Sebastian’s mother, Vivian Romero, lives in Sienna and makes the daily 30-minute drive to the all-boys Nexus Futbol Academy in Pearland.
As the mother of an elite soccer player, Romero said one of the biggest draws of enrolling her son in the academy was the “assistance in terms of ... learning how to mentally manage the challenges that come with being an elite soccer player.”
Young elite soccer players face high demands on their schedules and mental well-being, even more than college athletes do, Romero said.
Romero, who has worked in education for 26 years, said she felt the academy’s focus on instilling values, such as morals, manners, respect and self-esteem, sets it apart from other schools.
Romero felt this intimate classroom experience helps students like her son be more engaged with what they are learning and added that before the academy, her son had never completed summer assignments but now does them all summer long because he knows his teacher will expect them.
The school aims to prepare students to join a professional soccer academy, such as the Houston Dynamo FC Academy. Before they can apply, prospective students must undergo academic and athletic testing to ensure they are a good fit for the academy’s rigorous demands, said co-founder Henry Costas, who oversees the school’s athletic program.
“Once we feel that they do, then we say, ‘OK, you're invited to apply to Nexus,’” Costas said.
Early beginnings
Prior to founding the academy, Costas, who moved to the U.S. from Bolivia at age 15, headed up Heart and Sole, a futsal academy in Houston. Futsal is similar to soccer and is played on a hard floor, typically indoors.
Co-founder Ibrahim Firat has been an educator since his college days, when he enjoyed helping his friends and peers prepare for college exams and worked for a professional educational consultant. Eventually, Firat’s love of helping students prepare for college entrance exams lead him to found Firat Education, an academic coaching and test preparation school in Houston.
Then in 2012, Firat had a son.
“As soon as he started walking, we gave him a soccer ball to play around with, and he really got good at it,” Firat said.
Firat looked into schools that could help nurture his son’s love of soccer but wasn’t able to find a curriculum with a sufficient focus on the sport.
As a solution, Firat kept his son enrolled in regular school and then signed him up for a soccer club so he could get play time outside of school. Yet as his son got older and more competitive, he became burnt out from balancing the demands of the soccer club with his school studies.
As a native of Turkey, Firat was familiar with the European-style soccer academies that marry rigorous academics with elite soccer playing, yet he couldn’t find a nearby similar school for younger students like his son, who was 8 at the time.
At the time, Firat Education was an academic adviser for students at the Houston Dynamo Academy, a partnership that connected him with Costas.
“I got to really get to know Henry and understand his vision for soccer and for his son, Oliver,” Firat said. “Then we said, ‘Look, you know, you're an expert in soccer and futsal, and we're experts in education, home-schooling and testing admissions. Why don't we merge power?’ And so that's what we did. We founded Nexus Futbol Academy in 2021.”
Work and play
At Nexus, students can expect four hours of academics and three hours of soccer development. Unlike similar soccer academies nationwide that use a generic online curriculum, Nexus students have a unique curriculum with a classroom ratio of 1 teacher for every 5 students.
“We said, ‘We're going to have a real school with a head of school, head of curriculum, teachers and a standardized approach where we can exceed and meet the national standards through national testing,’” Firat said. “Because my expertise is in national testing, I can help them benchmark it against other private schools and other schools in the country.”
The curriculum is aligned with that of private schools in Texas, and students are tested using the Independent School Entrance Examination quarterly to measure a student’s progress.
As a NCAA-aligned school, graduates pursuing division I and II competitive college soccer will have their required classes and exams covered by the academy, Firat said. For students who want to go directly into professional soccer after graduation, Firat is certified by FIFA to act as an agent should the students become noticed by American and international professional soccer clubs.
Nexus has 24 students ranging from fourth to 10th grade, including a 10th-grader who last year was signed by the Los Angeles Galaxy II.
Costas said while soccer coaches primarily focus on simply winning games, Nexus’ approach seeks to develop the whole player, including their form, running and mental preparation.
In addition to having several students from the Pearland area, there are also students from Missouri City, Friendswood and downtown Houston.
Costas said Pearland was a natural choice given the many active soccer programs in the community and said he hopes the school can develop a closer collaboration with the Pearland Youth Soccer Club.
“Once we finalize our location for futsal, the whole idea is to work with them from a young age,” Costas said. “You’re talking about thousands of kids in Pearland playing soccer who could really use futsal as a main tool to develop.”
Annual tuition is $15,000, but Costas said that roughly a third of the students are on scholarship, and the academy has never denied a student due to the cost of tuition.
You can’t put a price on the education offered at Nexus, Romero said.
“It's literally teaching them to be better humans,” Romero said. “[They teach them] nutrition to being better athletes to manners and how to act on the field. That, to me, is just priceless. It's a lot of what we're missing in our schools today.”
Nexus Futbol Academy
2045 Reflection Bay Drive, Pearland
www.nexusfutbol.com
