Massapequa Park’s Kim DeCesare must like wearing blue. She starred in the blue of Duke University, then played in the blue of the Boston Breakers and is now wearing the blue of Eskilstuna United DFF, in the middle of the standings of the Damallsvenskan, the top women’s league in Sweden.
After being selected by the Boston Breakers in the 2014 National Women’s Soccer League Draft, she played in one game against league-leading Seattle, and played in every match with the Boston Breakers Reserves in the Women’s Premier Soccer League.
“My time with the Breakers was awesome and it is a potential place I may end up in the future,” DeCesare said.
An opportunity to play in Sweden was too good to pass up.
“I knew even in college that I wanted to experience playing internationally at some point in my career, I just didn’t know when,” said DeCesare. “I spoke to a few people while I was playing with the Reserves in Boston and a spot opened up on Eskilstuna United. I knew it would be a great opportunity. A few things fell into place and next thing I knew, I was on a flight to Stockholm.”
Eskilstuna, Sweden is an hour west of Stockholm and the team begins the second half of the season on August 9 against Vittsjö GIK.
Kim has only been in Sweden one week and has learned some Swedish words with the first ones being “tack” (thank you) and “hallon” (raspberry), which she figured out from the flavor of yogurt she was eating. Communication is not a problem as all her teammates and the head coach, Viktor Erikkson, speak English.
In youth soccer, the Massapequa Park resident played two years for the Olympic Development Program (ODP) of the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) and one year on Region 1 ODP.
In the Long Island Junior Soccer League (LIJSL), the soccer star played from girls-under-10 to girls-under-18 with the Massapequa Power. After she and her teammates graduated from high school, the Power no longer existed so DeCesare then played two summers with the LIJSL’s HBC Arsenal.
DeCesare had a very good year at Massapequa High School in 2008 as she was named the Most Valuable Player in girls soccer in Nassau County and received the Michael Clarke Award, named after the esteemed Eastern New York Hall of Famer, as well as being honored as the Gatorade Player of the Year for New York State.
The National Honor Society member used a LIJSL Scholarship to partially fund her education at Duke University. As a redshirt sophomore, she scored the first goal of the game in a 4-1 victory over Wake Forest in the NCAA Semifinals to send the Blue Devils to the final, where they lost to Stanford, 1-0.
“Kimberly became the mainstay on defense for the Massapequa Power. With sort of an old-school mind set, there was never a harder worker in practice or better teammate. She always put the team’s success before her own accolades,” said Power coach Tom Daly. “She was there when someone needed a pat on the back, or even a soft kick in the butt. She’s earned everything she has achieved with her blood, sweat and heart. I have never seen anyone want something so badly, and put so much work into achieving a dream.”
