Creative Mind Behind ABPL
We are just few weeks away from kicking off the first ever soccer league of Austin’s Bangladeshi Community, known as Austin BD-Soccer Premier League (ABPL) 2022. Four teams will be participating in the inaugural season and these teams are based on four different areas of Austin – Leander Bandits Soccer Club (LBSC) from Leander, Liberty Hills and northwest part of Austin, United South Austin with players from South Austin, Buda and San Marcos; Austin Arsenal from Central Austin, North Austin and Cedar Park; and finally, RRP FC from Round Rock, Pflugerville and Hutto neighborhood. These four teams will play against each other three times, which means there will be eighteen (18) games in total and each team will be playing nine (9) games. The season will start on May 15th and will wrap up on July 24th. This will give players enough time for rest and to get prepared for year end soccer tournaments.
The idea of ABPL first came into the mind of a local soccer player (who would prefer to stay as anonymous) after he played with a local soccer club called Austin Bandits in a 7v7 soccer league in 2021. Austin Bandits was the brainchild of Mehedi, another Leander based local soccer player who managed the team as they played in Northwest Soccer league. The team didn’t perform well. While the league was 30 plus players, most of the players of Austin Bandits (AB) were near or above 40. Besides they played against teams whose players are from European, African, and South American nations. Still the AB team’s players enjoyed participating in the league and each week they all came together to play or watch and enjoy the environment. That environment triggered the mind of one of the AB players, who first started thinking of having a league of our own (Bangladeshi soccer league with Bangladeshi players). The player was heavily involved in brining back the players back to the field after Covid and was involved in last year’s successful completion of Austin Bangladeshi Soccer tournament.
He went on to create a draft version of his idea and presented it to few other soccer players. While few were skeptical, most liked the idea and wanted him to proceed. Few agreed to be part of it, put their valuable time on it and cooperate to ensure a successful planning and organizing of the event. There are obviously lot of challenges associated with it. But organizers believe that if all the players give them the opportunity, then they expect to deliver something to the soccer community that would benefit all players and the regular Sunday soccer would be more fun, competitive and friendly.
