Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Pfeffer at peace after walking away
CHESTER » Whether it’s Zach Pfeffer’s preference or not, appraisals of his playing career often get a historic appellation. Once upon a time, the fresh-faced teen 15 days shy of his 16th birthday became the Philadelphia Union’s first Homegrown player and, at the time, the fourth-youngest to ever sign an MLS contract.
Six and a half years on, Pfeffer’s youthful entrée to the game permitted a graceful — some might say premature — exit. Now 22, with six years traveling the globe under his belt, soccer is in Pfeffer’s rearview mirror as he’s taken the offramp toward a career in finance.
“I sat down and took a look where I wanted to be long-term, and I knew that in a year, five years, 10 years, the financial industry is where I wanted to be,” Pfeffer said last week. “Everything came together nicely with my contract expiring and where I was at academically and where I was professionally.”
While an MLS season churns on in the background, Pfeffer’s days include a summer wealth management internship at Morgan Stanley in Philadelphia in between his sophomore and junior years at Temple’s Fox School of Business. He dived headlong into a number of financerelated activities at the school, living the life of a student that he missed in the pro soccer ranks.
These days, the Dresher native’s soccer activities are pruned back to finite blocks — Temple intramural games (where his team is unsurprisingly dominant) and small-group skills clinics on the weekends. After years of being a professional whose life was consumed by soccer, Pfeffer said he has no regrets about his current relationship with the game.
“I looked at where my heart was and where my passions were,” Pfeffer said. “Obviously I love the game and I always will, but there was an overriding passion to pursue this next part of my life.”
It seems only fitting that in his departure from pro soccer, as in so many stages of a young and largely unrequited career, Pfeffer’s journey can be read through a variety of lenses.
From the external view, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Pfeffer’s career didn’t pan out as anticipated. In six seasons, the diminutive midfielder never established himself as an MLS regular. He came closest in 2015 with 21 games (11 starts), two goals and an assist for a dreadful Union team. But in January 2016, he was packaged to the Colorado Rapids to acquire the No. 2 overall pick, used on defender Josh Yaro, as part of a roster overhaul.
Pfeffer never played an MLS minute for the Rapids, logging games with geographically ill-conceived USL affiliate, Charlotte Independence. A desire to escape the treadmill of minor league soccer had been percolating for a while, and with his contract expiring and Pfeffer getting up in college years, Pfeffer found the time right to pursue an interest that had been bubbling under the surface for years.
In sum, Pfeffer played just 30 MLS games (14 starts) and scored three goals. Add in 20 or so USL games, plus a handful of Open Cup ties, plus close to 30 appearances with U.S. teams from U-17 to U-23 and a year with the Hoffenheim U-19s in Germany, and it’s hardly a rosy wunderkind forecast coming to fruition.
It’s why the manager that traded him away and oversaw a large swath of his career back to his youth days with the Union doesn’t exactly see eye to eye with the motivation to walk away.
“I want to say he should still be playing because he’s that talented,” Jim Curtin said. “…I think he learned a lot about soccer and learned a little bit about life through that journey. It’s too young to have a career come to an end.
“It doesn’t sound right to me to even really be talking about it, but he has his reasons and he’s his own person. He has a great support system and a wonderful family, so I’m sure that a lot of through went into the choice and he’s onto the next stage of his life right now.”
Pfeffer puts it another way, less walking away from the game than pivoting his attention.
“I haven’t lost any love or passion for the game,” Pfeffer said. “As I’ve kind of developed and had the career I’ve had, while I’m still young, I started at a young age and I still had six years, which is more than the average. I’ve had tremendous experiences, been all over the world, have a vast network of lifelong friends that I’ve developed. The main thing is that as I continued to grow and mature, I expanded my horizons and developed other passions that I want to pursue.”
That his retirement breaks the mold is a felicitous coda to a career that often did that. He was a trailblazer for the Union when the organization was ill-equipped to handle such a youthful prospect. He defied easy classification positionally, and despite his youth, Pfeffer served as one of the longest tenured Union players by the time he left.
“I think that experience of turning pro young for him, I think it suited him well,” said Maurice Edu, who despite a nine-year age difference, was one of the closest on the team to Pfeffer. “Obviously it didn’t pan out maybe the way he would’ve dreamt it to be. Obviously everyone, when you turn pro (your dream) is to establish yourself and play as many games as possible, so from that standpoint, maybe unfortunately it didn’t work out, but I still think he took a lot of valuable tools and lessons from this experience and it shaped him into the man he is today.”
Given the disorder Pfeffer saw in his career, it would hard to blame him if his love for the game waned. His first pro coach was Peter Nowak, who became increasingly unhinged in a legally culpable manner during his ill-fated stint helming the Union. Pfeffer’s year in Germany comprised the middle 12 months of John Hackworth’s twoyear stint. And when Pfeffer finally got a chance to prove himself in 2015, it was on a distinctly lackluster Union side.
Pfeffer took his formative steps as a pro while the Union lacked the infrastructure to properly develop talent, via the Academy or consistent USL minutes with Bethlehem Steel. Curtin went so far as to ponder if things could’ve been different had Pfeffer risen through a more advanced (less dysfunctional) organization. (The hypotheticals: Would Pfeffer have needed to sign at 16 now? And how much different will his quantity and quality of playing at age 20 differ from, say, Derrick Jones’ by the end of the year?)
But those speculations shouldn’t minimize the passion Pfeffer has found in the classroom. He finished his high school education on time while with the Union, and via Penn State online courses, had three-plus semesters of college completed before he called time on his soccer career. After the spring at Temple, he’s just two years behind the schedule of his former classmates for estimated graduation, and none will have the wealth of experience he has by the time they hit 24.
Part of the appeal of finance comes from Pfeffer being a 16-year-old with a job and a need for a bank account. Per MLS Players’ Union filings, Pfeffer earned nearly a half million dollars in salary.
“A lot of it started when I began playing with the Union and being a full-time professional making a full-time salary,” Pfeffer said. “Pretty much with my first paycheck, it went right into the market. I invested it right away. Since then, I’ve had a vested interest to see my money grow and appreciate in value, and I’ve always had an interest in the market and becoming more market-savvy.”
“I think he was very dedicated to soccer, but you could always tell that he was someone who thought outside the box, bright kid,” Edu said. “For me, the way I saw him view soccer, the way he approached the game, his mindset was in his approach toward soccer, you could always tell that he was deep thinker, smart kid and so it’s no surprise to me that he has interest in finance.”
Pfeffer is tremendously grateful for his professional experiences, but they’ve deviated from the norm that many peers followed, an exemplary path that has few parallels in the American realm, even if it is the prevailing model elsewhere in the world. He’s made up for lost time at Temple, as a vice president at a pair of finance student groups and a lead analyst in the Owl Fund, the school’s real-world investment project. He’s enjoyed the time on campus and has attacked the undergraduate experience with the same fervor he once applied to soccer.
And while those two halves of his young life will never overlap, he’s happy with the coexistence he’s forged.
“Definitely no regrets,” he said. “I’m really enjoying my time at Temple so far, nothing but good memories. There was some tough times, some good times, but all the makes me the person I am today.”