FC Tucson hopes to go out with a bang in annual 4th of July celebration

FCT (3-2-4) hosts Stars FC (4-1-3) on Friday at 7 p.m. with a fireworks show to follow.

The Men in Black return after a 2-1 setback on Tuesday night at first-place Ventura County Fusion. FC Tucson is in fourth place, two points behind Stars in third and five behind Redlands FC in the final playoff spot.

However, FC Tucson has only lost one home match since returning to USL League Two in 2023, and the Independence Day-observed game is traditionally one of the team's most popular.

“It's so nice, I mean, the fans here at Tucson, they really support us, like their help is really important for us, so we hope they can keep coming to the game,” said FCT midfielder João Belmudes. “That's gonna make a difference for us.”

While Pima County was preparing to host Iran's World Cup training site at Kino, FC Tucson played its first league match at the Kino North Grandstand, slightly north of Kino North Stadium, the team's home since November 2013.

When Iran moved its training site to Mexico, FCT moved back to Kino North Stadium. The Men in Black beat current second-place Redlands FC 1-0 at the Grandstand, but they are glad to be back at the stadium.

“It's our home, we’re very, very hard to beat here at home, it’s just the quality of the field, the fans, it just has a different feeling than the Grandstand, so we're just happy to be here,” said FCT head coach Sebastian Pineda. “We’re excited that we get to play in this amazing facility.”

In PDL (the previous name for USL League Two), FC Tucson has always had a winning record at home. In 2012, it debuted in the PDL with a 5-1-2 record, then went 4-2-1, 6-1, 5-0-2 and then 4-1-2 for three straight seasons on their home turf.

After playing in League One from 2019-22, FC Tucson rejoined League Two, where it has gone 5-0, 9-1-2 and 5-0-1 at the friendly confines of Kino North Stadium. Though FCT dropped a League Two home match for the first time in five years in 2024, it won a couple of postseason matches at home en route to a national semifinal berth.

On Saturday, the Men in Black snapped a five-match winless streak with a come-from-behind 3-1 victory over City SC. The win over the side from San Diego improved FC Tucson’s home record in league play to 3-0-1 this season.

Although Stars plays at Ottawa University Arizona in Surprise, their other six Southwest Division rivals hail from California.

“Playing here in Arizona, especially for teams that come from California, I bet it's really hard, especially because we're a team that likes to play with the ball,” said Belmudes, who is from Brazil. “So we like to move the ball, they're gonna be running a lot, so we gotta take advantage of that and win the games.”

NCAA pushes pause on schedule change

The NCAA has delayed major changes to scheduling that could affect FC Tucson and League Two.

Last week, the NCAA’s Division I Cabinet elected to remand the proposal from the Division I Men's Soccer Oversight Committee to shift to a two-semester season.

Though the soccer committee approved the plan last month, 20 Division I conferences opposed it so the cabinet opted to have the committee “revisit the proposal to provide additional clarity.”

Currently, the NCAA soccer season goes from mid-August to mid-December and schools usually play two matches a week. The plan approved by the soccer committee would start in 2027-28 and run from mid-August to mid-November, restarting in mid-February with a maximum of 18 matches in the fall and a max of 10 in the spring semester.

“We'll see, we'll see, I gotta start talking with my coaching friends, see how the deal is gonna be," Pineda said. "It's gonna come down to, at least at the D-I level, are they gonna let their players play in the summer? That would affect the league in terms of the quality that you're gonna see, but you know, there's also very good level around the country, and hopefully you can still get that level player. But I'm interested to see, I'm waiting to see what happens, see how it develops.”

FC Tucson’s roster is primarily college players. Belmudes came to Tucson from South Florida.

The legislation would be for men’s soccer. Pineda, who has been an assistant for Arizona’s varsity team, said he thinks the women are waiting to see how a schedule change goes with the men.

Women wrap up season

The FC Tucson Women closed out the regular season on a high note, avenging a loss suffered earlier in the week.

FC Tucson knocked off Royals AZ on Saturday 3-0 to finish the season 4-0-1 in league play at home. FCTW lost 7-1 in Scottsdale to the Royals on June 24.

The Tucson Sentinel reported that Adelina Ortega took over at goalkeeper for the usual starter there, Grace Hughes, who is a freshman-to-be at New Mexico State and left to prep for the college season. Ortega is entering her junior year at Sierra Vista Buena, while Hughes went to Catalina Foothills.

The Women in Black finished with a 6-3-1 record in WPSL play, though one of the losses was due to a forfeit at the El Paso Surf for using ineligible players.

FC Tucson finished tied for second in the Desert Division of the Mountain West Conference.

Over in WPSL Division II, the Pima County Surf also wrapped up their season with a win, beating Albuquerque Alliance FC 3-0 at Cienega High School. Pima County went 4-1, finishing tied for first in the Oasis Conference with SC Union Maricopa and Arizona Desert Surf.