Christopher said. “We were called the Eleutheria Pancyprians — Eleutheria means freedom. We have a cultural division, a women’s division. We have players that are involved with the community, that are involved with our youth teams.”