Christian Fuchs talks UPSL Playoffs & Playing For His Own Team, Fox Soccer Academy

Written by Jason Davis, host SiriusXM FC

After some back-and-forth because he seems to be involved in a thousand different soccer things in three different countries, I wrangled some time from Fox Soccer Academy owner Christian Fuchs. 

It’s fair to say he reached a few notable milestones as a soccer player. 

An decidedly incomplete list might look something like this: 

• Four-hundred and eighty league appearances as a senior player with teams in Austria, Germany, England, and the United States. 

• Seventy-eight caps for Austria and four years as captain of his country.

• An improbable Premier League title with Leicester City, a club rated as a 5000-1 shot at the outset of the season in 2015-16.

• A founding role as a member of Charlotte FC, Major League Soccer’s 28th franchise.

And, as of November 2023, he can add “UPSL playoff competitor” to that list.

You and I might think playing in the playoffs of a semi-pro league in front of a small crowd in Clifton, New Jersey would be “slumming it” for a player with a resume like that of Fuchs. 

That’s certainly not how Christian sees it. 

When I grabbed Christian to talk about his experience suiting up for FSA Pro, the senior squad for his Fox Soccer Academy based in Warwick, New York, the former English champion beamed about the chance to play competitive soccer again—and more to the point, to play for the academy he launched in the United States eight years ago.  

My first question was a simple one: Why play?

“Why not?” Fuchs responded with a satisfied grin. 

Despite his team of kids and part-timers falling to New Jersey Alliance FC 4-3 (in a match where FSA Pro fought back from a multi-goal deficit to make it close), Fuchs got plenty out of his turn leading the backline. 

Stepping into the fray was also about staying true to his word.

“I promised my coach (Cesar Rincon) that if we make it into the playoffs, then he has me as a player,” Fuchs told me. “I was happily surprised based on how the season started for us that we qualified for the playoffs.”

“As a former player that just recently retired, [there’s] this tingling in your fingers and your toes when you see there’s an opportunity to be on the field again. And to play and to compete. I could not resist.” 

There was some paperwork, something called an “amateur reinstatement form” and then Fuchs was able to do something he counts among the greatest thrills of his soccer life. 

“Playing for my own academy is something that…I saw a lot of comments. Why? The question was always, why? Why did he look forward to playing for Fox Soccer Academy when he played here and there and everywhere? But people need to understand. Fox Soccer Academy is my baby, right? That I’m very attached to. And that’s why for me, it was one of the best moments, to be honest, to be able to play for my own academy.”

As I listened to Christian talk through a wide smile, I tried to put myself in the shoes of one of FSA Pro’s players as the team prepared for the match against New Jersey Alliance. According to Christian, his presence at a training session wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary—FSA is his baby, as he said, and he’d been involved in plenty of practices in various capacities. 

But when that news broke? The news that a man who played in two European Championships and lifted a Premier League trophy was going to suit up and play at Athenia Steel Complex in the first round of the UPSL playoffs?

“I showed up for training,” Christian recounted. “But I’ve done this many times before. I ran training sessions with my first team, so it’s nothing abnormal that happened. After the first training, the coach said ‘Yeah. Look in each other’s eyes because these are the players that will compete on Thursday in the playoffs.’ 

Cue record scratch. 

“They’re like ‘I’m going to play with him?’ But you know, when you’re a player, you see yourself as a part of the group. I didn’t make a big deal out of it. Okay. I’m a part of the group, you know, I’m a part of the team that tries to give his best and tries to compete. But the reaction was funny.” 

Christian won’t be playing anymore UPSL playoff matches this season after FSA Pro’s defeat, but he had plenty to say about the role UPSL plays in the developmental pathway for his academy. 

“I think [UPSL] bridges a great gap between academy football and the professional game because it’s a platform for players to show their abilities on a fairly competitive level,” he said. 

“There’s a good amount of talented young players that are aspiring to make a career for themselves in the game. We have a couple of talented players with Fox Soccer Academy that I hope they will move on to higher leagues and to higher competitions. Having this platform in place is a great tool for young players to go along and make a name for themselves.”

I’ve been lucky enough to talk to Christian a number of times since the launch of Fox Soccer Academy and his subsequent move to the United States to play and coach. In every case, his passion for and belief in American soccer shines through. 

We’ve even converted him into a supporter of playoffs—sort of. 

“I mean, it’s the American way, right? It’s undisputed in American sports. I think it has its pros and cons.”

One pro? The pressure it creates and the opportunity players get to learn to play under it. 

“But in the playoffs…it’s all or nothing. How do you deal with that? How do you cope with the pressure no matter on what level? Right? You want to compete? There are competitors out there on any level and you want to advance. How do you compete with the pressure that you put on yourself first of all, but then also the expectations from the outside?”

Whether it’s the playoff crucible or the system of promotion and relegation employed with UPSL (something he brought up unprompted), Christian is all-in on what the league can do for his academy. 

And it doesn’t hurt that it gave him a chance to feel that tingle again.