NCE Soccer – Meet The Team
NCE Soccer: Excellence Is Standard
NCE Soccer provides elite soccer coaching – and that can only be delivered by a world-class team.
That means top class coaching, it means access to the ultimate soccer resources, it means maintaining excellence as standard.
Led by former Manchester United and England player John Curtis, we are determined to set new standards, to lead by example.
We are committed to constantly improving, we never stop learning, we never stop trying.
We are committed to providing each and every player with the tools you need to maximize your potential.
Executive Leadership
John Curtis, Technical Director & Founder
John is the Founder and Technical Director of NCE Soccer.
John graduated from the prestigious Manchester United Academy, helping the club win the FA Youth Cup in 1995 and winning the young player of the year award in 1997. Making his Manchester United debut in the 1997/98 campaign, John was purchased by Blackburn Rovers in 2000 for $2,000,000 and went on to play for Leicester City and Portsmouth in the English Premier League. During his 15-year professional career, John played in every tier of English professional soccer, representing clubs like Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United, Barnsley, Preston, and Northampton Town. In addition to his exploits at club level, John captaining his country, England, at U15 to U20 levels and is the most capped England School Boy of all time.
John began coaching towards the end of his playing career, working at league clubs in England, Australia, and Italy. He holds the esteemed UEFA A License and the USSF A Youth License. John is also a US Soccer Coach Educator and delivers coaching licenses across the North East.
John is responsible for overseeing the entire NCE program and uses his extensive experience in professional youth development to help fulfill our mission.
James Fletcher, Marketing & PR
James Fletcher is a former national newspaper journalist with more than 20 years experience.
He began his career as a news journalist with local newspapers before moving to The Mirror in London aged just 21. Notable news events included the death of Princess Diana, the Gulf War, General Elections, crime, news and politics.
In 1999  James moved to Manchester to become The Mirror’s Chief Northern Football Writer before moving to the News Of The World. Responsibilities included covering Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool nd clubs in the North West of England as well as the England national team, working closely with the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Wayne Rooney, Sam Allardyce, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and Steven Gerard.
In 2007 James established Onside PR, a PR agency based South of Manchester in the UK, and has gone onto work with numerous clients including the Professional Footballers Associate, SMEs, individual sports personalities, and high net worth individuals.
James provides NCE Soccer with marketing and PR support, as well as producing content for the NCE Soccer websites and social media channels.
Daniel Salomao, Program Manager
Daniel Salomao is NCE’s Program Manager
Daniel is an industrious part of the NCE team. Daniel was raised in Connecticut playing for various clubs at the EDP level as well as representing Connecticut at the ODP level. In addition to playing on grass pitches, he was an avid futsal player.
His passion for the game extended beyond playing. He was a USSF Grade 8 Referee for five years and a sales associate at a regional soccer retailer. Daniel has previously coached for clubs and ran soccer clinics for elementary schools. He has earned his USSF National C Coaching License and has taken courses in performance analysis, scouting, and fitness training from Brazilian coaching platform Futebol Interativo.
Daniel seeks to ensure that the quality of administration, communication, and organization within all Center of Excellence programs are at the highest level.
College Leadership Team
Pat Doyle, College Admissions Counsellor
Pat Doyle has helped thousands of aspiring soccer-playing students to achieve their sporting dreams.
He has worked tirelessly to help young students, and their families, negotiate their way through the College process.
The married, father of four, has been involved in soccer his entire life. Playing Division 1 soccer with Hofstra University and playing pro soccer in New York.
Having qualified with a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology and a Masters Degree in Counselling, and an Administrative Degree in Secondary Education, he is rightly regarded as an expert in his field.
He works with NCE Soccer helping our High School athletes through the college admissions process, helping our students and their parents pick a path through the 4,000 colleges and universities in the USA to find the best fit.
Pat will provide crucial insight as part of our College ID Programming for NCE Soccer COE students preparing to graduate High School and move onto College or University.
Regional Directors
Scott Middlemass, Regional Director
Scott Middlemass is NCE Soccer’s North Atlantic Director.
Scott was raised in England in a soccer family and followed his father into the professional game. Scott’s professional career lasted over 14 years, taking him to 4 countries (England, China, Norway, and the U.S.) and 3 continents.
Scott arrived in South Jersey in 2001 after he retired from playing and became the Technical Director for a local South Jersey Club where he worked for 13 years.
He went on to build a club-neutral Talent ID structure for a league with teams and players from DE, PA, and South Jersey, and, at its height, this program had four separate training centers in which there were local, district, and regional level training groups.
Many of the players that attended the training centers had the opportunity to travel to Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and/or England to compete against teams such as Manchester City, Vasco de Gama, Argentina Juniors, Celtic, Borussia Dortmund, Liverpool, Chelsea and Barcelona.
Scott currently resides in South Jersey and is responsible for delivering NCE programming within NJ, DE and PA.
Brian Wright, Regional Director
Brian Wright is NCE Soccer Regional Director based in Southern California.
Brian leads NCE Soccer Programming in the Southern California region.
He is a vastly experienced and respected coach in the So Cal region having successfully worked as Assistant Coach to Occidental College Men’s soccer team over the past seven years.
He was formally assistant coach to Caltech’s men’s soccer team for two seasons from 2014-2016, a former Olympic Development Program (ODP) standout player who has been playing soccer literally since he could walk.
He earned a Division One soccer scholarship at San Jose State University and has played throughout Europe.
Brian will now lead the coaching team in Southern California and look to develop existing talent and bring new players into the sport through our Futures and Technical Training Programs.
Outfield Coaching Team
Joshua Feliciano, Coach
Joshua Feliciano is a key member of our New York coaching team.
He is a vastly experienced UEFA ‘C’ licensed soccer coach.
Joshua has been working to develop boys and girls in and around the New Jersey / New York areas for more than a decade and is dedicated to ensuring players maximize their potential.
Tiffany Lucas, Coach
Tiffany Lucas is a former double  NJ State Cup winner.
The tough tackling defender was crowned South Jersey Defender of the Year at High School an d was All-American nominee, four-year  varsity player
Tiffany started playing club ball with Mt. Laurel United, played W League at the age of 15 & 16 with the South Jersey Banshees, and the Medford Strikers. She also enjoyed four years at Shawnee High School and starring as senior-year captain.
Tiffany’s coaching career began under former coach James Galanis, working with the Medford Strikers/Universal Soccer Academy for four years before enjoying seven years with Mt. Laurel United earning her SSF F, E, & National D Licenses along the way.
She has coached for the past two years coaching independently working with SLM Soccer and now NCE Soccer.
Watching the USWNT win the 2015 World Cup on tv with my U13 girls team. The last time the USWNT had won a World Cup was in 1999 and I was the same age those girls. It was a really special soccer moment to share with them.
Away from football, Tiffany lives in Moorestown, NJ and helps people to buy houses during the day.
Dan Christian, Coach
Dan Christian is a former US Pro soccer player with the South Jersey Barons.
He enjoyed four year career playing with the Barons and trained in the UK with Premier League Burnley.
Always interested in coaching, Dan combined his playing career with a coaching role at the Barons, working as Director of Youth Services between 1997 and 2004 and was crowned PDL South Jersey Barons Coach on the Year in 2004.
He was appointed Academy Manager at TSF before moving to become Technical Director at SJEB Rush and is a popular member of the NCE Soccer team,
Dan is a supporter of Liverpool Football Club but relaxes away from soccer by fishing and spending time with his family.
Goalkeeper Coaching Team
Lee Broster, Senior Goalkeeping Coach
Lee Broster leads NCE Soccer’s Goalkeeping program across all regions.
He was formerly goalkeeping and lead foundation coach at Notts County, the oldest professional football club in the world, responsible for implementing the goalkeeping syllabus for youth players aged 9-to-18-years.
Lee delivered comprehensive coaching for goalkeepers in the Senior First and Reserve teams as well as the supervision of coaching staff, ensuring safeguarding policies were followed across the Academy. This included organized assessment evenings to advise and discuss young player development with parents and guardians.
He worked alongside first team manager Martin Allen and three of his young graduates went on to win professional contracts with Notts County before moving to the US in 2015 to coach with PDP before joining forces with John Curtis and the NCE Soccer team.
Lee has grown the goalkeeping Centre of Excellence program from a handful of young keepers to a roster full of talent coaching more than 400 youngsters in the past three years. Lee is well qualified and has successfully achieved UEFA B License Level 3 in both Outfield and Goalkeeping, UEFA level 2, and Youth Module 1 & 2 qualifications.