National Soccer League

The **National Soccer League** (**NSL**) is a fictional, American professional soccer league. The league consists of 24 teams divided evenly into two conferences: the American Soccer Conference and the National Soccer Conference. Each conference contains four divisions: north, south, east, and west, which each contain three teams. The NSL's 27-week regular season season runs from mid-August to mid-February, with the playoffs being contested from late February to early April. Playoff contenders are determined by regular season results, with each division winner and two wild cards from each conference being selected, meaning that half of all teams qualify for postseason competition.

## History

### **Origins**

As the United States became more interested and invested in the sport of soccer, a former Celtic player named Millard Fosstentraitor, who moved to the MLS in the later years of his career, decided to begin a youth program dedicated to developing players inside the United States. As early as 2006, Fosstentraitor began recruiting players between the ages of 15 and 18 for his new team, the Thunderbirds. Fosstentraitor's first "class" consisted of 11 players; Lance Chalmers, Bruce Anderson, Nikomachos Stavropoulos, Xavier Washington, Blake Davis, Pace Conrad, DeKanta Josemi, Thomas Kennedy, Weston Fosstentraitor, Isaac Powers, and James Whooverd. These 11 would go on to be known as the Golden Boys of '07.

As the program grew over the next four years, more and more similar clubs began to join the league; first, the Wyvern Riders, the Ravens, and the Green Galaxy in 2008. These three clubs, along with the Thunderbirds, are known as the Founding Four. The Jabbawockeez and the Kung Fu Captains joined in 2009, followed by the Terminators and the Stealth in 2010. These clubs played each other in matches arranged by Fosstentraitor. At this point in time, the league was called the Future Football Federation, or 3F for short. The 3F format consisted of arranged matches being played resulting in a regular season table, which was then used to seed a knockout style tournament at the end of each season.

In the spring of 2011, Millard Fosstentraitor stepped down as the Thunderbirds head coach, deciding to focus more attention on the league as a whole and becoming the first NSL Commissioner. Millard handed the Thunderbirds over to his brother, Alexander Fosstentraitor. When Alexander took over, the Thunderbirds squad had grown from its original 11 members to 43. Fosstentraitor decided to split the club into two separate clubs, the new club was given the name the Charioteers. Fosstentraitor decided to take control of the Charioteers, and hired long time friend and team mate Joe Redd to coach the Thunderbirds. Millard Fosstentraitor realized that having a league with 9 teams could be potentially problematic for scheduling, so he added a tenth club, the Pink Nightmare.

In the summer of 2013, Alexander Fosstentraitor's Charioteers had again grown substantially to a size of 37 players. He again decided to split the two clubs, naming the new club the Knights. Fosstentraitor remained in charge of the Charioteers, while his former assistant and goalkeeping coach, Jorge Sánchez, took over the Knights. The year of the Knights birth also marked the end of a different club, the Kung Fu Captains. After a lack of new players and revenue flow into the club, the organization dissolved, and the players went off in search of new clubs.

### **Foundation**

Over the summer of 2013, Millard Fosstentraitor once again addressed American film company Hummel-Schunk Studios. In his speech, he outlined that he wanted to bring a more traditional, formal side to the league, proposing a new structure to bring more attention and money into the league. The reason for this change was that the players were starting to grow up, with most of the Golden Boys of '07 now in their mid-twenties. This also prompted Fosstentraitor to change the name of the league from the old "3F" to the National Soccer League. The new league structure meant there would be no more knockout tournament at the end each season; whoever was highest on points at the end of the season was the league winner. Hummel-Schunk Studios decided to endorse the proposition, and the National Soccer League was officially born.

After a largely successful debut season in 2013-14, the NSL Board of Directors decided to add an NSL Cup to take place after the regular season. The seeding for this tournament were to be decided by finishing spots from the league season. This was made as a replacement for the obsolete knockout tournament at the end of the old 3F seasons.

### **Format adjustments**

The 2014-15 season again helped the NSL incur large amounts of revenue and popularity. Over the summer of 2015, Fosstentraitor decided the league was ready for the next step: the addition of a second tier. The addition of the second tier saw the return of the formerly dissolved club, the Kung Fu Captains, who gained funding by popular support for a return. Other classic clubs, the Banshees and the Raiders, who had been waiting for the addition of a new league for some time, were also added to the league. Seven other teams joined the league as well: the Bombers, the Chiefs, the Condors, the Cougars, the Silverbacks, the Vikings, and the Vipers.

The league continued in this tier-system format up until 2017, at which point a crop of four new teams were pushing to join: the Colonials, the Islanders, the Saracens, and the Trappers. This pushed the team total to 24, which forced Fosstentraitor to reconsider the structure of the league. Fosstentraitor decided to revert to a more similar competition format to the old 3F days. After a late summer board meeting, a new, more American-friendly competition format was announced. This saw the teams divided into two conferences: the American Soccer Conference and the National Soccer Conference, with each conference being divided into divisions of north, south, east, and west, with each division consisting of three teams.

### **Lawsuit and Rebranding**

After the 2017-18 concluded, the National Football League approached Fosstentraitor with a lawsuit for copyright infringement. They cited several duplicate team names that were competitors for revenue, such as the Chiefs, Ravens, Vikings (among others). Fosstentraitor agreed to ask teams to change their names, resulting in a shake up of both team names, logos, and locations.

### **Bankruptcy**

After the inaugural season in this new format, the NSL Board filed for bankruptcy in June of 2018, citing a lack of television broadcast based revenue. Fosstentraitor begrudgingly agreed to suspend the league indefinitely, but promised they would be back within five years.

Two years later, in March of 2020, American business mogul Tommy Delvecchio approached the NSL Board with a proposal to bring the league back, starting with a kickstarter preseason tournament dubbed the NSL Invitational. While the Invitational seemed to be a success among loyal fans of the league, plans moving forward are still unclear for the NSL. With the arrival of the novel coronavirus in the United States in March, the NSL decided to postpone all competition until at least the summer of 2021.

## Clubs

There are 24 total clubs in the NSL. Each team must have between 25 and 39 players on its roster to be deemed "eligible" to compete in a season.

\*Denotes founding NSL member.

## Competition Format

### **Competition**

During the course of a regular season (from August to February) each club plays every other club in the league, and then plays every team in its own division a second time. This tallies a total of 25 regular season games. The top half, or six teams in each conference then advance to the playoff round, which take place from late February/early March to late March/early April.

* During the regular season, teams earn three points for a win, two points for a win in extra time (golden goal), and one point for a win in a penalty shoot-out. No points are awarded for a loss. There are no ties in the NSL.
* For playoff qualification, the winner of each division automatically qualifies. To determine the two wildcard teams in each conference, remaining teams are ranked by total points. If teams are equal on total points, the tiebreaker rules are as follows: head-to-head record, division record, total wins, goal differential.
* During the post-season, qualifying teams are seeded 1-6. Seeds 1-2 get a first round bye. The first round of playoffs, the Wildcard Round, consists of the lowest ranked wildcard team (#6) playing at the third highest ranked divisional champion (#3), along with the #5 seed being hosted by the #4 seed. After these games have winners, the worst remaining seed plays the best remaining seed, and the two middle seeds play, with the higher seed still hosting the lower seed. This is called the Divisional Round. After this, two teams are left in each conference, with the better remaining seed in each hosting a Conference Championship Round. Finally, the two conference champions play in the Championship game, the Soccer Bowl. This game is contested in a special, neutral stadium dubbed The Arena.

## Awards

### **Trophy and Medals**

The victor of the Soccer Bowl receives the NSL Trophy. Each member of the champion squad also receives an individual medal.

### **Player Awards**

Each season, the NSL gives out awards for:

* Top scorer (Golden Boot)
* Most assists (Golden Ball)
* Most clean sheets (Golden Glove)
* Most valuable player (Golden Crest)
* Rookie of the Year
* Comeback Player of the Year

The first three awards listed are determined by statistics, while the latter three are chosen by the NSL Association: a combination of voting by fans, players, managers, and board members (25% weight each).

### **Manager Awards**

The NSL Association also chooses a Manager of the Year.

## Records

To see a more detailed breakdown of team, individual, and seasonal records, visit the Records page.

## Archives

Statistical recording of each and every season has been a priority for the NSL since its formation. To see a detailed breakdown of individual seasons, visit the Archives page.

## External links

* https://www.easports.com/uk/fifa/creation-centre