Armada FC Continues To Grow In First NASL Season

It would be an understatement to say Jacksonville Armada FC head coach Guillermo Hoyos is a philosophical spirit.

He consistently reminds his players and staff it is a team that functions on a philosophy, and it is a philosophy that Hoyos has developed over years of playing and coaching at the highest level.

“It was a very tough week of competition,” Hoyos said on Saturday following his team’s 1-0 win over the Atlanta Silverbacks. “We are looking to recover our players who are injured. We are going to continue with the silence and low profile that we have been playing with.”

Hoyos said that while it was a good win for the Armada FC, they will not spend too much celebrating and work harder.

“It was a good win for the team, but everything continues,” he said. “Low profile means to enjoy what we have accomplished but to keep working even more. We have been successful this past week through sacrifice and perseverance. We can’t slow down.”

While Jacksonville’s inaugural season has seen its shares of ups and downs, the impassioned coach sticks to his wits when it comes to finishing the season on a high note. 

“When there are physical, mental, and attitude challenges, we can just be great grateful for overcoming these,” he said. “The players that were brought into the process in the very beginning have gotten a lot better. These are the players that you can count on to use and play. We are a young team and a small team with just 26 players. A large percentage of these players don’t have a lot of professional experience. This is why we are very happy with how the process and the evolution is going. We can count on these boys.”

While the team is riding a wave of confidence after one if its most successful weeks of play to date, the coaching staff knows that they must stay focused.

“We play a game at a time,” he said. “We are trying to recover with some of the injured players and at the same time compete. We have to continue to grow, and the only way to grow is through work. But we must continue to compete. We have to find time to do all of this. Thinking about the future is not something that we bother too much with. We aren’t thinking about November. We are thinking about our next game.” 

Even with having coached at a number of impressive clubs in his career, Hoyos admits there is something unique about his young squad.

“Winning two games in a row is a different kind of feeling than the other places that I have coached before,” he said. “It lasts even longer because we aren’t going to stop working hard. Even if we lose, we aren’t going to slow down or decrease our workload.”

At the heart of everything Hoyos does, he exudes a competitive nature along with an aura of continuous improvement.

“We are continuing to grow in every aspect,” Hoyos said. “Some aspects are higher than others, but it is the collective aspect that is important. Now we must be prudent. We still have a lot to compete for. It is obviously very gratifying for everyone to get wins like this, and we are happy. But we aren’t going to let that get the best of us. We are going to keep competing. We have all competed since we were born. From the minute we came into this world, we all compete to get ahead. That is how life is and that is how we play.”