“We have this place here and we can help build it back to what it was,” said Paul, who works in finance, running the team on the side. He’s the guiding light of a new generation of CD Faialense, and he makes sure everyone gets a few of the clams that arrive at the table in steaming mounds, drowning in white wine sauce and parsley. “We want it to be like it used to be.”
Today’s CD Faialense Super-Charged on the Field
The CD Faialense team of today is more than a nostalgic labor of love for Paul Correia. With a pipeline of players from the best local college programs, the likes of UNH, UMass Lowell, URI and Harvard, they’re building a reputation as the cream of the crop of men’s league soccer in Eastern Massachusetts.
A first-place finish in the Bay State Soccer League (BSSL) Division One in 2023, by a huge margin of 11 points, is a good indication of what they’re up to. It’s a stratospheric bar they’ve set. And they’re on course to make it back-to-back titles at the tail-end of 2024.
“We want to be the amateur team that breaks through,” Paul said of the side’s ambitions as they take a second run in the U.S. Open Cup Qualifying Rounds this year. “Every player on our roster right now is a former Division-One college player – a lot of top guys fresh out of that competitive environment.”
Lucas Rezende, like Paul and a core group of the team's old guard, played his college ball at Merrimack University. He’s the starting goalkeeper and handles much of the organizing end of things. That includes keeping tabs on players for weekend games and whittling a working roster from a squad of 40.
Rezende, 28 and just married, uses the word “revolution” to describe the change in the team when the young players began to coalesce around the clubhouse on Cambridge Street.
“It all started with Damian,” Rezende said, between bites of a huge steak smothered in garlic and topped with a fried egg. He gestures to Damian Attidore, who, at 25, isn’t far from his playing days at UMass Lowell.
“It took me a year to get him in,” laughed Razende, shaking his fork at Attidore, who teaches English and coaches the freshman team at nearby Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. “He was playing hard-to-get and wouldn’t respond to my texts!”
“I was burnt out on playing,” smiled the 25-year-old Attidore, an outstanding winger and now one of the first names on the team sheet who “shows up to everything” according to Razende. “I had a few buddies on the team and they kept bugging me and eventually they dragged me along.”
It’s something Paul Correia is rightly proud of. You can see it on his face. Assembling a new generation of players, all taking the field under the banner of CD Faialense. Filing back to the club for a beer and a bite after the game. It’s a blending of old and new that’s rare.
