Colorado Springs Switchbacks USL title a ‘full-circle’ moment for former Bethlehem Steel teammates

As was well documented in the lead-up to the final, the Colorado Springs Switchbacks’ journey to the top of the USL Championship was one with many roots to the Philadelphia area through former players and coaches from the Philadelphia Union and Reading United organizations.

Those connections include the team’s Sporting Director Stephen Hogan, head coach James Chambers, captain Matt Mahoney and Philadelphia Union Academy grads Zach Zandi and Matt Real.

For Mahoney, a Temple grad who joined Bethlehem Steel FC as a rookie out of college in 2017, Saturday’s 3-0 championship game victory over Rhode Island FC was extra special because of the shared history he has with first-year head coach “Chambo” and others in the squad with East Coast ties.

“We’ve been through so much together,” Mahoney said post-game in quotes distributed to media. “First Chambo and me as teammates, like, that’s actually incredible. [Switchbacks Sporting Director Stephen Hogan] signed me to my first contract with Brendan [Burke] back in 2017, it is kind of a full-circle moment, it’s incredible. So honestly, I’m so happy for him, Chambo, first-year coach that that I could do this for him. You know, he’s more than my coach and my friend off the field. So, I’m very happy for him.”

Burke, a former Philadelphia Union assistant, was the head coach of Bethlehem Steel from 2015-2019 after playing and coaching at Reading United. He was the first to move to Colorado and start the pipeline before taking a job on Ben Olsen’s staff with Houston Dynamo in 2023 and returning to USL Championship last offseason as head coach and general manager at Hartford Athletic.

Hogan, who played with Burke at Reading United and was the head coach there before joining Burke’s staff as an assistant with the Steel, was the head coach of Switchbacks last season before transitioning into the front office and handing over the reigns to Chambers. Former Reading United and Ocean City Nor’easters head coach and fellow Dubliner (with Hogan and Chambers) Alan McCann is also on the technical staff with the Switchbacks. Keelan Powers, a Switchbacks development coach, was part of the Reading United staff in 2023.

Chambers, who coached with the Union Academy before heading west, had a bumpy start to his first season at the helm with the Switchbacks losing their first five contests. As he always did when he was the skipper for the Steel, Chambers deflected the attention back to his players for what ended up being a magical season and a completion of a project that was well in the works before his arrival.

“I don’t see it about me,” Chambers said in quotes distributed to media. “I genuinely don’t see that. I see it as, we’ve had players here and we’ve all wanted to achieve the same thing. It’s the players who have been here since ‘21 and came in ‘22 and came last year. And it’s almost the next step, and thankfully, we took the next step today and got over the line. It’s the players that do it. It’s the players that win games, not coaches.”

Those players included the on-loan Philadelphia Union left back Real and former Villanova star Zach Zandi, who both started on the left side of the field in the final played on their home pitch in front of 8,000 fans. Real was a mainstay with Bethlehem Steel during Chambers’ time as captain, first as an amateur then as a USL signing and continued to play on loan with the second team when he signed a first team deal. After getting limited first team playing time he was sent on loan and immediately inserted into the starting lineup.

Zandi, a West Chester native who played with Penn Fusion prior to joining the Union in its early academy years, spent two seasons playing for the Union’s second team and made his first team debut playing in a U.S. Open Cup match in DC in 2019. He was part of Reading United’s first of back-t0-back runs to the USL League Two final under Coach McCann in 2018 and joined the Switchbacks in 2021.