ECFC started out of necessity

We just want to keep expanding. . . . There was a clear need, and it’s showing.”

Jerome Barberio, Cofounder, ECFC

Four years ago, Wantagh residents Alex Barberio, then 9, and his father, Jerome, were at a crossroads. Alex, who had been playing for his town’s soccer team, was improving quickly and wanted better competition. He also wanted to play soccer year-round.

Jerome knew his options. Prestigious youth soccer academies are scattered across Long Island and New York City. The Long Island Rough Riders program is based in Plainview, while Major League Soccer teams such as the New York Red Bulls have training locations across Nassau and Suffolk counties. The East Meadow Football Club was another nearby possibility.

But Jerome saw a need along the South Shore for more competitive soccer, and not just for his son. He imagined that many kids in Seaford and Wantagh needed an outlet for their talents. “So I asked one day, ‘Why don’t we just start our own team?’” he recalled. With the help of his younger brother Anthony, he founded the East Coast Football Club in 2016.

“I made some calls, and we had to be sanctioned,” recounted Jerome, who’s now 48. “We needed to have three teams with at least 30 players.” The travel team was initially named the East Coast F.C. Predators. The program now adopts the names of popular professional European clubs to distinguish one team from another, in addition to the players’ birth years — for example, 2007 Madrid East Coast F.C.

The program started with a 2005 and 2006 boys’ team. The third boys’ team comprised Wantagh, Seaford and Bellmore players, and was assembled as the 2016-17 season was starting, so the club could be sanctioned. The girls’ program started in 2018.

In 2017, the Barberios and club Vice President Andrew Visconti hosted a tryout at Holy Trinity High School in Farmingdale. They were looking to add to their roster of 30 players, but weren’t expecting a large turnout. They didn’t even post much on social media. “I walked up to the field and saw 100 kids lined up against the fence,” Jerome said. Asked if, at any point, he felt overwhelmed by starting his own soccer academy, he answered, “Right then and there. I felt like I may have gotten myself in over my head.”

But the tryout was successful, and the program grew, attracting more players each season. It helps that the tuition — roughly $1,600 per year — is only about half what other Long Island academies charge, according to Jerome. Three years after barely securing three teams of 10 players, East Coast F.C. now operates with 26 teams and more than 350 players under the guidance of 15 coaches. One of the major reasons for its quick growth, according to Jerome, is his brother Anthony.

Now the president of the program, Anthony, 38, boasts an extensive soccer background. He spent several seasons as a youngster playing in leagues in Argentina. In 2000, back in the U.S., he was awarded the Adidas Golden Boot for scoring the most goals in the U-17 Snickers U.S. Youth National Championship. After graduating from Stony Brook University with a degree in international business, he returned to Argentina, playing for two clubs in the city of San Juan, Club Atletico Trinidad and San Martin. Then, back in the States again, he played for the Long Island Rough Riders.

In Argentina, Anthony developed a friendship with a star Argentine player, Mariano Belen, who began his professional career at age 17, playing for Club Atletico Banfield, before coming to the U.S. to play for the New York Fever. In 2015, Barberio asked Belen to help him give the next generation of Long Island soccer players an opportunity to grow by becoming East Coast F.C.’s director of coaching.

“It’s nice to have control of how the kids train, to get them better and prepare them to play,” said Belen.

“He instills respect from camp onward,” Jerome Barberio said. “He preaches passion, dedication and respect.”

At an indoor training session at Nassau BOCES Jerusalem Avenue Elementary School in Bellmore on Jan. 23, Belen welcomed two dozen or so boys and girls, and hollered cheerful instructions as the gym floor began to rumble under their feet. His face wore a constant smile.

Kristen Damato, of East Meadow, watched as her daughter Quinlan, 9, zigged and zagged through cones under Belen’s instruction. “She started training with them last winter, played some indoor games, and then played with them this fall, and she’s loved it,” Damato said. A former high school soccer player, she recognized Belen as a positive influence on the children. “Mariano is great with the kids,” she said.

According to Jerome Barberio and Visconti, Belen is why the program has been so successful so fast. East Coast F.C. now has five teams playing in the highest division of the New York Club Soccer League, its 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010 boys’ teams, as well as its 2009 girls team. The program has also sent eight players to larger academies in New York City.

“We started centered around kids from the Wantagh and Seaford area, as well as Levittown and Merrick,” Jerome said. “We just want to keep expanding. Like I said, there was a clear need, and it is showing.”

For information on ECFC, email ecfcny@gmail.com Sign up for the club at Eastcoastfc.com.