As it celebrates its 10th anniversary season, Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC has gone from strength to strength on the field.

But to understand the roots of that success – and the combination of skill, grit and perseverance exhibited by this year’s squad – you may have to travel about 1,700 miles east, to Philadelphia and other nearby cities in Eastern Pennsylvania.

It’s been almost 20 years since the Switchbacks’ current Sporting Director Stephen Hogan first stepped on the field for Reading United AC in USL League Two. That summer started a pathway that saw him learn from some of the top current coaches in the United States at the Philadelphia Union and use those lessons to form the foundation of the sustained success the Switchbacks have achieved since he, former Head Coach Brendan Burke and current Head Coach James Chambers headed west in 2021.

“I played with Brendan in [2007], and then he took over in [2008], and I played there while coaching at the youth part in Reading for three years,” Hogan told USLChampionship.com this week. “I went up to upstate New York, where my wife is from, and coached college for five years, and then came back down the end of 2015 to be Brendan's assistant at Bethlehem Steel.”

A newly-formed reserve team for Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union, the Steel became an incubator for some of the remarkable young talent emerging from the Union Academy at that time. Current United States international’s Brenden Aaronson, Mark McKenzie and Auston Trusty all saw their first professional minutes with the squad, which also pulled in players from college soccer aiming to make their mark.

One of those was Matt Mahoney, who turned pro with the side in 2017 after competing locally at Temple University.

“Brendan [Burke] signed me to my first contract.” said Mahoney, who has now made more than 200 appearances in the USL Championship in his career. “The first couple of years, he gave me a platform in the league.”

“People like Pat Noonan and B.J. Callaghan, the details in their training sessions, and then the intensity and the knowledge and the experience of Brendan Burke and Jim Curtain in terms of reading and running a whole roster. … Breaking that up into three parts, breaking those six people up into three parts, that's what I studied. And I thought it was a great learning curve, and I wanted to bring it here.”

And when Burke and Hogan got to Colorado Springs late in 2020, they knew exactly who they wanted to bring in to help build the Switchbacks’ locker room culture.

“Mahoney was one of our first phone calls,” said Hogan. “I have believed – me, personally, my opinion – that Mahoney is arguably the best defender every year. People’s opinions may differ. That’s fine, that’s football, football is subjective. Mahoney had already been with us, we’d given him his first pro contract, his first pro game, and we’ve seen it since then, and obviously he’s developed as he gotten older and he got better as he got older.”

Others from the Reading United and Philadelphia Union pipeline followed. New arrivals in 2021 included Jimmy Ockford and Michee Ngalina, and midfielder Zach Zandi, whose path as a West Chester, Pa. native had been fully informed by the influence of Philadelphia’s soccer scene, as well as competing for the Union II and Reading United.

“My freshman and sophomore high school year, there wasn't an official Academy yet, but they were still doing training sessions during the high school season,” said Zandi. “My freshman and sophomore year of high school, I trained with them. It was basically just a collection of guys from the area that included [Players Development Academy] guys, Westchester, Delco. That was kind of the beginning.”

For Zandi, the opportunity to make the leap to Colorado Springs with a group of coaches that he had not only worked with consistently but greatly admired saw him quickly jump on board alongside Mahoney.

“I think one of the most important things and special things about the guys here is just how good of people they are,” said Zandi. “Especially in our business, in the soccer world, people are being transferred all the time. There's a lot of chop-and-change. To be able to have this relationship and foundation really made it easy for me to want to come.”

Now, while Burke has moved on, the ties to the Union and the Philadelphia area remain as strong as ever within the Switchbacks’ squad. In addition to Mahoney and Zandi, the side also features defender Matt Real, on loan from the Union, and Penn graduate Duke Lacroix, while Hogan’s successor as Reading United Head Coach, Alan McCann, joined the technical staff in 2022.

There’s a decidedly northeastern segment in the squad overall, with New York Red Bulls Academy graduate Steven Echevarria in the group as well.

“I think it adds a like-mindedness to it in a lot of ways,” said Mahoney. “What we would say a couple years ago and going through our time here that there’s kind of a northeastern grittiness that maybe in the center of the country is just a little different. I think when Brendan and Hogie came out here initially, that was the mentality. We’re going bring that mentality, the gritty Philadelphia, northeastern mentality to Colorado Springs here, and then try to erupt in the league.”

That’s been visible in the shift in style and the Switchbacks have undergone over the past two seasons. While the side’s attacking explosiveness was its calling card as Hadji Barry tied the then-USL Championship single-season scoring record with 25 goals in 2021 and Ngalina earned Young Player of the Year honors in 2022, this year’s squad possesses a greater balance which has brought it this far in the postseason.

Colorado Springs’ 40 goals against during the regular season was the club’s fewest allowed in a full campaign since 2018. The squad’s defensive play has ramped up in the stretch run with the Switchbacks having allowed only one goal over the past 480 minutes of action going into Saturday’s USL Championship Final.

“We just thought he was one of the best midfielders in the league,” added Hogan. “I thought he would have been a fringe MLS player. To be honest, I did think he could still do it until the injuries started to hit him. But he's the best, in my opinion, the best box-to-box player. Now, he can play the 10 easily, but he’s probably a box-to-box player at this point in his career because of his body, because he's actually really doing well with his body. He's probably the best in the league, in my opinion.”

All those elements have come together to put the Switchbacks on the verge of a historic moment in their history. After claiming the Western Conference title this past Sunday night, they’ll host Rhode Island FC on Saturday in the 2024 USL Championship Final aiming to take the final step on the journey.

“We want to all win,” said Hogan. “We are all very quietly competitive monsters. I think the foundation of winning the West is a foundation for me to build on. I think the foundation of winning the whole thing is the foundation for the staff to continue to go.”

“It’s what, honestly, what I’ve strived for my entire career,” said Mahoney. “Winning my first trophy last weekend was still surreal. It doesn’t feel like a real moment, and so to win it all will probably hit me in the moment, and maybe I’ll have some words for it then, but at the moment, I just want to get to that moment, get on the field and play, and then just try to enjoy it as much as possible.”

As large as the celebration would be in Colorado Springs should the Switchbacks lift the trophy, the celebration is certain to stretch across the communities that helped forge the club’s current direction further east.