Darren Powell (soccer player, 1972)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Darren Powell
Personnel
birthday 1972
place of birth Nottingham ,  England
position striker
Juniors
Years station
1991-1994 UNC Greensboro Spartans
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
Carolina Dynamo
Raleigh Flyers
Wilmington Hammerheads
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1998-2000 Greensboro College
2001-2004 UNC Greensboro Spartans (Co-Tr.)
2005-2014 Elon University
2014-2016 Orlando City SC (Offspring)
2016– San Antonio FC
1 Only league games are given.

Darren Powell (* 1972 in Nottingham , England ) is a former English soccer player and today's soccer coach . Since 2016 he has been the coach of San Antonio FC with games in the second-rate North American United Soccer League (USL).

Player career

Career start and career at UNC Greensboro

Darren Powell was born in Nottingham in 1972, where he grew up and trained as a Nottingham Forest devotee . Here he attended the Rushcliffe Comprehensive School in his hometown of Nottingham from 1984 to 1989 before coming to the United States to study . In 1991 he began his studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro , where he was also a member of the men's soccer team of the UNC Greensboro Spartans University Sports Department . He started with the team in the newly built UNCG Soccer Stadium in the 1991 game year. This he completed at the side of goal guarantor Mike Gailey and Icelandic Hilmar Björnsson as one of the team's regulars. He was used in all 20 championship games, 19 of which he was on the lawn from the start, and had eight hits and three assists. In the season statistics, the team had 14 wins, one draw and five defeats.

After graduating from Mike Gailey, Powell established himself as one of the strongest attacking players on his team, with 14 hits and four assists in the 1992 game year. With his number of goals, he led the team's internal goalscorer list this game year; in the scorer points, however, he ranked second behind Hilmar Björnsson, who had twelve goals and 22 assists. Like his Icelandic team-mate, the Englishman started in all 22 championship games from the start. With the team he made it to the Big South Conference Men's Soccer Tournament in 1992 , but this was not enough for a place in the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship of the same year . With the Spartans he had a record of 14 wins and eight losses in 1992. That year he was also elected to the Big South Conference All Tournament Team and the Big South Conference First Team for the first time.

In 1993, Shawn Mahoney, who had also started with him as a freshman in 1991, ran away from him as the top scorer in the team. In appearances in all 22 games of the season, of which he started in every single one from the beginning, he came up with a balance of eleven hits and ten assists and was also one point behind Mahoney in the scorer list. He also led his team this year for the first time as captain and brought the team to an advancement in the Big South Conference Men's Soccer Tournament in 1993 to the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship in 1993 , where, however, in the first game against Clemson University , the early termination took place. This year he was elected to the Big South Conference All Tournament Team for the second time and also to the Big South Conference First Team for the second time and was represented in the All Region Third Team for the first time .

In his senior year 1994 Powell came again in all 22 championship games, of which he did not start in only one from the beginning. In this game year he was again the captain of the team and led them again through the Big South Conference Men's Soccer Tournament up to the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship . There the team was eliminated again in the first round game, this time against the Virginia Cavaliers , early from the tournament. Also this year the team MVP was elected to the Big South Conference First Team and the All Region Third Team . Powell was the first Spartan player to score over 100 points in NCAA Division I. In all four years (1991 until 1994) he was a letterman and graduated at UNC Greensboro in 1995 with a Bachelor in Leisure Research ( Engl. Leisure studies ) from.

After graduating from college, he embarked on a short-lived professional football career and came from 1995 to 1999 for the professional teams Carolina Dynamo in the USISL, the Raleigh Flyers in the A-League and the Wilmington Hammerheads , who were also represented in the USISL, for use.

Coaching career

Via Greensboro College to UNC Greensboro

A year before the end of his active career, he began his work as a football coach at Greensboro College . Here, among other things, the future New Zealand International Ryan Nelsen played under him. With this, the men's soccer team from The Pride , as the university sports department is called, moved into the NCAA Division III finals in 1998 . Furthermore, Powell won the Dixie Conference with the team in 1998, 1999 and 2000 . During his time there as head coach, which lasted until 2001, he had a record of 50 wins, twelve losses and three draws, and during this time he brought along with the later Major League Soccer and Premier League player Ryan Nelsen also featured two NSCAA Senior All-Stars , three All-Americans , 15 All-Region- Selection Players, 25 All-Dixie-Conference- Selection-Players, three League Player of the Year and two Conference- Player-of-the-Year. In 1998 Powell himself was named South Region Coach of the Year by the NSCAA , after he was voted Dixie Conference Coach of the Year in the same year . In the rankings, he and the team made it to nationwide second place in 1998, in 1999 the team made it to eighth place nationwide and in the following year to twelfth place.

Under his former coach and compatriot Michael Parker , who today (as of 2018) is still the coach of the men's soccer team of the UNC Greensboro Spartans, Powell returned to his alma mater in 2001 as an assistant coach . As an assistant coach on the side of Parker, the team came up to his departure at the end of the game year 2004 on a record of 56 wins, 27 losses and three draws. The last year in particular can be regarded as successful with 19 wins, three defeats and one draw, as the team was able to finish the regular season of the Southern Conference in first place for the first time since 1998 . In the meantime, the Spartans ranked first in the nationwide ranking for three weeks and made it into the regional semifinals , the third round, in the 2004 NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship , where they were defeated by UC Santa Barbara just 0: 1 . The College Soccer News named him one of the top NCAA Division I assistant coaches because of this success.

Successful trainer at Elon University

Within the state of North Carolina and within the Southern Conference Powell moved to Elon University , where he took over the position of head coach of the men's soccer team of the university sports department Elon Phoenix on January 1, 2005 . In its first year, the Powell-trained team had a record of nine wins, nine losses and two draws, which was the second season since the team's participation in NCAA Division I in which they had no negative season record. In the Southern Conference the team even had a record of four wins, two defeats and one draw in the 2005 game year. This was also the team’s first positive result in the Southern Conference since taking part in NCAA Division I for the first time. At the end of the year, he was named Southern Conference Coach of the Year for his achievements .

The success continued in the 2006 game year, when the team had a positive season record for the first time since joining Division I with ten wins, eight losses and two draws. In the Southern Conference the statistics were as follows: three wins, three losses and one draw. In 2007 Elon Phoenix had eight wins, seven losses and four draws; in the Southern Conference 2007 the team recorded four wins and three losses from seven games. After a modest regular season in 2008, in which Elon had only two wins and one draw, which were faced with seven defeats, the team created the sensation in the Southern Conference. Here the team won all seven games and at the end of the year had a season record of ten wins, nine defeats and one draw. In the playoff for the possible first participation in an NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship, the team lost 4-1 to the College of Charleston after a 1-0 lead at halftime . Although this defeat it was a historic game year for the team trained by Powell, in which the first title in the NCAA Division I could be celebrated by winning the regular time. The junior midfielder Justin Wyatt was named Southern Conference Player of the Year this year and Trainer Powell was named Southern Conference Coach of the Year for the second time .

After a cautious start to the 2009 game year, the team under Powell's leadership won games four to nine and was sometimes able to record their first victory over an opponent from the Atlantic Coast Conference since 1999 with a 2-0 win over Clemson University . The Southern Conference finished the team with a record of four wins and two losses from six games; In the overall ranking of this game year, this meant a record of ten wins, eight defeats and two draws for Elon University. Once again, they narrowly failed to get a starting place for the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship . The 2010 game year ended the team with a record of eight wins, six losses and five draws; including four wins, two defeats and one draw in the Southern Conference. A possible participation in the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship was out of the question this year.

From the 2011 game year Elon Phoenix was able to win numerous titles. Although the regular season was largely negative, in 2011 the team made it into the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship for the first time in its history . After a record of two wins and five losses from seven games in the Southern Conference, the team could not win the final Southern Conference Tournament with three wins from as many games and qualified for the first round participation in the 2011 NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship . There the Coastal Carolina University lost 3: 4 and was eliminated from the tournament early. The 2012 game year was even more successful, when the team had a record of 15 wins, five defeats and two draws from 22 championship games. In these, the team achieved the championship title in the Southern Conference for the second time after 2008 and also emerged as the winner in the Southern Conference Tournament with three wins from as many games. In the season-closing NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship 2012 , the squad trained by Powell made it to the first round again, but did not make it beyond this again. They lost 3-0 to the same opponent as the year before, Coastal Carolina University. Powell was once again voted Southern Conference Coach of the Year for his achievements .

In the 2013 game year, he led Elon University to their third title in the Southern Conference Tournament, with the Elon being the second school in the history of the Southern Conference to achieve three consecutive tournament wins. In the statistics, Elon 2013 was roughly the same as in the previous game year. In the Southern Conference there were four wins against two losses; it was not enough to win the Southern Conference again. As already mentioned, the team was able to prevail again in the Southern Conference Tournament with three wins from three games and made it into the second round in the subsequent NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship 2013 . After beating Clemson University on penalties, the team lost 4-0 to the UCLA Bruins in the second round of Regional 1 . Powell's team was used in 23 championship games and achieved a statistic of 15 wins, five losses and three draws. After 2005, 2008 and 2012, Powell was awarded the Southern Conference Coach of the Year award for the fourth time in 2013 .

First steps towards MLS

On April 3, 2014, Elon University announced the resignation of Darren Powell as head coach of the men's soccer team. By then, the native Englishman had become the most successful soccer coach in the history of the Elon soccer program. He came to a statistic of 94 wins, 68 losses and 23 draws, including 37 wins, 21 defeats and three draws at league level. With 57% won games, he ranked fifth on the Southern Conference leaderboard and ninth with 94 wins. In the nine seasons under Powell, Elon Phoenix produced 47 All League selections, four Southern Conference Players of the Year , two Southern Conference Freshmen of the Year, and four MLS draft picks. Under his leadership, the Elon was also regularly represented in national selections, with the team at the end of the 2013 game year on 22nd place nationwide. The highest ranking among his engagement was a 16th place.

Upon his departure, Powell joined the MLS franchise Orlando City SC , where he worked in the youth work. The vacant position as head coach at Elon was filled after a short nationwide search by his compatriot Chris Little . In Orlando in the State of Florida Powell was appointed head of the Academy of Orlando City and began his local activities on May 1, 2014. Over a period of just over one and a half years he was in charge from now on the Orlando City Youth Soccer (OCYS) US Soccer Development Academy (USSDA) program before a new career step opened up for the native Englishman. He also oversaw the club's Pro Academy program and was involved in training for ages U-9 to U-18. In 2015, he mainly appeared as the head coach of the U-23 team that took part in the Premier Development League (PDL). In his two seasons in Florida, he made it with the U-16 and U-18 teams in the season-closing play-offs, with the academy being named the Most Improved Academy in the eastern United States by the US Association . Furthermore, the U-16 team received the award for the Best Style of Play in 2015 . Twelve players from five different age groups made the leap into a junior national team under his work as the academy director.

First station as a professional trainer

At the beginning of 2016, Powell moved as head coach to the recently founded franchise San Antonio FC in the then third-class North American professional league United Soccer League (USL). In the seventh most populous city in the United States at the time, he also tried to get some of his former protégés from Elon University into the team, which he succeeded in doing with Sam McBride and Miguel Salazar , who were roughly the same age . After the successful preparation for the 2016 game year , when San Antonio FC did not lose a single one of their eight test matches, Powell and the team made it to tenth place in the sometimes quite tight table in the final ranking of the Western Conference and was only two points from a play-off starting place away. During the season he had a few players who made it into the USL Team of the Week ; with the local Matt Cardone there was even a player in the team who made it to the USL-Player-of-the-Week after the 23rd game round . In the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup 2016 , the US Cup competition, the team coached by Powell made it to the fourth round after winning the second round over Corinthians FC of San Antonio and in the third round over Des Moines Menace which the team was defeated by the two leagues higher playing MLS franchise Houston Dynamo .

After the USL received a provisional second division status from the US Association, Powell completed a successful season with his team in 2017 . In this, the team made it to second place in the Western Conference in the final ranking and thus into the subsequent conference play-offs . After a first round win over the Tulsa Roughnecks , the team was eliminated from the Conference Semifinals on penalties against OKC Energy FC . After a second round start in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup 2017 , the fourth division Houston Dutch Lions was narrowly defeated 1: 2; in the subsequent third round game against the Tulsa Roughnecks, the team then also retired on penalties. During the game year, but also afterwards, numerous of his players were awarded individual prizes. Powell will also appear as the coach of the franchise for the 2018 game year ; at least he appeared in the pre-season as the team's coach.

Trivia / private / family

Powell, who lives with his wife Elise and their two children Naomi and Caleb, is or was also involved as a trainer in the youth football of North Carolina, where he worked as a trainer at the youth training club Greensboro Soccer Club . In addition, he is or was the head coach of the Olympic Development Program (ODP) of the state of North Carolina and coach of the USYSA Region III ODP team for several years . Both children are also active in the soccer field, with daughter Naomi already making appearances at college level on the women's soccer team at North Carolina State University . As a soccer coach, he holds a USSF-A license.

Web links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ UNCG ASSISTANT MEN'S SOCCER COACH DARREN POWELL NAMED HEAD COACH AT ELON UNIVERSITY , accessed on February 13, 2018
  2. ↑ Darren Powell Resigns as Head Men's Soccer Coach , accessed February 13, 2018
  3. ↑ Elon Names Chris Little Head Men's Soccer Coach , accessed February 13, 2018
  4. ↑ Orlando City Appoints Darren Powell and Jeff Negalha to USSDA Program , accessed February 13, 2018
  5. ↑ Orlando City Academy Director Darren Powell Named New Head Coach for San Antonio USL Franchise , accessed February 13, 2018
  6. ↑ USL Granted USSF Provisional Division 2 Status , accessed February 13, 2018
  7. ↑ SAFC DEFEATS FC DALLAS 2-0 IN PRESEASON MATCH SUNDAY , accessed on February 13, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Powell, Darren
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English soccer player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH 1972
PLACE OF BIRTH Nottingham , England , UK