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Saturday, March 21, 2009
How it all it began - a pizza place and an idea
Three years ago we had a friend that was extremely focused on playing soccer in Europe. We had seen the guy play and played against him and we knew he was talented. He had experience at other professional levels but had never seen his career going anywhere. We wanted to do something for him because we wanted to see him succeed.
As luck would have it, Esad's home country of Montenegro had just split from Serbia and created its own sovereign nation. When it split up it also joined the European Union and created its own first division soccer league that now competed in the Champions League and the UEFA cup. This was incredible timing for Chris. We decided to send Chris over to try out with a local first division team and he made it. He was the first American to play in Montenegro. Chris excelled until picking up an injury and returning but we had also succeeded in placing a player abroad. Esad and I began to think more about what we could do for other players.
We started to do our research by sharing this opportunity with other players to get their feedback. We got an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from players playing locally stating that they wanted to play abroad or at least have the chance to tryout with a team but they had no contacts. The usual scenario with playing abroad is that you have to have a family friend to get you in the door. You have to choose a country that does not require a work permit or else you would need to play in over 75% of your countries national team games over the last 18 months to play in places like England. In Montenegro you do not need a work permit.
Esad and I kept meeting to talk more about this connection and what we could do for our friends. We got the word out and we had two more players ask us to do the same. We sent the two players over and they both signed professional contracts. At first we were taken aback that these players were playing in a Sunday league and now they are playing first division Europe.
This is when the idea hit us - let's take a team over to Europe and play showcase games with other clubs. If the clubs like the players then they will pick them up. We thought to ourselves that if we could find three players that easily then we should be able to find a whole team just as easily. This is where it got interesting. Esad and I don't watch the MLS. We never have. We watch European soccer and play fantasy English Premier League on Yahoo. For us, the MLS is boring but we do follow our national team and we desperately want to see them succeed. We have noticed that the team is now made up of a lot of players that play in Europe abroad.
The MLS has lost so much talent to Europe already and now we are starting to develop players in Europe because the way we develop players is not working. Our college soccer system is actually hurting the way we play soccer in the U.S. It has too many restrictions and there are too many distractions for players that want to make this their career. We knew the MLS was not getting good ratings and we know the average American does not watch soccer even though they all played AYSO growing up as kids.
Our answer to the woes of the MLS was to create this reality soccer show that takes players that want to play abroad on a 14 day road trip to Europe to play 5 friendly matches with the hopes of getting picked up by a professional club. We are not after the best clubs in the world like Manchester United or Barcelona because that is unrealistic at this point. We are looking to place players where they can play and get experience and make a career out of soccer. Our goal was to create a show that is 95% player stories and 5% soccer. Our goal was to create a show that all viewers, whether they despise or love soccer, will want to watch. Our show is MTV's The Real World with soccer as a back drop.
We are not your normal reality television writers/producers. We are two regular guys that want to see soccer gain more popularity in the United States and give our young players a chance to play abroad. I am a teacher by day and my business partner Esad is a restaurant owner and this is our dream - www.OneShotOneDream.com.
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