The Sport that Brings Corners of the World Together
The 2018 FIFA World Cup was viewed by over 1.1 billion people, nearly 10 times the size of the NFL Super Bowl’s viewing audience which was approximately 103 million people.
Most college soccer teams, men and women’s, recruit globally. The promise of education and a degree, plus the chance to play the sport they love, is a tool for recruiting abroad.
This is the case for some of the soccer players on the men’s team at San Jose State University. San Jose State recruits abroad, just like most universities for their sports teams.
Max Allen, a sophomore from Liverpool, England, and Aoi Hernandez, a sophomore from Japan, are two of those players.
Allen started player soccer at the age of four or five, while Hernandez started slightly later, at age six or seven.
“Back home we have the academy system but here (United States) you have the academy systems but you have to pay to play on the teams,” Allen said. “I didn’t really know about that until a couple of weeks ago when I was speaking to one of the coaches in the gym saying his youngest lad son has to pay to play in the academy and that really shocked me. That could be a reason why soccer hasn’t reached its height here.”
Hernandez said that in Japan you either play a sport and try to go pro (play professionally) or go to school and dive into your career. That's why he took the opportunity to play in the United States.
“It’s really one-sided, so I had friends that just focused on soccer because they wanted to play pro because you don't really need good grades to go to college like here,” Hernandez said. “But when they got to college and played soccer they got discouraged because there are players that are just as good as them or better. So now they are just looking for jobs that basically anyone can have and that's the sad part.”
Allen and Hernandez discussed the differences between soccer players in the United States versus their home countries.
“So first when I come over I would say physically, the style of play is more physical but even state-to-state in the U.S. is different,” Allen said.
Hernandez agreed.
“Back in Japan players are smaller in height so they are more technical whereas in America players play more direct and physical,” Hernandez said.
