BRISTOL, Va. (WJHL) – What started as an idea brought to the Smith family by people in the local soccer community in 2022 and led to an inaugural season in 2024 has now reached a peak in only its third season.

Matt Smith, President, and Diane Smith, General Manager, are co-owners of Bristol Rhythm AFC. The two spoke with News Channel 11 about the team, its success, and what the National Premier Soccer League (NSPL) is.

The NSPL is a Tier 1 team in the men’s professional soccer pyramid in the United States, and has been around for about 20 years. While it is an amateur league without pay, the teams are held to pro-style standards, according to Diane Smith.

“People will loosely use the term semiprofessional to describe the league,” Diane said.

Matt Smith told News Channel 11 that this year’s success was built by head coach Dave Neijenhuis, who played at Tusculum and used only his soccer connections to build the team also drew on his knowledge of the area to add local talent.

“What Dave has done is that he built a culture in a short amount of time,” Matt said. “This team has a great rapport.”

Matt believes that the success is directly connected to every one of the players being on the team.

“I firmly believe the reason for success probably has to do with the fact that they are all a team,” he added. “It’s all about the collaborative effort between the coaching staff and team.”

Diane told News Channel 11 that with a shortened season, it can be hard to build a culture so fast, but this year the focus was on building those relationships before the season. She said that this season was a direct result of that camaraderie.

“We highly attribute some of the success to that because these players want to play hard for each other because they have such and respect for each other,” she said.

Before the game on Saturday, the Rhythm played a game on Wednesday, July 8, which ended in penalty kicks around 10:30 p.m., but the late game did not deter the team from capturing the Southeastern Conference later in the week.

“They were really driven to get the hardware,” Matt said. “You can tell last night by their effort, they were not going to lose.”

Diane Smith told News Channel 11 that the impact of the fans has been massive on the team during the matches.

“One of the biggest compliments we received this season was from an international supporter and she said, ‘This is the closest experience I’ve had to European football since I’ve been in the United States’,” Diane said. “So our crowd, our fans, our supporters, they deserve this so much because they have stuck with us when we weren’t getting results that we’re getting now.”

Bristol Rhythm AFC will host a quarterfinal game in the National Playoffs, July 18, at 7 p.m. at the Gene Malcolm Stadium in Bristol, VA.

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