Oleksandr "Sasha" Ostapchuk (left) heads a ball while playing for a tournament squad of the Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals soccer team in a match against a club with roots in Belarus at Tryzub Ukrainian American Sport Center in North Wales, Pa., on June 21.Rachel Wisniewski for NPR hide caption NORTH WALES, Pa.
— Just before game time, Roman Chuprynyak sat in a locker room bent forward, face intense.He ran his hand through stubbly gray hair while giving his team one more pep talk.
"You win," he shouted in Ukrainian."There's no other option, damn it!"The men, wearing the yellow and blue national colors of Ukraine, roared a cheer and jogged out to the pitch in this suburb just outside Philadelphia.This isn't World Cup play.
That's happening in Philadelphia's big stadium 45 minutes away.These are two local, ethnic soccer clubs, players with roots in Belarus scrumming on the home pitch of a Ukrainian club called Tryzub.
The club's name is a reference to the trident, Ukraine's national symbol."Everybody calls us Ukis," Chuprynyak said, grinning with pride.After immigrating to the U.S.
as a teenager in 2001, he found his way to Tryzub, where he now works as a coach and an athletic director."This club has been proven through time — 75 years it's been here." Roman Chuprynyak (center) gives a pep talk to his team, made up of Ukrainian immigrants and Ukrainian Americans, before a match against Belarus on June 21.
Rachel Wisniewski for NPR hide caption Tryzub, formally known as the Ukrainian American Sport Center, focuses on amateur league play and is home to the Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals.It's a top-tier amateur team now, but in the 1950s and 1960s, the squad dominated American pro-leagues, during ...