High school team or MLS Next club team? Malverne-East Rockaway's Filip Beben chose school
Filip Beben of Malverne/East Rockaway. Credit: David Meisenholder
Malverne/East Rockaway’s Filip Beben has been a crucial part of his varsity team’s success this fall, helping them improve from a winless 2024 season into a playoff squad.
But in late September, he was notified by his MLS Next club team that he had three days to either quit his varsity team or be banned from club soccer activities for the remainder of the year.
MLS Next is the professional development league of Major League Soccer.
“I wanted to choose varsity because I see the potential in the team,” Beben said. “For me to get this far into the season and to back out right at the finish line, it wouldn’t be professional of me.”
After discussing it with his family, Beben, a senior, chose to stay with his varsity team.
“I wanted to do something for the community,” Beben said. “We’ve only made the playoffs once in [68] years, and for us to make it after going 0-16 the year prior would be an incredible achievement.”
Players involved with the “Homegrown Division” of MLS Next teams — MLS Next’s higher tier of club soccer play that includes exclusive competition with the league’s 30 MLS-associated club teams — are banned from playing middle or high school varsity sports. The Island F.C., a new independent club that will compete in MLS Next Pro, was launched earlier this month. The team will play in a privately funded stadium at Mitchel Athletic Complex in Uniondale.
“Player health and safety is of the utmost importance,” MLS senior communications manager William Glenn, who is assisting with MLS Next communications, said in an email. “Participating in high school soccer can cause scheduling issues with difficulty to do both, potential greater risk for player injury, and finally in making sure players have the resources to succeed at the top level of soccer in North America and grow in their careers.”
Players who want to play varsity sports can stay in the MLS Next system but must drop into the “Academy Division” of MLS Next teams, a lower tier of competition that works around the high school calendar.
With the help of Malverne/East Rockaway coach Rob Anderson, Beben filed a waiver. They argued against an MLS Next policy that specifically allows private school student athletes to play varsity athletics as it claims that those athletes were admitted to school with the expectation of participation in varsity sports and may receive financial aid due to soccer.
“We understand that MLS Next also fully supports young soccer players and would never discriminate against lower-income households, who cannot afford private schools,” Anderson wrote in Beben’s appeal. “Those [Nassau varsity soccer] scholarships are in place to celebrate senior soccer players, support minority and economically disadvantaged families.”
“Everything nowadays is a lot more expensive,” Beben said. “Any type of money granted because of hard work and dedication is huge [for me].”
Beben’s waiver was later denied. He believes it was based on his public school status.
“Therein lies the hypocrisy,” Anderson said. “[Private schools] can have a team full of MLS Next players because parents can afford the tuition and the MLS Next training, and they get a pass.”
Beben’s situation is a familiar one for many high school athletes across Long Island involved in MLS Next. Coaches across Nassau and Suffolk have voiced concerns regarding the club’s ban on varsity soccer and the difficult decisions players often have to make.
“I want [players] to have the choice,” Oceanside coach Patrick Turk said. “At the end of the day we’re not the parents and we’re not the ones who make the decision for them, but every kid I’ve coached has said it’s about the experience with their friends that is irreplaceable.”
Commack coach Dave Moran said he’s had players as recently as this season that have wanted to play both MLS Next and varsity soccer that cannot do so.
“I’ve always had a working relationship with trainers and SUSA and some of the other organizations,” Moran said. “Me as a high school coach, plus some of the outside trainers, always worked to get the kids into college. When you have two people working on the same side, I just feel like that helps kids, and that’s what we’re in the business of as coaches.”
“The kids should be able to choose,” South Side coach Pat Corvetti said. “It’s their life, it’s their future. It shouldn’t be mandatory that you can’t play. … it should be left in the hands of the athletes and the families.”
Corvetti also argued that varsity soccer does have a significant role in preparing players for the collegiate level.
“High school soccer is closer, in physicality, to college soccer. It’s a physical game,” Corvetti said. “MLS Next and all these academy teams, it’s not physical at all. So, whenever I get these players — they got a great touch and are very good one-on-one — but they’re not used to the physicality of high school and college, which would be their next step.”
While many coaches believed in allowing players to participate in both MLS Next and varsity simultaneously, Brentwood coach Ron Eden wants his players to pick one or the other to avoid absorbing too much stress and strain on their bodies.
“Any coach worth his weight in gold will tell you the most important thing is the kids, and they will play every single day and every single night if you don’t tell them not to,” Eden said.
But he also stressed the value of varsity athletics, saying that the ideal outcome would allow players to focus on varsity during the season and MLS Next the rest of the year.
“I don’t think you make a player better by subtracting things,” Eden said.
Bethpage coach Dan Kramer agreed, noting the value of varsity sports relative to what MLS Next players miss out on.
“You’re just taking away their memories,” Kramer said. “In the long run, being a pro athlete, it’s a 1% thing. For some of the kids that I’ve seen give up all of high school and playing with their friends, they end up going maybe D-III if they’re lucky.
"Maybe if they played in high school and were All-State, they might’ve gotten better looks.”
No. 9 Malverne/East Rockaway went 9-7, earned the No. 9 seed and lost in the first round of the Class AA playoffs last week.
Beben, who ended the regular season fourth in Nassau in points (44) and fifth in goals (16), will still practice with his club team before being allowed to play in games upon the ban’s expiration in January. Beben has yet to commit to a college but does have a professional offer to play soccer in Poland, where Beben’s family is from.
Wherever Beben laces up his cleats next, he’ll do so knowing he has the respect of his coach and community.
“This kid has been the heart and soul of this team,” Anderson said. “He’s navigated a lot of controversy with class and dignity. To be in this spot, and say, ‘I’m going to ride with you, I want to make this dream happen for my team,’ … I’m just very proud of him and his parents for trusting him.”
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master’s degree in sports journalism in 2023.
