Minding the Net
An independent programme for Arizona and lower-league American soccer — the clubs and players who built the desert game, kept on the record.
The Clubs
Full team sheet →The teams at the centre of the archive — their origins, their leagues, and where they sit in the American pyramid.
A club built on preseason friendlies in the desert that talked its way up to the professional game — and then, unusually, chose to walk back down.
Tucsonest. 2010
Arizona's only fully professional men's club above the fourth tier, and the one whose ambitions kept outrunning its stadium.
Phoenixest. 2014
The Players
All squad cards →Footballers who passed through the desert clubs and the lower divisions — profiled from the public record.
An American goalkeeper whose best season came at amateur level, in the year the Austin Aztex won the whole of the PDL. He was named to the league's Southern Conference team twice before a short professional career in the USL.
United StatesNo. 28
A Tucson-born attacking midfielder whose career runs through a junior college, a Big Ten program, a third-tier professional contract in upstate New York, and a return to Arizona — with a Vietnamese detour that never quite happened.
Deportivo La Real FCNo. 19
Minding the Net is an independent project and is not affiliated with FC Tucson, the USL, or any club or player named here. Names and marks are used for identification and commentary. More about this archive →