Schmitt

As spring soccer gets ready to kick off, indoor soccer leagues are drawing to a close.

Area soccer club FC814 is loaded with active players this spring with a total of 1,246 players registered, including: 467 in-house players, 372 on travel teams, 441 playing classic soccer and 34 girls playing in the premier league in the Great Lakes Conference of United States Youth Soccer National League.

Those teams entered in premier play include Team Energy in Premier 1 and the Crushers playing in Premier 2. To accommodate the large number of home games for spring, FC814 will be utilizing the Valley View soccer fields, Urban Air fields in Hollidaysburg, Greenwood, Keith field, Leopold fields, Tiger Stadium, Altoona IM field, Roosevelt field and Saint Francis. FC814 is one of the largest clubs in the PA West Soccer Association.

Mike Alianiello, Summit Soccer Director, had 122 teams competing in his second session of indoor play. The teams are preparing to finish play with the boys’ brackets full at 14 teams including: u-8, u-9, u-10, u-12, u-13, u-14 division 1, u-14 division 2, u-15, u-16, u-19 boys division 1, u-19 boys division 2, men’s open division 1, men’s open division 2 and 0-30 men.

The girls’ brackets contested in the second session included: u-11 girls division 1, u-11 girls division 2, u-14, u-19 girls division 1, u-19 girls division 2, and the Women’s Open. Allianiello still spends all his weekends at the Summit overseeing all league games making certain everything runs like clockwork.

Hall candidates

On April 11, the Blair County Sports Hall of Fame will induct its 21st group of athletes at the Blair County Convention Center, and again there will not be a soccer player/coach included in the group.

The Hall still remains void of anyone involved with playing or coaching soccer. Two candidates ripe for the Hall come to mind and have been eligible for some time.

PSU associate head soccer coach Tim Wassell has put in 17 seasons with the Lady Lions soccer squad, now heading their recruitment and development of goalkeepers. Under Wassell and head coach Erica Dambach, PSU has won multiple Big 10 titles and an NCAA Division 1 National Championship.

“Tim deserves a ton of credit for all of our success throughout his time in the program,” Dambach said.

Wassell spent two years at East Stroudsburg as its goalie, winning two PSAC championships and an NCAA Cup appearance, after transferring to PSU Altoona, where he holds records for being first in goals against and shutouts and second in saves.

He was the PSU Altoona Male Athlete of the Year. While coaching PSU Altoona to a 48-11-5 record, he guided the program to its first-ever AMCC championship and NCAA Division III tournament appearance. He was twice AMCC coach of the year. He was in the first class inducted into the PSU Altoona Athletics Hall of Fame.

Another prime candidate is Juniata women’s soccer head coach Joe Alianiello. A standout player for the Altoona Mountain Lions, he was an all-state selection and holds numerous goalie records.

At Saint Francis University, as a four-year starter, he holds the single-season record for goals against average, shutouts, save percentage and wins. He also served as team captain. Serving five years as head coach at Concordia University-St. Paul, he was NSIC coach of the year, broke six school records and is its all-time leader in wins as a coach.

After seven years at the University of Minnesota at Crookston, he has the most wins in the program history and the two best seasons in school history. He has just completed his eighth year as Juniata College head coach.

The Blair County Sports Hall of Fame needs to give both Alianiello and Wassell serious consideration as individual inductees to the Hall.

As for team inductees, the Hall must give consideration to Team Energy of Blair County FC 814 as it is the only team from the area to qualify to play in the Great Lakes Premier Conference and win it. It has won numerous top-ranked tournaments, back-to-back PA West State titles and played in the national championship for the Presidents Cup.

Team Energy has competed against teams in all 50 states and been ranked in the top 30 teams in the country for its age group almost every year. Its team contributed more than 75 percent of the selections to the Altoona Mirror soccer all-stars.

Coach Marc Frye was voted PA West Coach of the Year. I am not aware of any other team with these credentials.

World Cup questions

It is just less than three months until the start of the 2026 Men’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and United States, and politics has already reared its head into the tournament.

The Iran national team qualified easily last year and was to be in Group G with New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt. All of its games were scheduled to be played in the United States.

The Iran national team could be a non-participant at the World Cup as it could boycott the Cup in response to USA attacks, several Iranian entities could decide its team’s participation is not safe, or the U.S. government could restrict Iran from playing.

President Trump had said Iran was welcome to participate, but “life and safety” may be at risk if it took part in Cup play. The decision will have to be made soon as the Cup committee would need to find an alternative team to fill out its bracket.

Tom Schmitt writes a monthly soccer column for the Mirror.