by Thomas Breen
Homegrown striker Mohamed Kane.
New Haven United FC Owner Jason Price (right), with Mayor Elicker.
Mohamed Kane stood alongside New Haven United Football Club teammates from Spain and Ghana and South Korea and Sweden — and recalled playing high school soccer at Wilbur Cross before ascending to his current role as a striker on his home city’s semi-pro team.
“It’s amazing” to be able to play soccer at such a high level so close to where he grew up, Kane said on Friday — as New Haven United embarks on its second-ever season.
Kane, a 27-year-old New Haven native and ESUMS grad whose day job is in Yale’s Central Finance Department, is one of roughly 30 players on the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) semi-professional soccer club that was founded last year by Jason Price, who also owns the team (and co-founded the Dixwell art gallery NXTHVN.)
On Friday morning, Price stood alongside New Haven United’s team members, Head Coach Kledis Capollari, and Mayor Justin Elicker, among others, for a press conference at the University of New Haven’s (UNH) Ralph F. DellaCamera Stadium in West Haven.
That West Haven campus soccer field is where New Haven United practices.
The team will play its first game of the season — an away match against Osner’ s Football Club (FC) — on Saturday. Their home games will be played at Yale’s Reese Stadium in New Haven as well as at UNH’s Kathy Zolad Stadium in West Haven.
New Haven United’s captain, 24-year-old center back Tyrone Malango, held a silver cup the team earned last year after winning the 2025 North Atlantic Conference Championships. Price took the cup and passed it over to Elicker — “You get to touch it, but we keep it” — as he thanked the mayor for showing up to Friday’s presser, and for being so supportive of the new team.
Price, Capollari, Malango, and others said on Friday that a successful second season for New Haven United looks like, yes, winning winning winning — but also growing as a team, having fun, and stepping out into the New Haven community even more to mentor city kids who love soccer. Price said that New Haven United partners with the youth-academics-and-sports nonprofit LEAP; Elicker said that, through New Haven Counts, the city has paired math tutoring with youth soccer.
“We’re trying to win games, and trying to get in the community at local soccer camps and clinics, said Price.
Capollari recalled one of New Haven United’s newest team members telling him earlier in the day that he wished his college soccer team was more diverse. That’s not going to be a problem here, the head coach said as he surveyed the team. “The biggest thing about New Haven is how diverse the culture is here,” he said with pride.
Malango, who grew up in Madrid, Spain before moving to New York, said that he graduated from the UNH with a master’s of business administration degree. He now coaches youth teams in addition to serving as the captain for New Haven United.
What will he be keeping an eye out for as he mentors his team through another season? Regardless of whether they’re up 1-0 or down 0-1, he said, he wants to see his teammates “still have that hunger” to get better, listen to each other, play hard, and win.
Yusif Mohammed, 20, is a sports-management student at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and a left back on New Haven United who is originally from Ghana. He said last year the team really “improved our connection between players” over the course of their first season; he said that the quality of soccer played in New Haven United’s league is noticeably higher than on the New York Soccer Club team he previously played for.
Capollari said that two of New Haven United’s players last year wound up making into the the Major League Soccer (MLS) draft. Fourteen of the team’s current played played in the NCAA Division 1 tournament. But ultimately, he said, “it’s the collective and the group” that New Haven United seeks to strengthen as they prepare to kick off another season.
Warming up before practice.
I got it!
Head Coach Kledis Capollari.
20-year-old left back Yussif Mohammed.