Special- from Record Sports
POMPTON LAKES — Dave Siljanovski is a rare breed, harboring a kaleidoscope of sentiments. It’s been a quarter century but the first true Pompton Lakes soccer hero is in a reminiscent mood this week.
Even a generation later, he remembers how the Pompton Lakes’ golden generation of schoolboy soccer set the standard that latter-day teams still connect with and aspire to be.
It started when the Siljanovski-led Pompton Lakes team advanced to the 1992 Group 1 state final, only to be denied when officials cancelled out a pair of goals in a 2-0 disheartening loss to Haddonfield.
Emotions are still raw regarding that cool autumn day 25 years ago, acknowledged the loquacious Siljanovski, who went on to a full athletic scholarship to Massachusetts (UMass) and later played professionally in the Third Division here.
“I just remember how empty I felt after the game and how the entire team was feeling,” said Siljanovski, who resides in West Milford and still plays in an Over-40 men’s league. “We came so close and to fall in the final game was heartbreaking. We had an entire town and community behind us and they experienced the same ups and down and emotions that we did. But it was that team that set the standard and developed the culture that is Pompton Lakes’ soccer as we know it today. I have a lot of good memories of that time and I’m just getting them out now.”
But despite the hollow feeling from losing that game, there was small consolation on that day when younger brother, Rich Siljanovski, promised he’d deliver a state title to Pompton Lakes and erase that painful memory.
“My brother was one of the first people to come up to me after that game,” recalled Dave Siljanovski. “I think he felt as heartbroken as I did. He wasn’t even in high school yet and he looked at me while holding back tears and said something I’ll never forget.”
True to his word, brother Rich, four years his junior, and his Pompton Lakes’ teammates, wrapped their hands around the hardware four years later in a 1-0 double-overtime defeat of Somerville in the 1996 Group 2 championship game. Rich’s golden goal from the penalty spot with four minutes remaining touched off a celebration that Pompton Lakes’ faithful still celebrate today.
Just think of it: a golden goal that cemented the legacy of Pompton Lakes’ golden generation of talented soccer players who launched the standard and led to a second state championship nine-years later in 2005.
“Winning it all in 1996 helped take some of the sting away for me,” said Dave Siljanovski. “For my brother and his teammates to get the job done was so satisfying.”
The 1996 team, coached by Glenn Schechter, was near perfect, finishing with a 23-1 record with the only loss a 1-0 decision to Kennedy in the Passaic County Tournament final.
“Pompton Lakes is a small town with some 400 students in the high school,” said Dave Siljanovski. “To win a state title was a big deal. But it was because of the hard work and dedication that started in the town’s feeder program that my brother and his friends were a part of.”
In the blood
It started when the Siljanovski’s moved from Paterson to Pompton Lakes in time for Dave’s freshman year in the fall of 1989. And all these years later, the Siljanovski brothers will join their father, Vasko, a soccer-centric immigrant from the former Yugoslavia (he’s really from Macedonia) for Sunday’s Group 1 final against Glassboro (20-2-2). Kickoff is 5:30 p.m. at Kean University in Union.
Provided Pompton Lakes (17-4-2) wins, it would be a third state title, unprecedented in Passaic County history.
“Our father played semi-professionally in Macedonia before coming to the United States in 1975,” said Dave Siljanovski. “While growing up in Paterson we would watch professional Italian soccer teams on television on the weekends and then go watch my father play later in the day with his club team. My brother and I were exposed to the sport at such a young age. Soccer was the topic of conversations even at the dinner table and our family revolved around it.”
Vasko Siljanovski played for the Macedonian Soccer Club, which played in the defunct Italian-American Soccer League – the highest semi-pro league in New Jersey. The teams in the IASL were comprised of former professional players from mother countries such as Republic of Ireland, Uruguay, Spain, Peru and Poland.
“The majority of those teams could play with some of the best teams in today’s Major League Soccer,” Dave Siljanovski acknowledged. “The New Jersey-based Polish-American Eagles were in that league and they were the best team in the United States at the time. The league featured a great mixture of European and Latin talent.”
By the time Dave Siljanovski was in the fifth grade, he would play three years for the Clifton Stallions youth club team, coached by the legendary and late-great Clifton head coach Fernando Rossi. That experience would set the path for younger brother Rich, who eventually joined the Pompton Lakes youth feeder program a few years later.
“My father and [Fernando] Rossi played together some forty years ago,” said Dave Siljanovski. “Then my family eventually moved to Pompton Lakes for the start of my freshman year of high school.”
The 1992 Pompton Lakes High School squad captured the Bergen-Passaic Scholastic League and North Section 1 titles, but ultimately became the impetus for the 1996 team in which Rich Siljanovski and center-midfielder Chris Charnecky carried the Cardinals to the school’s first-ever state crown.
“I remember that team well and followed along the entire way to the state title,” said current Pompton Lakes coach Rob Edgar, who teamed with the younger Siljanovski and Charnecky for the renowned Wayne-based Pasco Thunder on the club level. “It was a big deal and I remember the excitement of knowing kids on that team.”
That club experience served as a blueprint for tactical and technical soccer.
“You have to realize that there were no academy teams or players back then and no social media,” said Edgar, who was also teammates of Siljanovski’s and Charnecky’s at Division I Fairleigh Dickinson. “Some of the top players in the area played on the Stallions and we would promote ourselves and recruit players from all over the place.”
In 2005, then-coach Don Peterfriend and the Cardinals bagged the program’s second state championship, defeating Bordentown in the Group 1 final.
“In order to understand the present you also have to understand the past,” said Edgar, who was determined to link the past (1996) and the present. “I took the team for a tour through the school hallways and gymnasium the other day and pointed out the two soccer ball trophies in the trophy case from the 1996 and 2005 teams as well as the championship banners that hang in the gym. Sometimes we take things for granted and it’s always good to put things into perspective.”
The Cardinals are on the cusp of authoring another chapter of soccer history.
“I want the team to embrace this experience and understand that opportunities like this don’t come around too often,” said Edgar. “They are a part of the school’s soccer legacy and Sunday’s championship game is not just for them, but for all those who played here before them and couldn’t get it done. I want to make sure they embrace the experience and take it all in.”
Just like the way the 1996 and 2005 teams did.
