In just a couple of months, the Yuengling center at USF will transform into an indoor soccer field.

What You Need To Know

  • The Tampa Bay Strikers are a new team

  • They play in an indoor soccer league

  • The team will play in 15 minute quarters

This is where the National Indoor Soccer League's new league, the Tampa Bay Strikers, will play all of its home games.

Andrew Haines and his partners, who are behind the new venture, said he would challenge people who say they won’t like it. 

“It’s a lot of action," Haines told Spectrum Sports 360's Katya Guillaume. "There’s music playing the whole game, there’s people getting slammed into the wall, lots of scoring and so it’s such a fun time.” 

Tampa Bay has The Lightning, The Rays, The Rowdies, The Bucs, and soon..they will have The Strikers. 

“I was doing research, and I was like, well, strikers is like the perfect for what indoor soccer is about. A lot of striking and scoring and this is like the lightning capital of the world, so it kinda was like a great combination,” Haines said. 

He has ties to the Bay Area. He grew up here. 

He’s also the owner and co-owner of different teams in the league. He said seeing the success the teams have had, it made sense to bring that opportunity to Tampa.

Haines, “Soccer is the most diverse sport in the world. It reaches every class, every nationality, it’s a melting pot of the world and so when you look at Tampa, it also has an international flair to it so there’s a lot of built-in soccer fans.”

The soon-to-be five-team league will work a little differently than what you’re used to seeing. 

Aside from the excitement, Haines said, instead of two 45-minute halves, teams will play four 15-minute quarters. 

“Games, we’re trying to get down to 3-3:15 time-wise. There’s 5 field players and a goalkeeper on each side, but just like hockey there are penalties, so we can have a player down or multiple players down,” he finished by saying. 

There will be one coach for both the men's and women's teams. The league is currently in the process of figuring out who that person will be. 

The league is also looking at filling up its roster of 20 players, which Haines hopes will be made up of several local players.