It’s a Major League Indoor Soccer (MLIS) rule: teams must provide meals for visiting teams in Omaha, as well as food for the home team, a mandate that the Omaha Kings Fútbol Club, Omaha’s indoor professional soccer club, takes very seriously. As opposed to the fast-food pizza provided for Omaha matches in past years (and generally frowned upon by the Kings FC players when pizza is distributed in other MLIS cities), the switch to local eatery Sgt. Peffer’s Café Italian was well-received this year.
“They have really, really good Italian food,” said Kings FC co-owner and chief marketing officer, Natalie Viel, also regarded as the club’s jack-of-all-trades behind the scenes.
Among the 33 players on the roster are those from 11 different countries outside the United States. While intertwined with the Omaha natives, there are a lot of different eclectic tastes and customs to consider.
“We do have a lot of Muslim players, so they don’t eat pork,” Natalie said. “That is something we always have to be cognizant of when we’re ordering food to make sure we have an option for them without pork.”
That also means respecting those who strictly observe Ramadan, which calls for fasting. Ramadan, one of the five pillars of Islam, took place this year from March 10 through April 9, toward the end of the MLIS regular season.
Natalie, her husband Emmanuel “Manny” Viel, her father-in-law Carlos Viel, and Bobby Jaffery are listed as co-owners of the Omaha Kings FC, founded in 2019. Manny Viel was first exposed to indoor soccer while playing for the Omaha Vipers for their single season (2010-11) in the now defunct Major Indoor Soccer League.
Jaffery, a 26-year old Kings FC midfielder, is also active in the insurance business as owner of an Omaha agency. Jaffery doesn’t remember exactly when he came to the U.S. from Afghanistan, but it was in the early 2000’s after 9/11.
“My earliest recollection was probably when I was about 7 or 8 when we were living in these apartments by Millard North High School,” Jaffery said. “There were six of us in one apartment, a two-bedroom, and we had a single mom.”
Jaffery was inspired by his older brothers to play soccer before he played high school and club soccer. For just one semester, he also attended and played at Midland University in Fremont. With his mother disabled and his oldest brother confined to home health care because of a severe accident, Jaffery was thrust into becoming the breadwinner and learned some of life’s hard lessons early.
“Nothing’s going to be handed to you,” he recalled. “You have to go out there and work for it and work on yourself every day continuously to be where you want to be.”
One of Jaffery’s biggest highlights as a player took place in 2021 during an exhibition contest against the overmatched Kansas City Comets, when he looped the ball over the Comets goalkeeper for the overtime game-winner. The goal occurred the same day Jaffery found out his mother, who was in Afghanistan temporarily because his grandmother had passed away, safely escaped during the final U.S. withdrawal under the Biden Administration.
Since 2021, the Kings FC with Jaffery have climbed the MLIS ranks and finished with a 10-1 record to win the Central Division in 2022-23. Manny Viel, 36, was named the league’s coach of the year.
The team’s upward climb in the standings has allowed it to laugh at itself today with instances of less-than-glamorous van travel adventures as it traversed the interstates to places like Chicago, Illinois, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the middle of winter.
“One of the times in Illinois, where we were playing, one of the van tires popped,” Manny remembered. “We had to leave the van. It was ‘blizzarding.’ We had 18 players in one van going to the game, then we went to the wrong field.”
To say that those moments build character is an understatement.
“Those are the moments when you’re like, ‘What is happening?’ You don’t forget,” said Manny, who added that the old van has since been replaced.
Though league contracted from three divisions to one this season, Manny foresees better times with the MLIS acquisition of the National Indoor Soccer League (NISL) and its six teams.
After concluding their 2023-24 home schedule at the Off The Wall Indoor Facility in La Vista, the MLIS announced that the league champion would be determined at Omaha’s Baxter Arena with its own version of a final four.
“For us, to host ‘the final four’ has been the hardest thing ever, to get through that obstacle,” said the exasperated Manny of going through all the proper channels with the city of Omaha and the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
While seeking to maintain their standards as a MLIS championship contender, the Kings FC have also developed a great partnership with Papillion Soccer Club, which celebrated its 50th year anniversary this year. Manny Viel serves as their Director of Coaching and has implemented Kings FC players to work as coaches and mentors for the budding boys and girls playing in the club.
From seeing it through his players on the Kings FC, Manny wants the young soccer players to know, “The American dream is still alive.”
Good food for thought.
For more information about the Omaha Kings Fútbol Club, visit omahakingsfc.com.
This article originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
