The Marion Mattapoisett Rochester Youth Soccer is entering a new chapter, so they hired a new director. The program brought in Eric Parada to be the new director of soccer operations for the organization as it goes through some changes.

The league was launched last year, and petitioned to join the South Coast Soccer League, which has a group of 22 soccer clubs competing from Nantucket to Fall River.

After being denied admittance to the South Coast Soccer League, MMRYS town travel team has now moved from the Maple Premier League to the South Shore Soccer League.

This took the Marion and Rochester kids out of the Fairhaven-based Mariner Soccer League, which has been a point of contention between Marion and Fairhaven.

However, Marion Recreation Director Jody Dickerson is happy with the organization’s decision to join the South Shore Soccer League.

“We’re extremely happy to be part of the South Shore League, it’s a great league and they welcomed us with open arms,” he said. “They have the same type of philosophy that we’re looking for.”

The organization has also merged with Seaside Soccer to offer soccer development camps all summer.

Parada, who lives in Tiverton, Rhode Island, comes to the tri-town with an abundance of high level experience playing and coaching in both Portugal and the United States.

“I played soccer in Portugal, I coached in Portugal,” he said. “I coached top teams in Lisbon.”

Given his coaching experience, it’s not a surprise Parada came to the program with a plan.

“I want to develop step by step, forget about the wins, and teach them how to play the game how it’s supposed to be played,” he said.

This philosophy is one of the things Dickerson and the Recreation Department admired about Parada.

“I’ve had the opportunity to see the way Eric coaches, how he connects with the kids. A lot of coaches don’t have that skill,” Dickerson said. “He’s extremely knowledgable, he knows the sport inside and out. A problem with youth sports is it’s not for the kids, it’s for the parents. I like Eric’s philosophy: we’re here to have fun and if we happen to win along the way then even better.”

Parada wants to teach kids to have fun, and to play the game the right way. And the right way, he said, is like basketball.

“I give this example to people who don’t watch soccer but watch basketball. Why don’t we just put LeBron on the other side of the court just waiting for the ball to come to him? You never see Americans play basketball that way. They play the passing, the skills, the set plays. It’s a beautiful game to watch, basketball. Soccer’s supposed to be the same way,” he said.

The players in the program will train and develop during the week, and play games on Saturdays against other kids in the town.

Parada is also interested in bringing futsal to the tri-town.

“Futsal is indoor soccer, 5-on-5 on a basketball court,” he said. “We’re also going to bring that over here in Marion, and we’re going to try to start a South Shore futsal league down here. We’ll see if we can get some gyms and see if Tabor Academy will help us out with that.”

So far, Parada said he and his new ideas have been received warmly from the tri-town soccer program.

“I was very welcomed by everybody, from the coaches to the town to Jody [Dickerson] from the recreation department,” he said. “Everybody just opened the door and made life easy.”

He also said that the coaches he’s working with have been very open to his ideas and very helpful, something he said is not always the case.

“Just today the coaches were asking me to help here, help there,” he said. “Normally coaches don’t open up like that, they just want to be like ‘I know everything’ and I tell them I don’t even know everything.”

But Parada is looking forward to his time in the tri-town as being a collaborative effort between everyone involved to help the kids develop and succeed as much as possible.

“We have a coach Darren [Feeney] and he did two simple things I never thought of and I told him I’m taking those ideas,” he said. “We learn off one another. It’s got to be a team effort.”