The Island F.C. names Miquel Gasparin Ferrando director of youth soccer program

The Island F.C. -- the new professional minor-league soccer team coming to Long Island -- named Miquel Gasparin Ferrando the club's youth director on Thursday and announced that tryouts will begin next month.

Gasparin Ferrando is a 32-year-old Jericho resident with extensive youth development experience in the U.S. and Spain, where he grew up.

“It's very exciting,” Gasparin Ferrando told Newsday on Thursday morning. “I've been involved with youth soccer for the last 10 years in terms of director roles. I played soccer my whole life, got my licenses, went to school for it, and I think this is a huge opportunity."

The Island F.C. was awarded membership into MLS Next – Major League Soccer’s elite youth development platform for top male players in North America that includes a pathway to professional soccer – last month, and it will field teams in both the top-tier Homegrown Division and the second-tier Academy Division.

Tryouts for both the Homegrown and Academy teams (U13-U19) are set for Jan. 2 at Stony Brook University. Training will begin in August and competition in September. The main training site will be at Suffolk Community College in Selden, and there will be other to-be-determined sites across Suffolk.

“At the end of the day, it’s having the opportunity to develop youth talent with intention, which I think is the most important thing – doing it intentionally with leading to a final objective, which is a full pro pathway (to The Island F.C. in MLS Next Pro),” Gasparin Ferrando said.

Teams in the Homegrown Division, which features 152 clubs, play a 10-month, pro-style regular season. The Academy Division, with approximately 230 clubs, is built around the high school calendar so players also can play for their school teams.

Gasparin Ferrando has previous MLS Next experience, having spent the last three seasons as the boys director of coaching for the Long Island Slammers, an Academy Division program based in St. James and Smithtown. He previously worked as a director and coach with Barca Academy – the official academy of historic club (and his favorite team) FC Barcelona – on Long Island and in Ohio and Barcelona. He also is an assistant coach for the women’s soccer team at Adelphi, where he is finishing his Master’s degree in sport management.

Nassau County’s Long Island Soccer Club previously was the only Homegrown MLS Next program on the Island. While it will operate separately from The Island F.C.’s youth program, Gasparin Ferrando said the idea is that both will work together under the same pathway to The Island F.C.’s pro team.

Gasparin Ferrando said the club hopes to have future updates on adding a girls team in the Girls Academy League.

“For the first time, I think we have the opportunity to unify soccer in Long Island, which I think is huge,” he said.

The Island F.C. – an independent club that will compete in MLS Next Pro, the professional development league of MLS – was launched in October by principal owner and chairman Mitchell Rechler and team president Peter Zaratin.

The team, set to debut in March 2027, will play at a brand-new, privately-funded 2,500-seat stadium (scalable to 5,000) at Mitchel Athletic Complex in Uniondale. Plans are estimated to cost $25 million – about $20 million for the new complex and around $5 million to launch the team.

“This is a transformative moment for soccer on Long Island,” Rechler said when the team was awarded MLS Next membership. “Our vision is to create a complete pathway from grassroots to professional soccer within the MLS ecosystem, and MLS Next is a critical piece of that journey.”

By Ben Dickson

benjamin.dickson@newsday.com@bendickson__

Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.