Prospect player joins MLS suburban soccer stars
As he waits for his contract with the Fire to make its way through Major League Soccer’s offices, Pari Pantazopoulos is set to become the latest in a long line of suburban athletes to make it in MLS.
It’s a line that began with the league’s first draft pick, Brian McBride of Arlington Heights, and includes current players such as the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Mike Magee (Long Grove) and Michael Stephens (Naperville); Will Johnson (Woodridge), Ned Grabavoy (New Lenox), Rauwshan McKenzie (Hoffman Estates) and Chris Schuler (Aurora) of Real Salt Lake; and D.C. United’s Jed Zayner (Orland Park).
On the Fire Pantazopoulos joins Libertyville’s Baggio Husidic and homegrown player Victor Pineda, a Bolingbrook resident who came up through the club’s development system.
“It’s good to bring more local guys into the league,” said Pantazopoulos, who learned from player personnel director Mike Jeffries on Sunday that the club would sign him.
Pantazopoulos found a different way to the club, playing professionally in Greece after graduation from Prospect High School, then winning the Fire’s open tryout in January and earning a job with his play in preseason training since then.
“I was shocked to actually be part of the team,” he said, though he won’t be among the 18 players traveling to Dallas for Saturday night’s season opener.
Pantazopoulos, who now lives in Hoffman Estates, grew up playing against guys such as McKenzie, Schuler and Stephens, and he worked out with Magee and Stephens over the winter at Soccer City in Palatine.
“He (Stephens) was just telling me how the league was and how you have to work hard every day and when you get your chance you’ve got to take it,” Pantazopoulos said of the second-year player.
Even MLS front offices have a suburban feel. Garth Lagerwey of Elmhurst is the Real Salt Lake general manager, and Arlington Heights’ Tom Soehn, who played for the Fire and at Forest View High School, is Vancouver’s director of soccer operations.
In England Michael Bradley (Palatine), Eric Lichaj (Downers Grove) and Jonathan Spector (Arlington Heights) are playing in the Premier League.
Barrington’s Ryan Miller was drafted by D.C. United and tried out with the Fire before latching on in Sweden, where he played well enough to be invited to U.S. national team camp in January.