Fútbar, Nashville’s street soccer community will host Summer Fest happening at The Fairgrounds Nashville this Saturday. The free, family friendly event features a street soccer tournament, food trucks, vendors and a watch party for two FIFA World Cup quarterfinal matches between Norway versus England and Argentina versus Switzerland. This event is Fútbar’s way to continue to connect with Nashville’s soccer community.
”If you’re unfamiliar with what street soccer is, it’s basically small-sided soccer, 4v4 or 5v5, played on a hard surface court,” founder of Fútbar Rachel Masterson said. “I originally learned what street soccer was and fell in love with it when I was in high school. I’ve played soccer my whole life, and my friends introduced me to the street soccer format. We would play for hours, and it was just super fun, and I always remember thinking I wish that this was more popular in the United States and I want to do something with this one day.”
She thought of the name Fútbar in her capstone entrepreneurship class at Belmont where she had to come up with a business idea and pitch it. She devised the plan for a street soccer venue that had courts, food and a place where people could gather and build community.
”During the pandemic, I moved back to Nashville and I wanted to do this street soccer thing and just see if people like it,” she said. “I started hosting free pickup around Nashville, and that quickly became very popular. We play at different courts around Nashville. We play at Hadley Park on Sundays, we play at Rose Park quite a bit. We also recently launched in Hendersonville at an old hockey rink there.”
She continues: “We have standard sessions, which are people that generally know how to play soccer, but we recently launched a beginner and casual pickup session for people that maybe played soccer when they were younger and want to get back into it or maybe haven’t really touched a soccer ball and really wanna get exposed to it and we do that every Monday night. We also have women’s only sessions that I’m very committed to and passionate about growing our women’s community and we do that every Tuesday night. Even if you’re just a soccer fan, you’re not a player, maybe you’re a little scared to try it out, anybody’s welcome to come and watch and hang out. We also do watch parties and hangouts almost monthly.”
This Saturday the event will feature an organized co-ed, men’s, and 1v1 street soccer tournament. They’re also partnering with Tennessee Soccer Club, and they’re running a youth tournament in the morning.
Masterson says they’re all about building community and getting the greater Nashville soccer community involved. Futbar Summer Fest is the closest representation of what they want their actual venue one day to be, which is bringing people together over the shared universal experiences of soccer, food, and drink.
”I’ve been around Nashville for about the last 10 years, I’m originally from Lexington, Kentucky, but I came here 2014 for college and I played soccer at Belmont as well. Seeing the soccer community grow over the last 10+ years has been awesome, she said. “I remember being in college and going to a Nashville SC game before they were part of the MLS, and just seeing the growth of NSC and how well they’ve been doing has been amazing. But also running a soccer community myself, I think that Nashville has a rich soccer community and people that love the sport. One thing that’s really unique about our community is I think it really showcases how the immigrant communities in Nashville and how international the Nashville communities are.”
“On one team, you could have a pilot, an HVAC tech, a professor, and also a barber all on the same team, and all from different walks of life and different communities, said Masterson. “That’s something that’s really unique about what we do is just the community aspect and just showcasing how many people in Nashville love soccer.”
Additional event opportunities starting tonight (July 8) are WNXP presents Bloc Party at Ryman and James Hunter Six performing at the Franklin Theatre. Thursday night (July 9) WNXP presents The Bug Club at the Blue Room and Henry J. Star performs at the East Room. Back at the Blue Room Friday (July 10) with April + Vista and at the same venue Saturday (July 11) The Sewing Club performs. Also on Saturday and Sunday, Nashville Punk Rock Flea Market is at Eastside Bowl.
