Like a band with too many songs to fit into one performance, soccer coach Preston Goldfarb has come back for many encores in a long and storied career.
His last one, however, is set for the Pan American Maccabi Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The Games, which are open to Jewish athletes from North, Central and South America and Israel, begins on December 28 and will crown a champion on January 4, 2024. Goldfarb’s team will compete in the Men’s Open Division.
After transforming Birmingham-Southern College club soccer into a nationally respected intercollegiate program, Goldfarb – who has been inducted into the Jewish Sports Heritage, NAIA and Birmingham-Southern halls of fame – gained international prominence as head coach of the United States Maccabi USA men’s soccer team.
He led two different sides to gold medals in the World Maccabiah Games (sometimes called the Jewish Olympics), the last coming in 2017. That group is the first team to win back-to-back men’s soccer championships in the event’s 91-year annals, and Goldfarb is the winningest soccer coach in Maccabiah history at 19-5-1.
Including his stint as founder/coach of the Birmingham Grasshoppers of the United States Interregional Soccer League – which is now the United Soccer League – his teams have won 435 matches.
So, what prompted him to take on one more challenge?
“I’ve never done a Pan Am game and wasn’t planning on doing one,” he explained to me on Friday. “As a matter of fact, when I was in Philadelphia – the headquarters of Maccabi USA – for the annual coaches convention, I went by the office to see some of the people I know there.
“One person that I really like, he’s the program director, Steve Graber, asked if I was interested, and I really wasn’t.”
Graber, however, was persistent.
“About two weeks later, I get a phone call from him,” Goldfarb said. “He said, ‘I know you told me you wouldn’t do it, but we really want you to coach. We’ve been embarrassed the last couple of times we’ve been there, and don’t want that to happen again.’”
Goldfarb considered the matter further, and decided he’d take it on – as long as certain conditions were met.
“We got on a Zoom call and I told him I have four requirements, so, this call can either end in 35 seconds or we’ll have a deal,” he said. “First, I have to fly business class because of some of my health issues. Second, I have to choose my own players … there are no tryouts, which is kind of strange, but that’s how they run it, so I have to pick who I want. And third, I told them they had to scholarship the players, so the ones who need money can get it. And finally, they have to pay my fee. I said if you can meet those four requirements, I’ll do it.”
They did, and Goldfarb has been working toward the opening match ever since.
Of the 19 players on the roster, seven have played for Goldfarb previously in other competitions in the Israeli World Maccabiah Games, which he says “gives us continuity in our team working with new players.” Two more athletes have suited up for him at FC Birmingham of the United Premier Soccer League.
“I really like our team,” he said.
And as for the draw, well, Team USA’s is hardly an easy one.
“Frankly,” Goldfarb said, “we got the worst draw of all the teams competing. Mexico has two teams in the Games, and we’ll play their number one team on the first day. The next day we get Uruguay, the defending World Maccabiah Champions from 2022, and the day after that, we have the Argentina 23s and then our old nemesis, Argentina’s full team. The games are on consecutive days, and if you make the final, you’ll have just one day of rest.
“It’s just crazy. And the Argentina team has been together and playing several games already, so that will make that match even more difficult for us.”
Goldfarb admits he has no idea what to expect from the tourney, other than he’ll do everything he can to put his team in the best position to be successful.
“I’m going there to try and win it,” he said. “I’m not guaranteeing anything, but we’re not going just to participate. That’s what I told them at the start, and that’s why I insisted on picking all the players myself. And as I said, I like the roster we’ve put together, but the fact that I’ll only get one good look at the team before we start playing makes it a challenge.
“I won’t really know what style we’ll play until we get out there. I like to go with a 3-5-2 lineup, and then maybe a 3-6-1, and fall back to a 4-5-1, so we might play a hybrid. But we’ll just have to see. I love playing with three backs offensively and four backs defensively.”
Regardless of whether or not Team USA returns from Argentina with a medal, Goldfarb said it’ll mark his final bow as a soccer coach.
“I’m 76 years old and not in the best of health, so I’m done after this,” Goldfarb said. “But my grandson is playing basketball and soccer – and I love basketball and obviously soccer – so I might help out his group.
“I guess you could say my soccer coaching career is ending, but I might still have some coaching left in me on a much smaller scale.”