Over a decade ago, Nikos Agisilaou, his brother Christakis, and their friends would get together and play futsal on a tennis court at Owensboro Middle School. After the school underwent renovations, Nikos and Christakis went to the city of Owensboro in the summer of 2016 to have a new court added for the soccer community.
A year later, the court was built at Legion Park, and that summer, they created and hosted Owensboro Street Soccer, with the first year only being for adults. Starting in the second year, they added youth levels, with more teams and kids joining every year since.
“This has been great,” Nikos said. “This has been probably the best year. Saturday was a bump in the road with the rain, but we have done well. The competition has been solid and it has been great.”
While most of the teams entering have represented Owensboro, Daviess County, Apollo, and Owensboro Catholic High Schools, the league has started to expand to Ohio County and Madisonville. Nikos and his brother have already helped some of the surrounding cities in Indiana get their own outdoor futsal court, and a second one is on the way in Owensboro in the near future.
“Owensboro and the surrounding areas are understanding futsal more and the faster pace of it,” Nikos said. “Compared to an outdoor 11 on 11 game, you are getting a lot more touches on this court. It helps the development.”
This year there were three middle school divisions, two high school divisions, and one adult division, with the games taking place from June.
“Some of the age groups I was surprised by how many teams,” Nikos said. “The high school silver this was the most we’ve had with 14. We had nine adult teams which is also the most we’ve had.”
On the middle school side, the Grass Kickers United defeated Legion Legends 4-1 in the bronze division, with Ethan Gurren being named MVP. Owensboro Middle School won the silver division 2-0 over Owensboro Middle School Poole, with Reid Wilson being named MVP, while in the gold division Owensboro Middle School beat Apollo 2-1 and Jay Harrison was named MVP.
OHS beat Misfits 2-0 in the high school silver division with Joseph Enpieng taking home MVP honors, while in the gild division OHS held off Ohio County 4-1. Peter Mbayo was the MVP. In the adult division, Owensboro FC narrowly defeated the Strawhats 4-3.
A record 40 teams registered and competed this year.
“Moving forward, we want to continue to grow,” Christakis said. “The game of soccer is growing, in the US specifically. For years, we were behind the European culture, and we still are, but I think the gap is closing. So, to keep getting kids introduced to the game at an early age.”
