Details Soccer

Description: Soccer

The Tampa Bay Rowdies are an American professional soccer team based in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, United States. The club was founded in 2008 and first took the pitch in 2010. The Rowdies are a member of the North American Soccer League (NASL), the second tier of the American soccer pyramid, and play their home games at Al Lang Stadium in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. Their manager is Thomas Rongen. When plans for a new professional soccer team in the area were announced in 2008, the club planned to be called the "Tampa Bay Rowdies", the same name used from 1975 to 1993 by Tampa's franchise in the old North American Soccer League. Before taking the pitch, however, licensing issues forced the club to officially call itself FC Tampa Bay until December 2011, when it gained full rights to the Rowdies name. The current club uses the same green and yellow color scheme and the iconic hoops of the original team, and did so even when they could not yet use the Rowdies name. The Rowdies captured the NASL championship in 2012 with a win in the Soccer Bowl. They have a long-standing rivalry with the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, with whom they have contested the Florida Derby since 1977.