Two Hillsborough Soccer Clubs Merge to Form Superpower; Tampa United

The two largest youth soccer clubs in West Hillsborough County announced this week that they would merge to create Tampa United. The former HC United Club covered north Hillsborough while RSL-Florida covered south Hillsborough County. Their merger creates one of the largest clubs in the state.

“The handicap we had as a club was that we’d be going up against teams that were able to draw players from a much larger geographical area,” said Eric Sims, general manager and and future head coach of the U19 boys soccer team.

The Tampa United Club will now draw from most of northwest Hillsborough County including Westchase, Odessa, Keystone and New Tampa and areas in Pasco County. The Brandon Club called the FC Flames will continue to attract players from southeast Tampa, including Brandon, Bloomingdale, Plant City and Seffner but the merger opens up all of south Tampa to the club.

The influx of new players and coaches allows Tampa United to join The Florida Premier League, which will become part of The National Premier League, a network of elite players. Only the largest and most successful clubs can join. Even the tremendously successful HC United Club was not able to join until it merged to create Tampa United.

Joining this league puts Tampa in an elite group of seven teams from Florida that includes: Brandon FC, Central Florida Kraze/Krush, Space Coast United, Jacksonville United, Team Boca, and West Pines United.

“We want to put kids in the most competitive situation possible,” Sims said.

"We needed to unite most of the city," said Steve Henson, future Assistant Girls Director of Coaching. 

The move takes a big step toward legitimizing Florida soccer.

"Florida is behind as far as competitive club soccer at the national level. There used to be and still are many clubs competing for athletes in a small area. We've always had good talent, we just never had it all on the same team before," said Maurice Loregnard, future Tampa United Boys Director of Coaching. "This is the start of a rich soccer tradition in the community."

Not that the clubs weren't successful on their own.

Since 2002, HC United has had at least one of their teams win a Florida Youth Soccer Association State Championship (except for in 2006). The RSL-FL club just sent their U16 team to nationals where they made it all the way to the finals. The merger will not only make the teams better, it will help them compete at the national level.

"We've had plenty of teams make it to regionals," Sims said. "With the unification of most of the city, we should be competitive at the national level with some age groups right away. Other groups will take a little more time to develop."

Players that have been long time rivals will now become teammates.

"Most of the time, if a player left one of our clubs (RSL) they'd go over to HCU and vice versa," said Loregnard.

The Tampa United Club will double in size right away. In subsequent seasons its ranks will swell even bigger.

Between 60 and 65 teams will make up the Tampa United Soccer Club, Sims said.

According to Sims, the practices will be held at the complex that has more athletes. For instance, if the boys U19 club had four players from RSL-FL and nine came from HCU, then they would have the practice at HCU. For games, both complexes will be used.

Will there be growing pains? Sure.

Will they field some of the best teams in the state? Likely.

However, it’s not all about the college placement or even the trophies.

“We don’t want to make a few premier teams and forget about the other ones,” Sims said. “We want strong recreational teams and other competitive teams as well.”