Karsten Smith is a Huntington Station native and a former standout player in the Long Island Junior Socc
er League and at Walt Whitman High School. He went on to play his college soccer at American University where he earned All-Patriot League honors twice.
This winter, Karsten was signed to the roster of F.C. New York, a new professional soccer franchise that plays in the USL Pro league. Over the coming months, He will share his experiences with our LIJSoccer.com readers as he adjusts to the pro game and helps create an identity for a new franchise. Be sure to check back regularly for updates.
I’m really excited to be contributing to the new lijsoccer.com web site. I had a great experience playing soccer while growing up on Long Island, and if there is some way for me to give back to the Long Island soccer community, I’m happy to do it.
I guess I should start by telling you what kind of player I am. I’m a 6’-4”, left-footed middle defender. I am what you would call a hard tackler. I’m loud and vocal on the field, always talking to my teammates, I’m good on the ball, and I enjoy running forward and getting involved in the attack where I can.
In today’s game, most teams play with four defenders in the back, so as a middle defender my responsibility is to get the ball and find the forward as quickly as possible to get the ball out on the attack. My first look is to the striker, but in the system we’re playing now with FC New York we also have our outside midfielders out wide on the touchline, so I can release the ball that way as well. We play a 4-5-1, meaning four back line defenders, five midfielders, and one forward or striker. Our goal is to control the middle of the field and maintain possession. That actually fits my style of play pretty well.
In that scheme I’m responsible for marking the forwards, organizing the defense, and setting the line. I’m always pushing our defensive line forward. Our goal is to make the field as small as possible. Step up, limit the space the forwards have to operate with, and go take the ball away.
FC New York plays in the USL Pro league. We are a brand new team, which is exciting. We are the first to do everything and are creating the history for this franchise. There are 18 teams in the league, and we will open our season on Saturday against the team that is favored to win the whole thing, Orlando City. They recently moved to Florida from Austin, TX and have sold over 5,000 tickets for the game at the Citrus Bowl. That will make it tough on us as the visiting team, but it will be an exciting atmosphere.
Our coaches have seen this team play. They use a 4-4-2 alignment, so we’ve been facing that in practice all week. Our goal will be to crowd the middle, limit their attack space, and get the ball to our outside backs and try to get them in 1 v.1 situations out on the edges of the field.
I’ll be back with another entry next week to let you know how the game went.
Karsten