NEWARKJOE R. MANSO reached his hand into a crowded display case one recent afternoon and pulled out a silver trophy that could have used a good polishing. It commemorated a soccer tournament — Portuguese v. Spaniards — played in Bayonne in April 1922.
Evoking the spirits of what must have been the immigrant players’ war-weary European brethren, the words, “In memory of all those who have lived and died for World Peace,” were etched in the metal cup.
Ninety years of immigrant soccer history in New Jersey are contained in this wall-length glass cabinet in the lobby of Newark’s Sport Clube Português. The sport club, which was founded in 1921 by Portuguese immigrants who came to work in the local tanneries and paint factories, is one of the state’s oldest ethnic soccer clubs.
The case’s rusted metal trophies and fraying cloth banners tell the story of games lost and won, leagues come and gone, and players who grew to manhood on the well-worn fields of the Ironbound section of this city.
Mr. Manso, 61, knows these stories by heart. He has been coaching adult men’s teams since he was 28, two decades after his family immigrated to Newark from a fishing village in Portugal. His team, also called the Sport Clube Português, is hoping this month will be the start of another victorious season after a four-year winning streak in what is known as the Champions League, an amateur league that is home to some of the most devoted adult soccer players in the region.
The 10-year-old League — which was started in New Jersey but now includes teams in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York — is known informally as the last stop for men over age 18 who are good enough to turn pro, and some of the players do. It is the older and more prestigious of two regional adult leagues affiliated with the United States Soccer Federation, the sport’s governing body.
With teams starkly divided along ethnic lines, the league has the character of a miniature World Cup. There are the White Eagles, made up primarily of Serbians from Hope, N.J., a small town near the Pennsylvania border, and Salamina, a Greek-Cypriot team from Staten Island. Some teams bear their double loyalties in their names: There are the Kearny Scots, from a club that was founded in the 19th century and now includes many non-Scots, and Garfield Vistula, whose name is a hybrid of the Jersey town and Poland’s longest river.
The Champions League is the strongest of a handful of remaining adult leagues that remind New Jerseyans of the way the sport used to be played, long before soccer moms and middle schoolers began to crowd suburban fields on Saturday mornings.
“Fifteen years ago the Ironbound alone had more than 10 teams,” said Mr. Manso, a local real estate agent, who was surprised to find an image of his 25-year-old self in a yellowing team photo tucked among the trophies. “But we’re the only ones left.”
For much of the last century, soccer clubs and leagues were a fixture in European immigrant neighborhoods throughout the state. There were Polish clubs in Kearny, Spanish clubs in Bayonne, German clubs in Trenton and Ukrainian Clubs in Newark. Some of these clubs and leagues are still around, but many lost players as immigration dried up and league members moved to other neighborhoods.
Pat Varsallona, the director of the 11-team league and the New Jersey Soccer Association — which oversees seven adult leagues, a number of which have Italian, Portuguese and German origins — founded it with the idea that he could round up the Northeast region’s best players to compete in a single high-quality league. He sought men, he said, who “wanted to win at all costs,” who would be willing to play without compensation but to train like professionals.
For these players, soccer — and the clubs that support it — has always been more than a game. It is a living connection to a world they never fully left behind. During World War II, players fleeing Europe were able to take refuge — and earn a living — playing for teams on the East Coast.
During the 1950s and ’60s, the most famous European teams — like England’s Chelsea and Portugal’s Benfica — came to play for immigrant crowds in the metropolitan area. Many of them dined in the club’s blue-tiled second-floor ballroom, where Mr. Manso’s son Jason — the goalie on his father’s team for 10 years — was married in December.
“Our fathers played here, and their fathers played here,” said Jason J. Manso, 28, who was passing by the club that afternoon. “So this really isn’t just a soccer team. It’s our home.”
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