Back in 2022, the Richmond Kickers were flying high. On their way to winning the regular season league title, the Kickers won 14 games, forward Emiliano Terzaghi led the league in goal scoring, and City Stadium saw record levels of attendance. 

It was the kind of success that pulled in hundreds of new fans, including Richmonders like Banana Kolb, who had never much cared about soccer before. 

“I wasn’t really a soccer fan at all,” Kolb said. “A friend invited me to the opening match of the season, the Kickers won 4-1, and I did not miss a single game all year. Showed up, loved the vibe, never left.” 

But in 2023, their league approved a new collective bargaining agreement, and the Kickers have struggled to adjust. 

In the years since, the Kickers have finished 11^th, 8^th, and 13^th in USL League One, squeaking into the playoffs in 2024 and missing the playoffs altogether in 2023 and 2025. 

The Kickers will host their first home league match of the season on Saturday, a 6 p.m. matchup against FC Naples, and the team's fans are hopeful this will be the year Richmond emerges from its recent slump. 

Camp Peery, the Kickers President and COO, said expectations will be high.

“We haven’t gotten everything 1,000% right with the new CBA and everything the last couple years,” Peery said. “Obviously no one’s happy with finishing 13^th last year.”

To adjust to the new financial realities of the league, Peery has steered the Kickers toward a new business model, one focused on developing talent from local academies rather than acquiring proven, high-level players. 

This year’s roster includes eight Richmond-area players, more local talent than any other team in the league.

“The league’s changed in the last three years. Our roster spend is double from 2022,” Peery said. “So it’s not like we don’t want to spend any money on this. We want to win and develop players. It’s an ‘and,’ not an ‘or.’” 

Staying close to home

Peery believes that to build a consistent team going forward, the Kickers need to turn to what he calls a “hyper-local” approach, one that takes advantage of Richmond's soccer scene. 

“There are a lot of great youth clubs in town. There’s a lot of talent, a lot of kids that play soccer in Richmond. The talent pool is strong,” Peery said. “And now we’re at the top of the pyramid and can really help facilitate that really big jump into MLS or that big college program or overseas.”

Peery added that the model is based on how successful teams are run in Europe, where local talent is developed then sold into bigger markets.

There are signs that Peery’s long-term model is indeed slowly taking shape. Last season, top-performing Kickers’ defender Garnett Griffin was picked up by Hungarian club Ferencvárosi TC II.

According to Peery, these kinds of individual successes will eventually lead to more team success. 

“If you’re moving players to different clubs, there is revenue involved in that,” Peery said. “And then if Griffin keeps growing and advancing, and he gets sold on for $5 million to another club, we get a percentage of that. You reinvest that into your facilities, your programming, and that’s how you reach more sustainable levels at this level.”

Fans patient, to a point

Elliot J. Barr, who covers the team as a writer and host of the Rivercity 93 podcast, is staying patient with the approach.

“With the Kickers being unable to pay some of the salaries that newer teams can pay, they are tighter on the purse strings, which results in the lack of squad depth,” Barr said. 

“The club has switched its focus from going after one or two big-name stars and has focused more on building a balanced and competitive roster ... rightfully so.”

Alfred Herrera, another fan who discovered the Kickers during the 2022 first-place season, attends every game with his family. But he has been frustrated by the team’s performance of late.

“Personally, I’ll be frank, it sucks. The performance has not been the greatest,” Herrera said. “I’ve seen people be rather harsh with the 2023 season and the season past.”

Kolb said the Red Army wants to keep things positive inside City Stadium during games.

“We do our best to keep the toxicity to a minimum,” Kolb said. “It’s definitely a little bit harder for some folks when things aren’t going well.” 

Still a box-office hit

The team’s inconsistent performance the last few years hasn’t caused a dip in fan support. Last year, although the Kickers finished second-to-last in league standings, the team finished with the second-highest attendance in the league, averaging 4,500 attendees per game. 

“It’s a community in a way I’ve never seen in another sport,” Kolb said. “A lot of sports get really impersonal. The team is owned by some billionaire somewhere who really doesn’t care about the city and might not even live in it. But one of the coolest things about loving the Kickers is that the Kickers are small enough that they can love you back.” 

Peery sees it this way too. He affectionately compares the over-100-year-old City Stadium to a dive bar that needs regular attention and care, and where anybody from the city can hang out and feel at home.

“It’s a small group here, it’s not a massive front office or technical staff,” Peery said. “We do a lot with a little. It’s a lifestyle. We really care about the Richmond community and making sure this is the best it can be.” 

And while he cares passionately about winning, Herrera cares as much about the family-friendly environment, the people, and the atmosphere.

“There’s always people watching out for each other. We’ve always brought our kids to it, and I can’t think of a single time they haven’t enjoyed themselves.” 

At the end of every Kickers game, the players come over to the section of the stands where the Red Army sits, and they shake the fans’ hands. Over the course of the season, the fans get to know the players well enough that they can have conversations when they bump into each other around the city. 

“So many times you’ll see during sporting events, [the players] sign, go on, take a picture, go on,” Herrera said. “But these guys, they’ll get to know all the kids in the stadium. ‘Hey, are you playing soccer?’ How’s school?’ That type of stuff.” 

By coming regularly to Kickers games, Kolb has made lifelong friendships.

“If you start showing up to our tailgates, you will make friends very fast,” Kolb said. “There are friends in the Red Army who I hang out with to watch Premier League matches. There are friends who I will help them move.” 

Peery feels this communal energy too, and believes folks who have never been to a Kickers game before might not know what they’re missing.

“The challenge is to get somebody here the first time, to say, I’m going to put my 20 bucks down, I’m going to come out,” Peery said. “But once you get out here, it’s like, this is different. This is a vibe. This is awesome. If people just check us out, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, this is so cool.’ We get so many comments like that.”

“The environment is electric,” Herrera said. “And it’s not just electric in terms of, somebody scored a goal. There’s something else to it. Whenever my family and I go, it’s always an event. There’s never a time when we go and we’re thinking, oh, we’re in for it, we’re having a bad season, we’re going to lose again. That type of thing. There’s something in the air, in the stadium, that is really, really electric.”

Is the 2026 season the season the Kickers’ new business model finally turns things around? Peery seems to think so. 

“I think this is one of the strongest teams we’ve had,” Peery said. “Expectations are high.”