Professional footballer and Premier League champion Christian Fuchs is a busy man.
Yet he’s managed to carve out his stake in the American soccer business, establishing the Fox Soccer Academy in the town of Warwick, New York nestled along the New Jersey border and just a little over an hour’s drive from New York City.
Fuchs sat down with ISNSoccer.com in an exclusive interview following a recent tryout date for his academy of girls and boys ranging 8-18 years old.
A little over a year ago Christian and his wife Raluca purchased the Hudson Sports Complex, a former correctional facility in Warwick that came with multiple turf fields and acres of land for additional growth.
“Last year, a friend of ours, we didn’t offensively look for it, we were like ok if something comes about, ‘Great we’ll do it.’ A friend of ours told us about this facility that has a field and we were like cool, let’s check it out,” Fuchs said.
The idea that the facility was a former correctional facility immediately fascinated him.
“We didn’t realize by the way that this facility was coming with much more than one field,” Fuchs explained. “It was like a whole full-blown former prison…I love it, I love the idea, the second I figured out what this is here, I loved the idea. I fell in love with it right away. I saw my kids growing up in the facility, just the way I grew up on the soccer field, because my dad was also a president of a club. We fell in love with the site, it has a lot of potential to grow and we grew it not to the extent where we want it to be, within the first year, even ahead of time a couple of months but that’s just benefiting us in a very good way. Now, we are trying to install programs and grow the facility itself.”
Although Christian has no desire to become a head coach after this playing career is over, he’s instilled a coaching philosophy top down into FSA, not just in the stateside academy in New York but in the ones he also has in his native Austria, as well as the UK. Some of his top influencers on shaping the club’s philosophy have been some of the managers he’s gotten to work with during a 17-year playing career throughout Europe.
“I think we have something very unique,” Fuchs said. “Because, and I don’t blame any other club, right, because where should we they have the know-how from playing 17 years professional in England and Europe having worked with Thomas Tuchel, current Paris Saint-Germain manager, working right now with Brendan Rogers, current Leicester City Football Club manager, so all those managers that I’ve worked with, I simply took all the information aboard, I love it, it’s so interesting to me, meanwhile I don’t want to be a coach myself but I want to help youth players to develop and I want to help them become the next Pulisic.”
You also might ask, how does a top-flight left back in the Premier League keep all these tasks at hand while he goes to training every day for his club team, while earning spot within the squad week in and week out?
“People that know me know why and what I can take on a lot,” Fuchs said. “I mean, I’m an Aries, I cannot sit still anyways, I would be too bored out of my life If I were to just go for training, it keeps me busy and helps me in a positive way to play football for my club, because I’m distracted, I have other thoughts but when I come to the club it’s a relief, it’s like freedom, all you got to do is play soccer, chase after the ball, which is not as easy as it sounds right now, but compared to the stress that you have here, pressure building everything here, playing football is pretty simple.”
Fuchs touched a bit on the current tremendous run of form Leicester City is on (currently third in the table), as well as touching on the pinnacle moment of his soccer career, hoisting the Premier League trophy in 2016 with Leicester City. His side is currently one point ahead at this juncture of the season than it was when it won the league three years ago.
“Well but you know since then you need a lot more points to win the Premier League than when we (LCFC) won the Premier League,” Fuchs said. “It’s two different teams that you cannot compare with each other but what we had in 2016 was very unique with all the circumstances, also with the circumstances of how we played football.”
Although Fuchs hasn’t played as much as he did in the 2016 season, he’s currently played in more games in 2019 than he did at this point in time last season under a different manager. He even lined up opposite side American star and Chelsea assist leader Christian Pulisic in their league game back on August 18th.
“Right now, our game is based on possession,” Fuchs said. “Against teams like Arsenal, we have 70% possession, where Arsenal is known as a team that plays a possession-based game, so a drastic transformation of the team but it’s so enjoyable. I’m learning so much from Brendan Rodgers, which just helps us here, not only here in America, but also in FSA England and Austria because there’s other types of things we’re trying to implement and teach our children as well.”
Fuchs has always been a visionary when it comes to his career whether it be in his careers stops in Austria to Germany to England, his dreams for FSA in Warwick remain high.
“With the setup we have, especially in England and America, to help each other, to be one community,” Fuchs said. “The setup in England helps us to get players to play for FSA and to offer opportunities to U.S. kids to showcase themselves in front of European/English top-class teams.”
Fuchs sees his academy eventually being a possible stopover in the states for some the talent in Europe that isn’t immediately ready to make the jump up to some of the higher leagues there.
“We’re putting on showcases with those academies,” Fuchs said. “We played last week against Leicester City academies and the football is always great and has talent so having this interaction between UK and USA, not only to Europe but also from the UK to the USA, because it’s very tough over there, very tough, there’s so many good players but with the same thing that we have here, it can be a detour for them to make it professional via MLS whatever it is, then to go back and play in the Championship (2nd div) for example.”
Apart of the Fox Soccer Academy here stateside is also the addition of a UPSL team that plays out of their facility. In their first year, FSA Pro Foxes won their first trophy of the academy’s young career, besting Real New York, 1-0, en route to UPSL Northeast Conference Empire Division Champions. It was a proud moment for Christian.
“UPSL team is an adult league, adult development league,” Fuchs said. “We joined because we wanted to have a first team here in Warwick, there hasn’t been one on the national level yet. We had our tryouts, we had great talent coming in, we evolved the squad throughout the season and eventually we had our final game here in Warwick against Real New York, who were first, three points ahead, but we had the far better goal difference so all we needed was a win and we did, 1-0, it was the toughest game of the season but having this achievement in the first year of the season, improving the squad, week in-week out, with the trainings because we are training twice a week, we are trying to make this as professional as possible given the circumstances, it just shows that what we have in place is really working and it helps players not only to play better but also to understand the game.”
