Gay former MLS player says Gay Games excite him more than pro soccer ever did
The last gay former MLS player to come out publicly did so 7 years ago. Matt Pacifici said that fact is 'disheartening,' but he offers hope.
Mark
Matt Pacifici can’t wait for his next big soccer match. In fact, he’s more excited about this one than he ever was for a game in the pros.
The gay former NCAA and MLS soccer goalie has certainly seen his share of high-profile matches, playing Division I college soccer for Wake Forest and Davidson.
In Major League Soccer, Pacifici spent the first half of the 2016 season with the Columbus Crew, though an injury forced him to retire from pro soccer early that season. While going undrafted, Pacifici had good prospects in MLS, playing well in the preseason that year.
Yet here he is, back on the pitch and more excited for what’s ahead than he’s ever been.
That’s because he’s leading the New York Ramblers — an LGBTQ soccer club — to the Gay Games in Valencia, Spain, later this month.
“I’m more truly excited and happy to play in this tournament than I probably was ever professionally,” Pacifici told Outsports from his home in Manhattan.
“In college I had fun, but there’s a lightheartedness with this team, no need to put on a facade.”
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As he heads to the Gay Games, gay former Kentucky football player Landon Foster will be one of his teammates.
Pacifici first heard of the Ramblers when he moved to New York City seven years ago. At the time, he dismissed playing for a gay team.
“I’d just come from a super competitive environment, and I wasn’t sure about this,” Pacifici said. “Flash-forward to two years ago, I finally joined the Ramblers and I’m so happy I did.
“The skill level is all over the place, but there isn’t this domineering masculinity or performative element of it.”
Now he’s leading the Rambler’s A-Division 7-a-side soccer team into the Gay Games aiming for gold.
Matt Pacifici was the last gay MLS player to come out publicly
When he came out publicly in 2019, Matt Pacifici was the fifth MLS player — current or former — to come out publicly as gay. Those five players had all come out over the course of just eight years, starting with David Testo in 2011. It seemed at the time that a wave had built in pro soccer, and athletes in MLS would steadily stream out of the closet.
Yet over the last seven years, not one gay or bi current or former MLS player has come out publicly.
“It’s certainly disheartening,” Pacifici said. “That’s crazy to me.”
Yet Pacifici intimately understands the choice gay elite-level college and pro athletes make to keep their orientation private. It’s a choice he made, coming out only after he was forced to retire from the game.
“Now that I have distance from when I was going through it, and I’ve had time to clear my head and think about it, I think my decision to not come out while playing was most rooted in not wanting to rock the boat.
“There was this inner conflict about prioritizing my true self that wanted to play pro soccer, and my true self as a gay man. I have to imagine that’s what other folks are going through.”
With again zero publicly gay or bi players at this year’s FIFA World Cup, Pacifici added some insight into the people around professional athletes who may or may not be providing helpful guidance and support out of the closet.
He said the responsibility of the players unions often get overlooked in these conversations that revolve around athletes, coaches, teams and leagues.
“They play an integral role,” Pacifici said of players unions, which represent all of the athletes in a pro sports league. The MLS Players Association calls itself the “Voice of the Players.”
“Ultimately the players unions across all sports have been the drivers of so much change. The CBA, the pay for players. They’ve been the impetus for so much change. It’s a great vehicle for doing that.
“I’m not sure this has been a prioritized agenda item for them.”
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Gay former MLS player at home on an LGBTQ soccer team
Playing for the Ramblers and headed to the Gay Games, talk of players unions and advocacy are moot for his day-to-day life.
Pacifici is very happy now being away from all of that, living in New York City — Chelsea to be exact — with his boyfriend of four years, Jordan.
After two years working at Amazon, Pacifici is now strategic product partnership lead for AI and ads at Google, where’s he’s now also been for two years.
For Pacifici, life as an out gay man in New York a decade after retiring from professional soccer is good.
“I don’t see myself finding a way out of this city.”
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