Today on Inside Look by Brooks, Stephen Brooks will be speaking with the Florida Tropics SC with assistant coach and team captain, Freddy Moojen, and broadcast reporter, Lindsay Nobles.
Hi everyone, my name is Lindsay Nobles and I’m here on Inside Look by Brooks. How are you doing today? Good, how are you Lindsay? I’m doing good, I have a couple questions for you. So the first one is, tell us a little bit about the history of Brooks Law Group. So Brooks Law Group started back in 1992. I graduated from law school in 1986 and worked for another law firm for about five years, decided to leave and open my own shop and I had just myself and one assistant. Today we have grown from one attorney to eight attorneys, from one staff to twenty-nine staff. So we’ve grown and we have offices in Tampa, Lakeland, Winter Haven, and Auburndale. Great, now what services can you provide to the fans? So we are an all-injuries law firm. And what that means is if any of your viewers are ever injured by the negligence of somebody else, then we would be the type of lawyers that they could come see us and talk to us about whether we could help them recover from that injury. And one thing that’s unique about us is that we don’t require money up front for them to see us. We work on a contingency basis. So if someone is injured, unless we produce and get money for them, they don’t have to pay us. Great, now what made you decide to partner with the Tropics? So your director of business development, Ian Hunter, and I connected and he started giving me a little background about the ownership of the Tropics and I learned it was Dr. Panagiotis Iakovidis at the Bond Clinic, I know of Dr. Iakovidis’s reputation and Bond Clinic has a great reputation here in this town and I was also excited about the fact that soccer a new and upcoming sport in America and, you know, so you combine those two factors, I thought it would be a great opportunity to partner with you guys. Now, we are also joined with Freddy. Freddy, as captain and assistant coach, what are some of your responsibilities with the team? Yes, so the captain assistant coach I need to make sure that everybody’s focused throughout the season. Seems like it’s a short season, but four or five months you have games pretty much every weekend, people can lose focus very quickly. So I have to make sure that the players especially always think about the goals we’ve set for this year and working hard to make that happen for our fans and for ourselves as well. As we approach the end of the season, what is the game plan and mentality going into these important final match-ups? Yes the game plan is doing games. We are winning games, going to be in the play-offs, and we have to keep a professional mentality, we have to try to do at least the right things on the field and off the field. I think we’ve been doing well this year, it’s only the second year of the club. The club is very young, if you put both seasons together it’d be together for eight months playing together. So it’s still a lot ahead of us, but we have to make sure that we stay focused and stay professional to make everything happen in the best way possible. What has been some of the highs and lows of this season? One of the highest parts of this season has been that we can score a lot of goals. We have a lot of —-, have good players get introduced for the team on the field. Other teams in the league started acknowledging more the Florida Tropics our second year only. And the lows is that we have a lot of players with not much experience. They’ve been playing the league for first year, second year or even third year, and this game is a fast game, it’s a lot of details, and even though players have been playing soccer for all their lives, —- it’s a different game, so it takes time to learn the game, to be very successful on the field as a player, and as a team. So that’s a bit hard. Who is our toughest opponent that we have yet to face? The toughest opponent that we are gonna face —- we’re going to play against the San Diego —-, it’s a very well-known franchise in the league, they’ve been out there for over twenty years—-, so that’s gonna be a tough opponent to play then in two weeks at home, but I also have other important games — next weekend, not this weekend but next weekend, we need all our fans to be out there to support us and make sure they can push us during these next three home games, they’re very important in order for us to make the play-offs. Right now, speaking of those three home games, how do you think the season and those upcoming games will pan out? If we can stay focused, if we can do what we’re capable of, we’re gonna be able to make the play-offs this year. Only the second year of this organization. It’s not going to be easy because the other teams are tough opponents, plus they’ve been in the league for many years, and we have to be realistic as well knowing that we’ve been together just for a couple of months since last year. This — is gonna be really hard to do but I think it’s possible. We have a great fan base here, we have a lot of people in the community to help us, including Mr. Brooks, supporting the team so that’s important for us and we’re gonna give everything we have in order to try to make it to the play-offs this year. Do you have any final thoughts to the community on why they should come out and support the Tropics in their last three home games? Yes, they have to come out because it’s very exciting, it’s very fun, the whole family can come, the kids, wives, everybody can come and have fun at the game. We need to sell out throughout these games to push us and help us win these games. So come, you’re gonna like it, I can guarantee you that you’re gonna come out and you’re gonna want to come back again. Great, well thank you. Mr. Brooks, do you have any questions for Freddy? Thank you Lindsay, yes. You know, Freddy, thank you for coming. You’re the first real professional soccer player I have ever met, so this is a true pleasure for me. So, you know, we were talking beforehand and it’s interesting. Throughout the world, soccer is known as football. But here in America, it’s known as soccer and I learned from some of the guys that came over with you today that it used to be called associated football and they took the s-o-c from associated and called it soccer. So that was a little tidbit of information I learned today about why it’s called soccer. But you know it seems natural that it should be called football because it involves your foot and a ball. With American football, it’s mainly passing and running and carrying the ball. So, I think we kind of got the names mixed up. So I don’t know much about soccer. What I’ve learned today is that the inside soccer that you guys play is a lot faster and more exciting to watch than the outside soccer that we may have seen on TV. Is that right? Yeah, that’s right. Outdoor soccer, I’ve also played outdoor soccer, and sometimes it can be a little bit boring, there’s not as much action. Whereas the indoor soccer that we play is very similar to hockey. So a lot of action, the ball doesn’t stop, we use the walls. It’s a lot of goals, a lot of, a lot of action. So that’s the big plus for us. And is scoring usually higher in an indoor game than an outdoor game? Yes, I would say on average we’d score between five and ten goals, and hopefully the other team doesn’t score as much. But yes, it’s a lot harder. So when I first became associated with you guys, I was, you know I had no idea that you guys were basically in a national league, and you play from cities across the country, correct? Who are some of the teams, what cities do you play? So this is the major arena, soccer league is the highest indoor professional soccer in North America. We have teams in Mexico, there’s teams coming from Canada, in Toronto for example, there’s a team in Monterey — who’s very successful. There’s a team in San Diego. We have teams in Baltimore, Harrisburg, Syracuse, also teams in Dallas. All over the country, Chicago. So isn’t that something, that we have this team in Lakeland, Florida? So, you know, I can’t wait to come see you guys play because I’ve heard the games are absolutely exciting. So thank you so much for joining us today and educating me a little bit about the background of soccer. Thank you for the opportunity being here, we appreciate it. Absolutely. Now, do you have any final comments to give to the Tropics fans? To the Tropics fans, if you haven’t gone to see a game, go because I heard it is exciting to watch! I know I’ve been to hockey and I love hockey in person because it’s so fast. So to hear Freddy talk about how fast-paced indoor soccer is, I can’t wait to go. So I’ve heard the games are great, so I’ll leave it at that. All right, great! Thank you, thanks guys. Okay, thanks for joining us on today’s Inside Look by Brooks, we’ll be back next Friday at 3:00. Thank you.
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