NY’s Pancyprian-Freedoms & the Making of an Old School Underdog
The New York Pancyprian-Freedoms – three-time Open Cup Champions from the early 1980s – are reviving their glory days with a Cinderella run in the early stages of the 2025 Open Cup
The NY Pancyprian-Freedoms, alongside Bay Area-based brethren and fellow 2025 Open Cup Cinderellas El Farolito, represent a certain type of American amateur soccer club. Both have history in big-city ethnic leagues, a seemingly never-ending pipeline of talent and a close-knit family feel with roots planted in the soil of foreign lands.
They also have Open Cup triumphs – actual national titles – to brag about from back when the game in this country looked a whole lot different than it does today. While El Farolito were the winners of the 1993 Open Cup, the NY Pancyprians scooped our historic prize three times between 1980 and 1983.
Join us for a closer look at the NY Pancyprian-Freedoms, who pulled off a major Cupset in our 2025 First Round with a win over Div. III pro side FC Cincinnati 2 (of MLS NEXT Pro) and now face another showdown on the road with Westchester SC of the Div. III USL League One.
Where They’re From
Standing on the sidewalk outside the home of the NY Pancyprian-Freedoms, deep in the outer boroughs of New York City, you wouldn’t know right away that you were in the presence of soccer history.
It sits on a crowded block in the northern reaches of Astoria, Queens. Overhead the N and W trains rattle, en route to Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard station, the final stop for both lines. If you step inside the doorway to the club’s headquarters, you’ll see a flight of stairs heading up, with images of the Pancyprian-Freedoms' long and proud history flanking both sides as you ascend.
There are a host of trophies the club’s won over the course of 51 years, including the 1983 U.S. Open Cup itself – a representative of one of the three years in which the club won this country’s most historic soccer tournament. The other two, for the record, were 1980 and 1982 and evidence of those triumphs dot the walls everywhere you turn.
When they Reigned
The club was founded in 1974 by Philip Christopher, who arrived on American shores in 1959 at the age of ten via a 17-day boat journey from the Mediterranean.
The Pancyprians went on to become one the top amateur teams in the country in the years that followed. Of course, there’s a small asterisk next to their three Open Cup triumphs, as they came before the birth of Major League Soccer (MLS) and the Modern Era of the Open Cup in 1995/96. The NASL (the original North American Soccer League) was still in action as the country’s top-flight during those years.
The Pancyprian-Freedoms from their glory days of the 1980s
With the likes of Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Neeskins and George Best kicking around in the NASL before its eventual collapse in 1984, the league brass felt it best to not enter their teams in our beloved Open Cup, the historic competition founded in 1914. The explanations as to why are varied. Trying to introduce Americans to something new and flashy – the world’s game – to compete with football and basketball and baseball, there were concerns about confusing new fans with a wide open, anarchic mid-season Cup tournament.
Their star-studded NY Cosmos and Fort Lauderdale Strikers taking the field against ethnic league teams and amateurs might have caused complications.
That’s a valid argument, but so is the one posed by National Soccer Hall of Famer and 1965 Open Cup Champion (NY Ukrainians) and soccer pioneer Dr. Joe Machnik: “They were afraid their NASL teams would lose and be embarrassed by semi-pro and amateur teams!”
It’s a fair point with the whiff of plain truth.
One thing not open for debate is the achievements of the Pancyprians in three of the four years between 1980 and 1983. Winning the Open Cup then was nothing to sneeze at.
Two of those winning Finals (1980 and 82) came against LA soccer royalty Maccabee Los Angeles – five-time Open Cup champions and one of the top teams of the decade between the folding of the original North American Soccer League and the founding of Major League Soccer.
International Accolades
The Pancyprians’ history also includes top-tier international contests. Christopher – who current coach Andreas Chronis called “the man to whom everything is owed” recalls the Pancyprian-Freedoms’ trips to the CONCACAF Champions Cup, granted to the annual winner of the Open Cup then as it is today.
At the club’s headquarters in Queens, you’ll find photographs of the Pancyprians of old and Honduras’ C.D.S. Vida as they prepared to play a match at Hofstra University in 1984.
The NY Pancyprian-Freedoms have been alive and kicking for 51 years
That wasn’t the team’s only time under the bright lights of continental competition. They also have the distinction of defeating Mexico’s Puebla F.C. a round earlier that same year – and eliminating another Honduran side, Club Deportivo Motagua, in 1983. The away leg of the latter series included thousands of supporters of Motagua’s local rivals turning out to see the two teams clash in Tegucigalpa.
It was rarefied air for the semi-pro Pancyprian-Freedoms.
“We've seen changes in the generations,” Paul Kontonis, the team’s assistant coach, said about the changing face of the club’s talent pool with shifts in immigration cycles to the U.S. “We have an emphasis on Greek Cypriots [like captain-turned-coach Andreas Chronis, the son of immigrants who arrived in Queens in 1977] and the Greek community in Queens, but we’re not closed off to other members of the community. We take that very seriously – to help people and players as much as we can.”
The Pancyprians of Today
The aforementioned Chronis went from a top player in the Pancyprian squad to the first team’s head coach ahead of this 2025 Open Cup run. And here, in the role of leader and steward of the club’s proud traditions, he’s been outstanding. He’s the perfect combination of bluster and belief – knowledge of the game and chip on the shoulder.
His modern-day Pancyprian-Freedoms are, on paper at least, the best amateur team in the country. The proof of that is in the USASA National Amateur Cup trophy they lifted in July after a 7-0 rout of Milwaukee Torrent FC in sunny Wisconsin. The win – aside from another trophy to bring back home to Queens – was the Pancyprians’ ticket to this year’s Open Cup return.
The Pancyprians during the amateur Qualifying Rounds of the 2023 Open Cup
When facing a pro side in the First Round, Coach Chronis was quick and accurate in outlining the challenges for a team made up of players who work day-jobs and don’t get paid to train daily.
“We have to go in with a different mindset, because we're considered to be an amateur team, but we consider ourselves to be a semi-pro team,” he said. “This is a place where they're playing just to finish their careers, whereas the players we're playing against are trying to keep advancing in their careers.”
Amateurs vs Pros Today
“We don't train as much as our opponents do. But what we do have is quality. We have a higher average age, which means that we have more experience,” added Chronis. “We need to use our experience.”
The First Round game on the road against FC Cincinnati 2 was ugly – by any measure you apply. It was tight, and few goals were threatened. In the end, after 120 minutes of goalless play, a penalty shootout was needed to seal the deal and put the Pancyprians – with players who work jobs in accounting, finance and as schoolteachers – one step closer to reliving those glory days of the early 80s.
"I consider our team to have professional caliber players that are looking for a balance between their work life and their playing life," said Chronis, looking ahead to the Second Round and another chance to shock a professional team. “This [with the Pancyprians] is the best possible level in the country to be at where you can maintain the stability of a job but also play at a very competitive level.”
Chronis’ assistant, Kontonis, a long-time fixture at this historic club, chimed in with a statement that would be accurate during any of the Pancyprian-Freedoms’ 51 years of existence: “Win, lose, or draw, we're going to put quality out there.”
Angelo Maduro is a senior reporter at large for www.ussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Tobias Carroll is a Brooklyn-based writer and the author of four books, most recently the novel Ex-Members. He's on X/Twitter and Instagram at @tobiascarroll.