After being proposed for several years, the two largest competitive soccer clubs in Southwest Florida have come together to form a new united front.

Former rivals, the Cape Coral Cyclones and Florida Premier of Fort Myers have discarded their once competitive relationship to create the Island Coast Soccer Alliance (ICSA). Tryouts for the new alliance were held earlier this week at the Cape Coral Sports Complex and Kelly Road Soccer Complex.

The ICSA will pool the best soccer players, coaches and resources in the area in order to compete at higher levels with larger regions, like the soccer powerhouses in Tampa and Miami.

“(We’re) not a huge metropolitan area, so it’s imperative for us to develop all players to their highest potential to compete with the bigger clubs,” said ICSA Committee member Aldo Nardiello. “It was important that the two clubs on opposite sides of the Caloosahatchee weren’t trying to steal players (from each other).”

Nardiello, Cape Coral High School’s boys’ soccer coach, will coach the under-15 Alliance boys’ team. He stresses that the new organization is not a merging of the two clubs. The clubs have combined, but Nardiello says the door is still open for other local clubs to join the alliance.

The Lehigh Lightning, North Fort Myers Knights and Naples Sharks have yet to align themselves with the ICSA, but Nardiello said several players from each club did show up at the tryouts.

The Alliance will put together boys’ and girls’ teams from the U-11 to U-19 age groups.

“We need to get out of the mentality of Cyclones vs. Florida Premier and blue (the Cyclones’ color) vs. orange (Premier’s color),” said Nardiello. “We need to get over the rivalry thing. We’re too small to have a rivalry.

“We’re one club now … everything we do is to foster that new spirit.”

That new spirit, fused with brand new team colors (yellow and black), seems to have a lot of people excited as more than 400 players participated in the four days of tryouts.

“We are very encouraged by the response of the community,” said Nardiello. “We’re thrilled with the talent.”

Peter Mellor was appointed the Director of Coaching for ICSA. Mellor served as a Major League Soccer goalkeeper coach before becoming Florida Premier’s Director of Coaching. His abundant experience and contacts will aid the program in making a name for itself in its inaugural season.

“The showcasing of college-bound student-athletes is one of our main goals,” said Nardiello. “Mellor has tremendous contacts around the country. He’s trying to get a big time Adidas showcase in the area where college coaches can come down to see our athletes.

“One of the most important goals is to develop all players to their highest potential by giving them every advantage in terms of preparing them for the next levels of play.”

ICSA plans to keep as many players as possible. Each age bracket could have from one to three teams depending on the number of participants that show up in that age group. During tryouts, the head coaches of each team looked for the strongest players to form the “A” team. Players who do not make the “A” team can participate on the “B” or “C” teams.

“We are not an elitist club,” said Nardiello. “We don’t just want to take the strongest players and forget everyone else. We will have as many teams as the numbers can generate, and each team will get the exact same training. Each team will be placed in the level of competition that is appropriate.”

The Cape Coral Soccer Association and Florida Premier Soccer Club will continue to maintain their recreational programs, which will serve to funnel the best talent into the ICSA.

Each team will determine its practice facility according to its player composition. If a team is comprised mostly of Cape Coral residents, practices will be held at either Pelican or Trafalgar. However, if Fort Myers residents outweigh the Cape players, practices will take place at Kelly Road.

Nardiello added that some teams may have an equal number of players from both sides of the river and likely will rotate between the three complexes.

Complete team rosters will be posted after 5 p.m. Sunday on the websites of Florida Premier and Cape Coral Soccer Association. ICSA is still in the process of developing its own website.

“People simply felt it was the right time,” said Nardiello. “Southwest Florida youth soccer had matured. The time was right to do something like this. It took the merging of the right people and the right time to make it happen.”