Ali Curtis is the President of MLS Next Pro, which launched in 2022 and in its fifth season fields 30 teams — 27 of which feed into their MLS affiliate teams and three three independents: Carolina Core, Chattanooga FC and CT United.

When a record 30 teenagers saw action on Matchday 4 of the current MLS season, 27 of them were primed by MLS Next Pro experience.

Since MLS Next Pro’s launch, more than 250 of its players have signed MLS first-team contracts. They include U.S. 2026 World Cup hopefuls Alex Freeman, who became an Orlando City MLS starter in 2025 at age 20 after playing 70 games for Orlando City B in 2022-24, and Max Arfsten, whose 2022 season with the San Jose Earthquakes II led to stardom with the Columbus Crew.

Freeman, whom Orlando City sold to LaLiga’s Villarreal last January on a reported transfer fee of up to $7 million, is among 20 MLS Next Pro alumni who have moved abroad. They include Aidan Morris, Patrick Agyemang, Benjamin Cremaschi and Esmir Bajraktarevic.

Bajraktarević, a Wisconsin product, at age 19 was sold by the New England Revolution in January 2025 to PSV Eindhoven for a reported fee of up to $6 million. A dual national, he committed to Bosnia and Herzegovina and converted the deciding shootout spot kick against Italy that qualified Bosnia and Herzegovina for the 2026 World Cup.

MLS Next Pro also made global news recently when IFAB, which governs the FIFA’s playing rules, adopted measures to combat time-wasting gamesmanship that were first introduced in MLS Next Pro thanks to Curtis’ efforts.

By bridging the MLS Next youth league to MLS’s first teams, MLS Next Pro creates a pathway that didn’t exist when Curtis climbed the youth ranks and went pro via the 2001 MLS SuperDraft after starring for four years at Duke University.

We started our conversation by asking Curtis to reflect on his personal playing experience, from neighborhood pickup games to pros.

SOCCER AMERICA: At Duke, you won the 1999 Hermann Trophy and 2000 MAC Award before a three-year MLS pro career. How did you initially get into soccer?

ALI CURTIS: When I was really young, we lived in Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is located. The university attracts people from all over the world. We lived in this housing community that had a lot of immigrants who were connected to the university in some way, shape or form.

My parents grew up in the 1960s in the inner city in Philadelphia, so they had never been exposed to soccer. But in our Ann Arbor townhouse community, you shared the backyards with your neighbors and everyone else who lived in the community.

All these kids from different parts of the world played soccer. My brother, Ismail, who’s two years older than me, and I would join pickup games all the time with neighborhood kids, starting when I was 4 or 5. We’d put down two rocks or two shirts for goals. We had kids from Nigeria, from South Africa. … There was Henry from Brazil. He challenged us and he beat us all. He was a really, really talented player.

My family introduced me to recreational soccer through the YMCA. I kind of excelled and then came a point where I wanted to play for a club team.

⬆️ From the Nov. 6, 2000 edition of Soccer America

SA: You ended up at Vardar, a well known youth club …

ALI CURTIS: First I tried out for a local club team that was a year or two older than me. I was the smallest kid, and the coach didn’t take me. I was 8 or 9 years old, and it was really devastating. But it was the best thing for me and my career, because another person at the fields spoke to my mom and said, “You really should take Ali to this other club.” It happened to be 35-40 minutes away from us, based in Livonia, Michigan. Vardar is still around and plays in MLS Next. It was an amazing environment for me. I played around really good players. The families were really solid. Some of the best relationships that I’ve had, that I still maintain to this day, were from my experience playing youth soccer, growing up with that particular program.

SA: If you hadn’t been directed toward Vardar, you may not have found the paths to the levels you reached?

ALI CURTIS: Playing for Vardar was how I got into the funnel. My parents weren’t really sports people. I was heavily reliant on figuring it out myself. And I was fortunate to be around a lot of really good players and a lot of really good coaches and support people who helped me navigate different things. Who had such a profound impact on where I landed, and how I got to where I am. It was all based on — I don’t want to call it luck — but just some incredible people.

It gives me a lot of inspiration and energy when I think about my own job, because we have to find ways to systematically make things more accessible and to channel things in a way that those opportunities are more prevalent.

SA: Can you give an example of what impacted your ability to climb to higher levels?

ALI CURTIS: A regional team was going on a trip to Austria and Germany. But it was going to cost a lot of money, including the plane ticket.

After a practice, I had a coach who asked my mom, “Is Ali excited to go on the trip?”

I remember, because I was in the car and the window was down, my mom said, “No, he’s not going because we can’t afford it. We don’t have the money.”

That coach reached out to the state association or some governing body, and they funded me to participate on that trip. I played well on the trip, which gave the coach confidence to put me on the regional team that would serve as a tryout for the U-17 national team, which I made the November of that year.