The New England players ready to break out this fall

Fields Deshaw battles for possession in the 2025 Class A championship. (Brian Kelly/NESJ)

This story is being published on the last day of July. If someone can figure out where the summer went, let us know.

Not that we’re complaining here at New England Soccer Journal. The arrival of August means the 2026 scholastic season is now (more or less) only a month away. Pretty exciting.

Our preseason coverage has been in full swing for a couple of weeks now. Check out our Prep Preview series, where we examine the outlook for the NEPSAC’s top programs, and our Positional Watch List series, which is now on the CIAC, if you haven’t already.

Through the reporting of those stories, our two writers, Sam Robb O’Hagan and Matt Doherty, have come across plenty of potential breakout stars across New England. Those are the players we’re highlighting in this story — those who haven’t yet established themselves among the region’s best, but who have the potential to do so.

There’s only one rule: we didn’t let our writers pick players that made our recent Best of New England rankings. The goal being, of course, to pick out New Englanders who could be about to break into those Top 50s.

RELATED: 6 New England teams ready to break out this fall

Here’s what Sam and Matt came up with: