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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Zara Siassi inked her first professional contract as a defender for the newly-founded Sporting Club Jacksonville, as announced by the organization on Tuesday afternoon.
Siassi joins Georgia Brown and Ashlyn Puerta as one of the team’s initial signings as the club prepares for its historic debut season. She joins the group of players as standout athletes that have local connections to the First Coast.
“Zara [Siassi] has been committed to the goal of playing at the professional level her entire soccer career. I am so excited to see her get this opportunity with the inaugural Sporting Jax USL Super League team,” said head coach Eric Faulconer. “To start her professional career at the very stadium where she rewrote the record books of UNF women’s soccer is extra special. She was the heart and soul of our program and I know the entire UNF community is looking forward to seeing her play when Sporting Jax opens the season in August.”
This is the first initial professional signing for the Ospreys since Carmel Oliveira signed with River Plate Fútbol in 2023. They join Thais Reiss and Karina Bermudez as UNF players currently on the professional circuit that have played under Faulconer.
The Lake Worth, Fla., native racked up a plethora of awards this past season highlighted as the ASUN Defensive Player of the Year in 2024. She added national awards to her name as United Soccer Coaches NCAA Division I All-American Fourth-Team and CSC Academic All-America Third-Team.
Sporting JAX was announced earlier this year as Jacksonville’s first professional women’s soccer team to be lead by head coach Stacey Balaam. Their first season will be in 2025-26 as a part of the Division 1 USL Super League with home games hosted by North Florida at Hodges Stadium.
Sporting JAX is set to open their inaugural campaign at home against DC Power FC on Aug. 23, 2025, with all regular and postseason soccer matches streaming live on Peacock.
More on Siassi from UNF
The five-year veteran for the Ospreys started all 82 matches of her UNF career to set a D-I program record. She played in every contest in 2024 and played the most of any player on the roster with a career-high 1,711 total minutes played.
The recent graduate ended her career as a three-time All-ASUN honoree, including a pair of selections to the first team, to go with an ASUN All-Freshman recognition in the spring of 2021. She has also been named twice to the ASUN All-Academic Team and to the CSC Academic All-District Team, as well as being a four-time ASUN Academic Honor Roll recipient.
She completed an illustrious collegiate career as a three-time ASUN Defensive Player of the Week recipient helping secure six clean sheets this past season. Her final goal as an Osprey was scoring a penalty kick on Senior Day against Eastern Kentucky.
