On December 23rd, the New York Cosmos announced the return of captain and longtime player Danny Szetela for the 2019 NPSL season, including both the regular season and Founder’s Cup competition. His seventh year with the Cosmos promises to be another thrilling ride as a side with a historic lineage in the sport returns to professional status. This also promises to be another thrilling season in a career that has spanned from Columbus in the MLS, overseas, back to the States, and now to his hometown side.
In speaking to Szetela after news of his re-signing was announced, it is apparent that the sentiments of the Cosmos being a family, not just a club, ring true. “There was a time in my career where I had an injury and I was out for almost three years and the Cosmos gave me the opportunity to play again…This is where, eventually, I want to retire.” Szetela even added, “I probably would have retired if I did not re-sign with them.”
Being from New Jersey, playing for the Cosmos was a return to his roots in 2013. “This is where I want to be,” he told ISN. Now, he represents the Cosmos as not just a team leader in the broad sense, but in a more concrete fashion as the captain. Szetela found it tough to describe the impact of being captain on him. Simply wearing the jersey, he said, was an honor. The love and passion Szetela has for his club is such that few American sides truly have in their captain.
Capped by the United States national team in his earlier playing days and having played overseas makes Szetela a seasoned professional. He has gone through experiences that young players, no matter where they may be from, aspire to have. This takes a huge amount of leadership, which Szetela fully understands, saying, “Leaders are made, not born. You’re born with talent and hard work, but to become a leader you’re made.”
As a Cosmo, Szetela has learned from some of the finest players in the sport’s history. Raúl, a Real Madrid icon, spent a pair of seasons with the Cosmos. Marcos Senna, another Spanish legend who spent eleven seasons with Villarreal, took part in three. All three lifted an NASL league title in 2015, and Szetela and Senna lifted up the 2013 title as well. When playing alongside Spanish soccer royalty, you are bound to pick up a thing or two about leadership.
It has been a road that has taken Szetela through plenty of places and multiple countries before ending up back home. His career started in MLS with the Columbus Crew in 2004, including a 2005 that saw him start thirteen games for the Crew. That was the high point of a career in Ohio where over his four years with the Crew, he made 34 appearances, starting 24 of those matches. He played a role in four seasons, including substitute appearances in both playoff games in the Crew’s run in 2004. While with the Crew, he also represented the United States on a youth level at both the U-17 World Championship in 2005 and the U-20 World Cup in 2007 where he scored thrice, and did enough to earn his first senior cap. Though he battled injuries, his time in Columbus led to an opportunity to head to La Liga for Racing Santander, which in turn saw him to Italy with Serie B side Brescia.
Having spent time in Italy with Brescia, playing on a continent that treats soccer as “a religion”, his teammates were plenty illustrious as well. Francisco Lima, the Brazilian center back who spent time with Roma and in Russia before joining the San Jose Earthquakes, was another player who Szetela looked up to. It is an experience that only a select few players from the United States have had, and Szetela made the absolute most of it.
Szetela also credited another ex-teammate in Carlos Mendes for helping him. A teammate for five years, Mendes was also the head coach for the 2018 campaign and also hails from the area. When it comes to leadership, those who the current captain credits go to show that it does not matter where you may be from, what it takes to be a leader spans across national boundaries.
The passion and love in where he is from holds firm in all aspects of his playing career and ability and in doing what is right. As we finished discussing leadership, Szetela ended by discussing his own personal upbringing.
“I want to be a leader. Where I come from in Jersey, it’s all about hard work and helping others. Whatever I can do this year to continue to have success with the Cosmos is what I’m going to do. I’m going to do what’s best for the team at the end of the day to make sure that we can win every game that we play.”
The Founder’s Cup provides the Cosmos, and their captain, something new to look forward to. Szetela sees why the excitement is there for the league. “What the owners are trying to do is build a league that’s going to be similar to Europe,” he said about the format. He also understands that the club’s rich history may have them start the league off with a target on their back.
“All the teams involved are going to want to win. Obviously, the Cosmos history, the name, and being known as the biggest club in America, all these teams are going to come to play their best against us.”
Consisting of some of the top teams in recent history, as well as some of the best known in the lower leagues of American soccer, Szetela is surely right that the history of the Cosmos, both in the recent past and more distant of the 1970s and 80s, has them marked as a dangerous team from the infancy of the league. Still, 2019 remains a few months away.
Szetela reiterated to ISN that he wished it were the 2019 NPSL season tomorrow, but for now he remains busy. When asked what his current methods of preparation for the season are, he responded in a straightforward manner, “Definitely training, you’ve always got to train. As an athlete there’s really no days off.” Szetela joked that athletes get maybe three days off, one for Easter, one for Thanksgiving, and one for Christmas. With one of those days just now in the rearview mirror, that means the captain is full steam ahead for the season to come.
Expanding upon his training, Szetela mentioned that he goes to train with fellow professional players from New Jersey and New York three or four times a week as well. Then, about a month-and-a-half before the season begins, he will push forward with a weight training program as well, zoning in on more season-specific preparation. For right now though, “…it’s about playing soccer, still staying fit, and never falling out of love with the game.”
From his time starting in Ohio with the Crew, through Europe, then back to his hometown, Szetela has been the picture-perfect soccer professional. He battled through not just minor knocks, but serious injuries resulted in him missing years of his career. He never gave up and continued on, resulting in him ending up at a place with the Cosmos where he has found plenty of glory and fan adoration. In the green and white kits of the Cosmos, coming back for another year, it would surely seem that Szetela remains very much in love with the game and is primed to make the return to professional soccer for the Cosmos a season to remember.
