Somewhere between vision and whimsy, between projected shortfall and ultimate success, between hopeful preparation and ultimate victory -- soccer, the world's game continues its methodical climb toward respectability among the American sporting public.
   

The sport of the future for so many years -- and the sport of dreams for such a large segment of today's youth --  soccer continues to wage the good fight to become one of America's mainstream sports.  Behind this good fight are thousands of individuals who plot the strategy and lead hundreds of soccer organizations who contribute to the growing reputation of the sport.
 

Count Francisco Marcos among these leaders.  He's been called a dreamer, a schemer, a planner, a  visionary.  For sure a trail blazer.  Or perhaps more appropriately, a "trail sizzler."
 

The founder and commissioner of America's largest group of professional and amateur soccer leagues, fits all of these categories.
 

From his collegiate days in upstate New York, to his eight years with the old Tampa Bay Rowdies, the guy they used to call the "Portuguese Pitchman" has taken his soccer show on the road for more than 20 years - to the point where today, without a doubt, there must be a Marcos-inspired team somewhere in your state, near your town or up your street.
 

United Soccer Leagues had a humble beginning.  It was a dream, concocted by Marcos in his Dallas garage some 15 years ago, which has grown steadily each year to become perhaps the most important piece in the American soccer development system puzzle.
   

"We now have a group of leagues that are respected by just about everyone who follows soccer in America.  We are at the point where holding our part of the system in place is critical to the success of Major League Soccer and any other league that may come along down the road.  The bottom line is you need a place where prospects can work their way to the top.  USL has become that vehicle."
 

Marcos is a 1968 graduate of Hartwick College, a collegiate soccer power in the 1970s that produced some of the professional game's best known coaches -- Al Miller, Timo Liekoski, Terry Fisher, Glenn Myernick and others.  In addition to being editor of the school newspaper, he was very active in soccer in and around the Oneonta, N.Y., community, starting the Empire State Soccer League and launching the magazine Soccer Monthly, which eventually became the official magazine of the U.S. Soccer Federation.
 

Marcos became a "soccer internationalist" of sorts as early as 1969, when he was part of a European tour for the Hartwick team.  The idea of taking American teams to Europe evolved into a full-time business for the young entrepreneur, who founded American International Sports Exchange, the first American company to develop soccer tours for teams in the United States.
 

Early AISE tours included individuals who later became soccer luminaries in their own right.  Bruce Arena, current coach of the U.S. National Team; Bob Gansler, coach of the 1990 U.S. World Cup Team; Glenn Myernick, former coach of MLS‘ Colorado Rapids; Terry Fisher, former coach of the NASL Los Angeles Aztecs; and a pair of U.S. Soccer Federation coaches who led teams to international tournaments -- Jay Hoffman and Jay Miller -- all took part in those early tours as players or coaches.
 

On one of those trips to Europe, Marcos discovered Farrukh Quraishi and convinced him to come to the USA to play collegiate soccer at Oneonta State, where Marcos was a graduate assistant coach.  Quraishi later continued his association with Marcos when he joined the Rowdies as a professional player in 1975.
 

Marcos cut his teeth in the professional game for 10 years in the North American Soccer League, prior to starting what would become today's USL.  He spent eight years with the Rowdies, at the time one of the shining success stories of the NASL.  With the Rowdies, he was director of public relations and vice president of soccer operations.  He started a cooperative agreement between the Rowdies and Brazilian powerhouse Sao Paulo, began a series of games sponsored by Pan American Airlines in cooperation with the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, played host to a weekly radio show and also did color commentary on television.
 

He blazed the first of many trails with the Rowdies by traveling to South America and discovering a player who would become an icon for a new version of soccer, the indoor game, which was played inside dasher boards in hockey-sized arenas.  The icon, a diminutive Brazilian with the catchy nickname "Tatu," was best known for tossing his shirt into the stands after every goal he scored during his prestigious indoor career.
 

Marcos joined the NASL's Dallas Tornado in 1978, where he was vice president of player personnel, the first person to hold such a position in the NASL.  Later, he helped start the NASL franchise in Calgary, before he gradually moved into one of the biggest soccer projects ever conceived -- a group of national leagues covering the majority of the United States.
 

The seeds of today's USL were sown in 1986 when Marcos founded the Southwest Indoor Soccer League (SISL), which played host to the first national indoor amateur and youth tournaments.
 

"To those who think USL and its affiliate leagues are an overnight success, we can only say that there are no miracles in soccer," offers Marcos.  "It has taken us nearly 15 years of hard work to get to the point where we are today."
 

The SISL became the Sunbelt Independent Soccer League.  The "U" was added in 1991, making the league the U.S. Interregional Soccer League, which eventually became United Soccer Leagues.
 

Marcos is one of those individuals - and we see an increasing amount of them these days - who lives, sleeps and breathes soccer every hour of the day.  Fluent in five languages, he has attended eight consecutive World Cups since 1970 either as a fan, journalist or part of an official delegation.  In 1994, he was World Cup USA's official team liaison with the Brazil National Team.
 

Recognized by his peers as one of the key movers and shakers in the game, he serves on the board of directors of U.S. Soccer, the U.S. Soccer Foundation, the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, the National Soccer Hall of Fame, and serves on U.S. Soccer's Women's Professional Soccer Development Committee.