It's been very time consuming, but I've been having a bit of a dig around the USL2 league and finding out a bit more about the level of competition in general. It was an interesting, if somewhat challenging time going through various avenues for information and piling through troves of player pages and combing through the finer details trying to link them up with known players. Anyway here's what I've uncovered over in the US (But first a quick rundown on the state of play over there).
It runs below the MLS ➡️ USL Championship ➡️ USL 1/NISA/MLS Next Pro. So if you look at it on the US football pyramid it sits essentially at a fourth tier level. Although you'll see from the following screenshots it almost seems like a rite of passage to professional status in the game ⬇️
Competition runs as a summer league for predominantly college footballers who are in between college seasons. So it's short and sharp - running 10-14 rounds (give or take).
Anyway, I've found a few Kiwi's knocking about in between the college seasons. I'm 100% sure there are more, but due to the absolute mess of some of the websites, social media pages, and incomplete player information (meaning I can't marry information up against known player details). This is the best I can do for now without completely doing my melon in. 😵
Lachlan (Lockie) Fay - Lionsbridge FC
Max Chrétien - San Francisco Glens
Alex Clayton - Flatirons Rush
Max Hancock - Patuxent FA
Cooper Tyler - West Virginia United
Owen Barnett - West Virginia United
Liam Moore - Louisiana Krewe FC** On the fence about this one, because although he was there in 2022, I haven't seen a confirmation for the relatively new 2023 season.
Simon Elliott is also the Boys Director of Coaching at Davis Legacy SC (when he's not with the National Team set up).
Also found a random Papua New Guinean lad 😅
Jethro Yumange - Chicago City Soccer Club.
It's an interesting rabbit hole to jump down tracking all this information, but was also a lot of fun. If you don't like broken links, missing pages & incomplete information then I wouldn't encourage it! But I learnt a hell of a lot more than I had previously known about the game in the USA. Simply massive potential in that country, not just for the USA, but for a whole myriad of other countries too, and every day it is proving more and more of an exceptionally solid pathway for Kiwi's making their way through the ranks in the game.
Sorry for the long post, hope some of you found some value in it.
