Ruden Sports News

Staples’ Nate Argosh works with some young players during Westport World Cup Day. (Photo: William Lanzoni)

By Hayley Tafuro

A big day in Brazil also happened to be a big day for Westport on Sunday as the Staples High School boys soccer team, working with the Westport Soccer Association, sponsored Westport World Cup Day, leading up to the highly anticipated matchup between the United States and Portugal.

In the past, the Staples team has traditionally liked to celebrate the World Cup’s arrival in some way. According to Staples Coach Dan Woog, eight years ago the party took place at a player’s house, and four years ago it aired the USA game in the Staples auditorium for the first time. However this year, the Wreckers decided they wanted to kick it up a notch and add on an afternoon of events to the day, taking place right on their vaunted playing field.

“This year, we wanted to expand it,” said Woog. “About three weeks ago, we got the players together and asked them what they wanted to do, and they came up with it.”

Staples’ Andrew Puchala leads a group of young players through a drill. (Photo: William Lanzoni)

What they came up with was an idea to incorporate the young players for a couple hours of “warm-ups,” which included stations such as obstacle courses, a penalty kick area and fun contests that incorporated their soccer skills.

Noah Schwaeber, a junior and star goalkeeper for the Wreckers, explained how the idea for these mini-games came about: “At first, we came together and had a meeting. Coach then kind of gave us the freedom to choose our own activities, and from there we were assigned different games.”

The players from the Staples team took charge all day and ran each of the stations. There were 250 kids — the capacity of spaces — some decked out in their USA gear, more than enough to keep the high school boys busy on the field until the arrival of the food trucks before a screening of the game in the school’s auditorium.

Another aspect of the event that attracted a great deal of attention was the raffle that featured a grand prize of a behind-the-scenes tour of the ESPN headquarters from World Cup broadcaster and Staples alumnus Jeremy Schaap.

Staples’ James Lewis works with a young player. (Photo: William Lanzoni)

The lone disappointment of the day came when Portugal scored late in stoppage time to forge a 2-2 with the U.S., disheartening a throng of youngsters that had crept to the edge of the stage in anticipation of victory.

The Westport community enjoyed each of the events on the beautiful day. However, most of the success can be attributed to the Staples soccer program’s history of dedication to the town’s next generation of players.

“Staples soccer has always been about tradition and being intertwined with the community, and I think that’s why we’re so successful,” said senior forward Nate Argosh. “We bring the kids in from a really young age and make sure that they get experience with the older kids and to see what it’s like at Staples.”

Westport World Cup Day has become a tradition of its own, and has clearly progressed into a community-wide event that many come out to take part in.

“Westport really celebrates it,” Woog said. “We like to celebrate our sport, we like to celebrate soccer and the eyes of the world are on soccer right now.”