Due to a latest scoring surge, the 22-year-old FC Dallas striker has emerged as a number one candidate for MLS Rookie of the 12 months. And, oh sure, he’s scheduled to take his U.S. citizenship check subsequent month.
BY
Brooke Tunstall
Posted
September 05, 2014
10:26 AM
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BESIDES THE MOUNTAIN AIR, the surroundings, and the standard training, one of many perks of attending the Colorado College of Mines is the free beer. The small school with an engineering bent is positioned in Golden, Colo., dwelling of Coors Brewery, and there’s a spot on campus the place college students, at the least these with IDs indicating they’re at the least 21, can go get a few malt drinks.
“Yeah, they’re allowed two free beers a day,” said CSM soccer coach Frank Kohlenstein. “However the good ones, they go at shift change and are in a position to get a few extras.”
Many college students partake, as you may think. However not all of them.
“Tesho, he was by no means into that. I’m not gonna let you know he by no means went however when most of his teammates or classmates had been (getting free beer), he’d be at this outdated discipline home we’ve got right here on campus working towards one thing together with his sport or finding out video of nice gamers, watching the sport, studying. This can be a robust faculty. Virtually all the youngsters that come listed below are good and targeted however Tesho, he had a particular dedication to getting higher.”
Whereas being freakishly athletic doesn’t harm both, Akindele’s dedication to enchancment goes a protracted option to clarify why he’s emerged this season as a constant offensive menace for FC Dallas, which travels to Actual Salt Lake this weekend for a key sport between the third and fourth place groups in Main League Soccer’s Western Convention.
Dallas shocked many at this yr’s SuperDraft when it took the unknown child from the little-known Division II program within the Rockies with the sixth total decide. However Akindele, 22, has justified the workforce’s religion.
He has began 15 of 18 video games he’s performed, both at flank midfield or as a ahead, and has registered seven targets and two assists—the sort of displaying that would make Akindele the membership’s first-ever MLS Rookie of the 12 months. (Ryan Suarez, in 2001, is the one Dallas participant to be named among the many league’s three annual rookie finalists.)
Chicago’s Harrison Shipp (6 targets, 5 assists) received off to a powerful begin to change into the early Rookie of the 12 months frontrunner however he’s been restricted to 1 help the previous 10 video games whereas Akindele is surging.
“As a soccer player you want to go for every award you can,” mentioned Akindele, who was born in Calgary to a Nigerian father and a Canadian mom however moved to the Denver suburbs when he was 9 years outdated. “But it’s not my main focus to be rookie of the year. I don’t want it to distract me from the bigger picture. I want to do my best for the team and then everything else will fall in place.”
Akindele is because of take his United States citizenship examination subsequent month—we assume he’ll go—which suggests he needs to be a U.S. citizen by the top of the yr and eligible for the U.S. nationwide workforce’s January camp. He’s already been contacted by the Canadian nationwide workforce, which invited him to a camp this month, although he opted to stay with Dallas. “I was really flattered that Canada called me. But right now I think it’s best to focus on my club career and help our playoff push,” he mentioned. He was coy a few nationwide workforce choice however admitted, “You want to play for someone who wants you and where you have a chance to play. As for who that is, I don’t know. That will probably take care of itself.”
As for avoiding the beer, Akendele downplays his former coach’s reward. “I’m not really that much of a beer drinker, to be honest.”
It appears wonderful now, however Akindele was evenly recruited out of highschool: “I only had a couple of offers from some smaller Division I schools in California so I decided to stay chose close to home and go to a great engineering school.”
He wasted little time making an affect in school, scoring 19 targets as a freshman in 2010 and ending his school profession with a dizzying 76 targets and 35 assists in 80 video games. He additionally scored a brace in a scrimmage towards the Colorado Rapids reserves one spring, the place the observers included Fernando Clavijo, now FC Dallas’ technical director, and Oscar Pareja, presently FCD’s head coach.
“Once you see a participant with the capability to attain targets, that catches your eye,” said Pareja, who coached the Rapids last year. “He’s very sharp in entrance of the aim. He makes it very pure. He is aware of how one can be in the correct place.”
Nonetheless, it was Akindele’s efficiency at MLS’ annual scouting mix in Florida this winter, the place Akindele stood out towards gamers from the highest Division I colleges within the nation, that satisfied Pareja to take him. “Division I, Division II—it didn’t matter,” Pareja added. “He was good. How he did at the combine convinced me to take him.”
At six-foot-one and with wheels to “stretch a field and get behind a defense,” based on Pareja, Akindele was in a position to depend on his athleticism to dominate in school. Nevertheless it’s his focus and drive that has enabled him separate from the rookie pack in MLS.
“After his freshman year, it was pretty obvious he was special and could do some things at the next level if he was willing to put the work in,” mentioned Kohlenstein, who beforehand guided UNC-Charlotte to the Division I Ultimate 4 in 1996.
“We came up with a plan to challenge him to get better,” the coach continued. “He studied the game, really absorbed it. He worked on it on the field but off it, too. We have this (England) Premier League fantasy league that we do here and every year the top two finishers were always Tesho and me. He was just watching everything about the (Premier League) to get better.”
As one may anticipate from {an electrical} engineering main who could be doing “something with power systems of big cities,” if he weren’t enjoying soccer, it’s no shock that Akindele is a scholar of the sport. However loads of good children from good colleges have performed in MLS. Not all can take their book-smarts and apply it to the sector.
“I joke with him, because he’s an engineer, he can see all the angles, know where to be,” mentioned Pareja. “Knowing the school, I assumed he was smart. But he has the capacity to absorb information very fast and then use it on the field. In that way he’s like Dillon Powers (2013 MLS rookie of the year whom Pareja drafted to Colorado) last year. (Powers) did very well in school and he’s honest, smart, and quick to learn. That facilitates things with the soccer side. (Akindele) is the same way.”
Pareja credited Kohlenstien for difficult his star participant. “He did an excellent job with Tesho. To awaken that capacity to absorb that information from other leagues and understand he can learn, and challenge him to get better on the field, off the field.”
The educational course of continues for Akindele, who has struck up a particular bond with Panamanian Blas Perez, a veteran ahead who has been by means of his share of battles for membership and nation. “Blas has been a big help on the field,” Akindele said. “His work ethic at his age, he’s always working hard and both sides, playing defense and never giving up on a play, getting rebounds. I try and do what he does.”
Do you assume Akindele is prepared for a shot with the U.S. nationwide workforce? Suppose he’ll signify the Pink, White, and Blue? Tell us under.
Brooke Tunstall is an American Soccer Now contributing editor and ASN 100 panelist. You possibly can observe him on Twitter.
