William Vanzela doesn’t teach. He shares.
For more than a decade, the Baltimore Blast goalkeeper has terrorized indoor soccer offenses with timely passes and crucial saves — more than 1,600, to be exact — on his way to five championships. On Feb. 11, he won his 100th Major Arena Soccer League game, becoming only the second keeper in the league’s history to reach triple digits.
Along the way, Vanzela, now in his 10th season in Baltimore and 11th overall, has tried to impart every shred of his shot-stopping knowledge to a rotating cast of backup keepers.
“Part of being a veteran is teaching. I have had so many great keepers that played with us,” said Vanzela, less than two weeks away from his 38th birthday. “I don’t say teach, I say share.”
This year’s goalie corps consists of Zach Haussler and Mike Zierhoffer, in their second and fourth seasons, respectively, with the Blast. In January, the team added a fourth keeper in former UMBC goalie Quantrell Jones. The 23-year-old Jones played five seasons with the Retrievers, racking up 220 saves and 14 shutouts across 63 career starts. The Baltimore native joins Zierhoffer, who played at Broadneck High School in Arnold, and Haussler, a St. Mary’s College graduate, as another keeper with deep Maryland ties.
While Jones has only been Vanzela’s teammate for a few weeks, their relationship dates back a decade to around the time Vanzela debuted in goal for the Blast in the fall of 2012, then playing in the Major Indoor Soccer League. Vanzela met Jones, a middle schooler at the time, who was playing for the well-regarded youth soccer program Baltimore Celtic.
The pair — one a native of Brazil, the other born and raised in Baltimore — struck up a friendship over a shared love of soccer. At first, Jones didn’t even know Vanzela was a professional player who would soon lead a star-studded Blast team to an indoor soccer championship as a rookie, followed by a three-peat from 2015-2018. He was just William. Jones eventually worked with Vanzela at his goalkeeper training business, Born to Fly.
“As a person, he’s a guy I can go to if I’m struggling,” Jones said of his longtime friend and new teammate. “He’s been impacting my life since middle school, helping me improve.”
Their paths diverged for some years as Vanzela cemented himself as the Blast’s undisputed No. 1 keeper, taking a brief detour during the COVID-shorted 2021 on loan to the San Diego Sockers, with whom he won his fifth title. Jones, meanwhile, starred with the U.S. U-17 National Team while attending IMG Academy in Florida before coming to UMBC. He finished sixth in program history in shutouts and eighth in saves.
But the connections between the college program and the indoor team that plays just around the beltway were so strong that Jones landing with the Blast was almost inevitable. It didn’t hurt that the father of Jones’ UMBC teammate Taylor Calheira is Adauto Neto, a Blast legend and current assistant coach.
The Blast selected Jones in the second round of the MASL College Draft in December.
“I know he was interested and they were. He wanted to play at the next level,” said Pete Caringi, the longtime UMBC head coach who finished his 32nd and final season in the fall. “It was a natural fit. They liked what they saw and next thing you know they signed him.”
Jones isn’t shy about his aspirations to play outdoors professionally, but he is quick to acknowledge how invaluable it is to play behind a keeper who has played a combined 167 games, and counting, in the MASL and now-defunct MISL. While he has yet to see the field in a Blast uniform, he understands the opportunity to learn as much as he can from such a deep goalkeeper room.
“When you have an older guy [like Vanzela] that’s very experienced and is trying to relay as much information as they possibly can on to you, it’s a great thing. It’s a great feeling,” Jones said. “That means they trust you with information and then they also believe in your ability.”
Jones was in the building for Vanzela’s historic 100th MASL victory Feb. 11 and the 101st on Feb. 19, both home games at SECU Arena. Vanzela estimated 80 percent of his wins have come at home, a testament to the Baltimore faithful who fill the stands every weekend as well as the countless teammates who have come and gone throughout the years.
“There are no results without my teammates,” he said. “I am super thankful for those guys and for our fans.”
Vanzela praised Jones, who stands at 6-foot-3 and 230 pounds, as already having the foundation for what could be a promising pro career in the indoor game if he pursues it.
“Quantrell is an outstanding goalkeeper. To me, he was a very good pickup,” Vanzela said. “His shot-stopping ability is incredible and he’s very good with his feet.”
Still, Jones understands his place on the team, Caringi said. His job is to train as hard as he can and be ready in case he’s needed. He also compared Vanzela’s relationship with Jones to the one Jones had with younger players during his later years at UMBC.
“He was William at UMBC. He was the guy players looked up to,” Caringi said. “He showed them the right way of being a professional at the college level. It will rub off on the other players.”
As the season enters its final six weeks, Vanzela could break a few other records if he stays healthy. He’s currently two wins behind the all-time leader Boris Pardo of the defending champion Sockers (12-2-0). If he appears in the final nine regular-season games for the Blast (8-5-2), Vanzela will set a MASL record for most games played by a keeper with 154. He also sits third in career saves with more than, roughly 150 away from first place.
Those personal accolades mean little to Vanzela, compared with team success. Championships.
When the playoffs begin in April, Vanzela will begin teaching — no, sharing — with Jones another lesson he’s learned over a long career: what it takes to bring another Blast title back to Baltimore.
Photo Credits: Mikayla Mellis and Gail Burton