Milligan College Men’s Soccer team has more international players on their team this year than ever before in Milligan History. International players now make up 35 percent of our 2018 men’s soccer roster, which is more than a 5 percent increase from last season. This percentage does not even include the several American students with international parents. Senior Luis de la Torre estimates the percentage of international players in the starting line up is even higher, closer to 82 percent at the least.
“In other countries, the passion is soccer,.” said De La Torre, giving a possible explanation for why American soccer teams recruit so many international players. He goes on to explain that in Latin American countries, soccer, rather than American football, is the sport everyone watches with their family on Sundays.
“You play for your town, your pride. It’s your everything,” said freshman Sam Dawson, a Newton Aycliffe, England native. It makes sense that talent and a passion are what draws coaches to recruit international players, but the question remains: what draws international players to the United States?
For De La Torre, it was his education. “The U.S. is a country that allows you to play while you study,” He explained. The concept of being a student athlete and associating sports with universities is unusual in most other countries. De La Torre calls this unique U.S. system “the best in the world.” He also wanted the opportunity to experience the “American college” lifestyle. De La Torre was drawn to the community at Milligan and liked that most students live on campus.
Education was not the only “pro” to playing soccer in the U.S. For De La Torre, it also came with the security of four more years of eligibility to play. De La Torre explained just how competitive soccer is in Mexico. At the young age of twenty-three, he is already older than most professional soccer players from Mexico, who peak in their late teens. De La Torre said most players must choose around age fifteen whether they are going to go the professional route or the educational route.
This idea was echoed by Dawson, who explained how competitive soccer was back home saying that coaches were constantly looking for better players. Even being on a good team was no guarantee you wouldn’t soon be replaced. Milligan college offered more security at a “very good standard [of playing]” according to Dawson.
A large international population is not unusual for soccer teams in the Appalachian Athletic Conference. In fact, our numbers remain on the lower end of the spectrum. The top three AAC teams in 2017 each had a percentage of international students exceeding 50 percent. Reinhardt University won the conference with international students making up 60 percent of their roster. Bryan College had a higher percentage still totaling more than 69 percent. De La Torre says the soccer team jokes that all of Bryan’s players are from the same city in England. It is an exaggeration, but it isn’t without some merit. Truett McConnell ranked third in the conference last year with an international percentage of 57 percent. It isn’t just the top of the conference that shows this trend. Point University, which ranked just above Milligan last season, carries more than 67 percent of an international roster.
This much diversity does have an interesting effect on the team. De La Torre mentioned that sometimes bringing all the different cultures together can be a struggle while Dawson said all the different accents took some getting used to. Dawson joked about members on the team giving each other “constructive criticism” in Spanish which he couldn’t understand.
The international presence also brings some differences in playing styles and as Dawson pointed out, “different styles of leadership.” Both Dawson and De La Torre said the international players are used to a more physically aggressive style of play and, therefore, tend to be more straightforward in their criticism on the field. This could be a result of the possibility, as De La Torre suggested, that many international students were used to playing at a more competitive level than high schools in the U.S..
“The older guys are so nice to us. You don’t get that anywhere else. You don’t get that at home,.” said Dawson. De La Torre shared Dawson’s sentiment telling me about the strong familial bond shared by the team and how that is contributing to their success on the field this season.
Both De La Torre and Dawson have passionately invested in Milligan College. Dawson explained that he wants Milligan to be known for its soccer team. “We’re not the team of last year…I want this place to be the face of Tennessee. Give it four years.”