Reader, welcome to The Life of a USL League Two Player. As the title suggests, this column will follow my summer experience as a USL 2 player for Charlottesville Blues FC, including all of the untold and in-between. I can’t wait to share this, as the behind-the-scenes information is what we as fans genuinely want to know, but don’t. This column will include, but is not limited to, what a USL 2 player does in preparation for a match, relationships with teammates and coaches, feelings and emotions during game-days and training, goals and ambitions, and more. Sharing this information with you will be an enjoyable part of my summer, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I’ll enjoy writing it. My only regret, however, is that my university didn’t finish until June 3rd, so I only arrived in Harrisonburg this past Monday. Unfortunately, I’ve missed about half of the season to this point. Yet, apart from the fact that I have only about a month left to share my experience with Charlottesville, the time we have is a good thing, since we are entering the juicy tail end of the season. With a little over ten games to go and the USL 2 playoffs in mind, The Life of a USL League Two Player will share the season’s intense final stretch—with an authentic taste of my own player experience.

So, I welcome you! In this first story, you’ll get an introduction to me, the Charlottesville Blues team, and you’ll hear directly from both my teammates and coaches. I look forward to sharing this summer with you, and I hope to gather the support that helps propel us toward an end-of-season playoff push! Before we dive into the summer ahead, let me introduce myself.

My name is Jadyn Hsieh-Bailey, and I’m a rising third-year at the University of Chicago. My playing experience at UChicago has been enjoyable so far, and has included teammates I love and a memorable NCAA Elite 8 tournament run during my freshman season (one of my favorite playing memories is my goal in this game). Still, as a player who came in following our 2022 NCAA National Championship win, I haven’t yet achieved the individual and team expectations I set for myself. This is why I’ve come to Blues FC; to play at the high level of USL 2, improve key parts of my game, and arrive sharp in the fall to reach these goals at UChicago. Additionally, I’m here in Harrisonburg specifically to train with my brother, who is entering his final season of eligibility at James Madison University and also has high ambitions for the fall. Living, training, and hopefully sharing the field with him at Blues is what I’m looking forward to the most this summer. From just a few training sessions with Blues so far, it’s clear that this team offers the environment for an enjoyable season and for every player—including my brother and me—to pursue our individual goals. I’m quite excited to play with this group of guys, especially with how welcoming they’ve been to me.

The Blues team is made up of a wide range of players from different collegiate programs, with varying goals, playstyles, and personalities. The roster is over 30 deep, with players that are incoming college freshmen to college graduates, and more than 20 NCAA Division I and more than five Division II and III players. Despite this variation, though, the group is tight-knit, and the training environment is fun, competitive, and lively.

Describing the team’s chemistry, starting center-mid Marques Nana-Sinkam told me, “I enjoy how we all get on well together, even though we haven’t played together before.” He added, “We are only together for about two months, but are still able to form close connections both on and off the field.”

*Left to Right: Zsombor Pall, Jai Hsieh-Bailey, Donovan Maryat, Sulaiman Abdul-Mateen, Evan Fidler*

To this point, Evan Fidler, our starting left wing-back, also said, “I enjoy just being with everybody. There are so many different personalities, and the vibes are always so high in training. Even when we aren’t doing so well, the vibes are high.”

This is certainly true from my experience so far. The team is extremely fun, and the guys are all likable. Funnily enough, after each training session, the players choose someone to make a ‘speech’ to end the day. Rather than a ‘speech,’ however, it is just the guys putting a teammate in a mildly awkward position to say a few words, and then interrogating them with funny questions for a good team laugh. As a new player, I was chosen to do this at the end of our last session. This was an enjoyable activity for both me and the team.

But beyond the players, the high vibes, team camaraderie, and warm welcome I’ve received are largely the doing of Head Coach Tom Dinuzzo. He stated that he’s purposefully facilitated a fun and enjoyable playing environment in order to achieve the best possible on-field results, while still making sure us players are entering our fall/pre seasons in peak form. He explained this as “a balance between working on functional/tactical things in training, and also making it very competitive so players get the most out of it.” These are the most important goals as Head coach, according to him. I’d say they’re certainly being achieved, as the combination of the group’s personability and Coach Dinuzzo’s approach to facilitating this has created a great training environment within our team. Much playing, getting on the ball, and pushing ourselves in competitive sessions is what to expect, and appears as the norm. This works as an ideal summer team environment for many of us, and certainly for me.

What I particularly enjoyed about the training sessions was the looseness and pure enjoyment amongst everyone, despite a big game coming up on the weekend. This is a testament to our team’s comfortability and confidence in one another. At this point in the season, we’ve found ourselves in a challenging position in the table. We currently sit mid-table in the Chesapeake Division with 5 points on the season, as we enter an important match away at Lionsbridge FC. This will be a battle, as Lionsbridge sits first place on the table with 17 points. Yet, as I’ve mentioned, the team vibes are strong, and we remain more than confident in one another to still make playoffs.

Assistant Coach Bryan Kim expressed his confidence to me at the end of training yesterday. He told me, “We’re a really talented group that like to have fun, but at the same time, know when to lock in and really push ourselves and each other to play for the club and for the city.” He added that he’s looking forward to every game from this point on—especially our game at Lionsbridge—because of the steep competition of the Chesapeake Division. According to him, this competition and the confidence he has in us is what makes the USL 2 season so much fun. Coach Kim expects Lionsbridge to be a competitive game that can help us build momentum.

Luke Madden, a center back in our back three, also told me the importance of this game and what it could mean going forward. He said, “We need to go on a run to make playoffs—so I think this could be a big turnaround game, [and a] big momentum swing if we can get it done this weekend.” He also mentioned that due to the competitiveness of our division, all games going forward are up for grabs, which we can certainly win. This seems to be the general mindset of everyone at training—that we have a big game ahead and are more than capable of winning it. For this reason, everyone has remained upbeat and loose at training going into the weekend.

For me, I’m really excited to see what we can do against Lionsbridge. Rather than following the scores and results from home, I now feel like I’m truly a part of the team. In being a true member of Blues FC, sharing laughs and winning training activities, and preparing for Lionsbridge with my teammates all week, I’ve now got nerves on my end for the first time this USL 2 season. So, I hope we’ll get it done!

Please do follow the match and root for us—and thank you for reading the first story of The Life of a USL League Two Player!

- Jadyn Hsieh-Bailey