FARMINGTON — The practice is lively and fast-paced. The two dozen players move in concert, non-stop, as soccer players do. However, it is quiet. No whistles, no shouting. In a sport where communication is critical, the U.S. men’s deaf soccer team finds its own ways to stay connected.
“It’s a mixture of eye contact, recognition of the game, IQ and ASL, sign language,” says forward Michael Schmidt, 36, one of the oldest and most accomplished players on the U.S. team.
“In a way, deaf players are smarter, because we have to use our eyes more. Coaches are telling us to use your eyes all the time, and this is the perfect way; you can’t use your voice, you have to use your eyes more. That’s how we build that connection, and that’s one of the things I was attracted to about this team.”
The U.S. team has been in Connecticut all week, training for its match against Germany at Rentschler Field on Sunday at 1 p.m. The game will be shown on truTV, with streaming available on HBO Max, before the U.S. women’s team takes on Portugal at 4 p.m.
This event is part of the preparation for the next big tournament, the Deaflympics in Tokyo this November. The U.S. team won bronze at the Pan American Games last year in Brazil, clinching the medal with a 4-0 win over Mexico to qualify. Schmidt scored twice in that game.
“It’s very different from what I expected,” says Tate Lancaster, who has been with the team since 2020. “I grew up with only one other classmate in school who had hearing aids as well, but we didn’t really converse well with each other. But coming onto this team, I really learned how to communicate with sign language, and get back into this whole other community that I didn’t really know much about.”
The 23 players come from all over the country, ranging in age from 18 to 37. Many have played high school or college soccer despite their hearing impairment, but there they were allowed to wear their hearing aids. In international competitions, players are told to “take your ears out” before the games begin.
To be eligible, players must have a hearing loss of at least 55 decibels — the borderline between moderate and moderately severe — in their better ear. Some players have no hearing at all and some are completely nonverbal.
“You can’t communicate quickly enough by signing while passing the ball,” Schmidt explains. “So it’s visual, you have to be prepared, two or three plays ahead. Deaf players, we are a little more aware of our surroundings, our emotions, how we communicate with our body language. Every camp, we make sure we have about 20 important signals — get in line, come closer, check two, turn — common language that soccer players know, but it’s visual.”
Interpreters use sign language or tablets with written instructions to convey coaches’ and trainers’ messages as players huddle up.
“The vibe is great energy and a community feel,” coach Everett Palache says. “They love each other. That was the biggest thing I stepped into, like ‘holy crap, these guys really like hanging out with each other.’ They’re like brothers. I try not to mess that up.”
The U.S. deaf soccer program dates back to 1965, when it played in the Deaflympics in Washington, D.C. that year. The team finished as high as fourth in 2008 at the World Deaf Football Championships and took first at the 2019 Deaf Pan Am Games.
Since 2022, the program has been a fully-funded part of the U.S. Soccer Federation, along with other extended teams including the women’s deaf team, Cerebral Palsy (CP) team, power soccer team (which uses wheelchairs), beach soccer, and futsal (five-on-five soccer). There are specially designed spaces for the extended teams at U.S. Soccer’s Atlanta headquarters. Volkswagen is the deaf team’s presenting sponsor.
The opportunity to travel around the country allows the teams to attract and recruit players. As the U.S. men’s deaf team trained at the Farmington Sports Arena, youth teams and coaches working on adjacent fields stopped to watch the late afternoon practice — the team’s second of the day on Wednesday.
The team also visited students at the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford on Thursday morning.
“Soccer is the universal language,” Schmidt says. “To play in a professional stadium with fans, on TV, it’s going to be a huge honor for us. It’s a significant moment to reach out to all players out there and say ‘hey, you can achieve your dreams.’ Everybody faces a different kind of adversity, but you can overcome it, you can get to this level, and know that there are resources out there for you. Just because there’s a disability doesn’t mean you can’t play soccer.”
Originally from Cleveland, Schmidt joined the team in 2014 after a local college coach forwarded him an email about tryouts. He drove to Pittsburgh to check it out, “and the rest has been history,” he says.
In 2016, he played at the World Cup in Italy. In a fifth-place game against England, Schmidt scored the winning goal as the fourth kicker in an overtime shootout.
“I just remember doing the celebration my family and friends told me to do,” Schmidt recalls. “You get to experience a moment not many people get to experience.”
Lancaster, from Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from Baker University but found himself idle and bored during the pandemic when he saw a notice for a tryout in Louisville on social media. He traveled at his own expense, made the team, and is now back into soccer — coaching at the youth level back home in Kansas City, Missouri, as well as playing.
“The biggest challenge I have playing with my teammates here is communicating with them,” Lancaster says. “Especially if I’m on the back line, I have to figure out a way to talk to them when they’re facing the other way and understand how to react to what their movement is. We come up with key words, condense a lot of our phrases, quick signs — we kind of come up with our own language within the team. Basic sign language, but they have more meaning in the situation we’re in. Once we cross the white line, we’re all playing the same sport.”
The chance to play on television Sunday will give two young players he has been coaching in Kansas City the opportunity to watch Lancaster on a big stage.
“I hope kids see that they can do the same thing,” Lancaster says. “A couple of kids back home, they’re hard of hearing and kind of going through a hard time, playing with other kids who are hearing and they’re struggling to fit in. This game gives them that outlet, so I hope when they see us on TV, see me playing back home, they have the realization that I can do whatever I set my mind to.”
Playing for the U.S. team has changed Lancaster’s life in many ways. He was on the team when it became part of the U.S. soccer community. He met his fiancé, Gracie Fitzgerald, who plays on the U.S. women’s deaf team.
“I have this team to thank for it,” he says.
The team prides itself on its speed and quickness.
“We play with pride, play with passion,” Schmidt says. “The game of soccer is supposed to be fun. Make them remember you on the field. This is why we’re here.”
Palache, who brought 20 years of coaching experience to the job in 2024, realized during a trip to Washington and a game against Alexandria (Va.) Soccer Association that he was in the right place.
“That really showed us our grit and our desire, and I knew that they had another level to them,” Palache says. “I had wondered how far we could push them, and that game itself pushed them. I’m ultra-competitive, and that’s when I knew they were equally competitive and I was in the right spot. The profile that we’re looking for is resiliency, athleticism, adaptability.
“We’ve actually come up with an acronym off of ‘DEAF’: they’ve got to have Drive, got to give Effort, got to be Adaptable, got to have Faith in the process. We do something called a legacy letter, get them to think about what their purpose is, and everyone said they want to leave a legacy they can live up to, and inspire the next generation that it’s possible.”
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