PEOPLE OF INTEREST
BY SUE-ELLEN SANDERS
PHOTO BY GREGORY ENNS
Al Soricelli was out of college and had started a family
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of his own when the Women’s National Team won the
World Cup in 1995—a repeat of 1990—and helped to
feed the frenzy for girls’ youth soccer. Soon Soricelli, whose
experience playing soccer was limited to street games he
played as a kid growing up in New York state, took his place
on the soccer fields in Port St. Lucie, where he had moved to
give his family a better life.
The first girls’ soccer team Soricelli coached was in 1994,
when his eldest daughter, Emily, wasn’t yet 4. Soricelli,
coached Emily through recreational soccer and into a competitive
league before she graduated to other teams and
coaches. Middle daughter Gina began to play the game, and
Soricelli stepped in as her coach.
Today, as head of coaches for the Mako Soccer Club, a volunteer
job, Soricelli is responsible for recruiting competitive
and recreational coaches and helping them to organize their
teams. He also serves as a Mako Soccer trainer and cheerleader
while still coaching Gina’s under-12 Select soccer
team. The family spends almost every weekend at
soccer games.
Get Soricelli talking about soccer and he begins to wax
poetic about what he calls “the beautiful game.” He tells his
girls, “You don’t have to be the best player out there, but you
do have to be the best you can be.” Soccer is important as
more than a game — playing soccer can teach the girls about
setting goals, and give them the self-confidence to help them
weather their teenage years.
“When played right, soccer is a symphony in cleats,’’
Soricelli says. Even without his soccer cleats on, Soricelli is
still coaching. In his daytime job, the one that pays for all the
soccer equipment, he is a financial counselor for AXA
Advisors, where he coaches his clients every day. “It’s just
like soccer, only without the ball. I’m the one that tells them
when they are doing something right, or when it’s time to
regroup and review. I keep them off the ledges with a welldisciplined,
planned approach. I keep them in the game with
proper strategy, just like I do with my girls on the field. I’m a
coach by nature, it’s what I do.”
Soricelli, an Evangelist Christian and member of
Morningside Church, says his faith fills his life. “I am still
learning what God’s plan is for me. But, if I wasn’t coaching
my kid, I’d be coaching someone else’s kid. It’s my vice. It’s
what I love to do.”
The
Soccer
Coach