FASA News Release - www.fasasoccer.org
By Charles Boehm
Friday, June 14, 2013
SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. - It’s been years since the big plans for the gorgeous new soccer-specific complex in Spotsylvania, Va. – dubbed the Spotsylvania Sportsplex at New Post – were first unveiled by the Virginia Youth Soccer Association and the Fredericksburg Area Soccer Association, partners in the ambitious 16-field project known throughout the local community as “the field of dreams.”
This weekend, competitive soccer will finally be played in earnest on the site, as a slate of USL Super-Y League matches will mark what FASA is calling the fields’ “soft opening,” in anticipation of a much bigger celebration further in the future when more of the construction is completed.
“There’s still a great deal of work to be done – the complex is far from finished,” FASA general manager Pete Cinalli told SoccerWire.com this week. “But the first section of fields are ready to go and we’re just so happy to get the kids out there playing on them.”
VYSA’s section of the facility, which will eventually comprise its headquarters building – including locker rooms, classrooms for coaching and refereeing courses and other amenities – as well as several all-weather artificial-turf fields and a small showcase stadium, is on a different schedule from FASA’s and will not be completed for some time.
But putting the first 10 or so fields into use is nonetheless a major milestone for Cinalli and his colleagues at the Fredericksburg club, who have been working towards this moment for the better part of a decade.
FASA’s rapid growth has contributed to a constant shortage of field space – a common refrain across the Northern Virginia youth soccer scene – and bringing their section of the new complex online provides timely relief. It will also host a sizeable chunk of the Washington Invitational, a new tournament jointly hosted by FASA and Chesterfield United FC later this summer, on August 17-18 and 24-25.
Cinalli cautions that the site will look very different by then, noting that the parking lot and other points of infrastructure remain fairly rudimentary at the moment. But he’ll still be smiling come Saturday, when an important chapter in his long-running dream finally materializes.
“The grass looks great, the goals are up and the fields are lined,” he said. “We’re ready to play.”