Welcome to the Scuffed Podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez and

Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Our guest today is Darren Powell, the head coach and technical director at San Antonio FC, a club that competes in the

USL and has caught my attention because they've signed in the past couple years two

teenagers to contracts, which up till now has been pretty rare for independent USL clubs.

Powell is now in his fourth year as manager of SAFC.

Darren, thanks for joining the podcast. How are you?

Doing well, Adam. Thanks for having me and appreciate taking the time yeah so

let's start by talking about your background I know from the club media guide that you

went to college at UNC Greensboro and played soccer there.

Where did you grow up?

How did you end up at a college in North Carolina?

Yeah, and so I grew up in Nottingham England.

I started playing soccer at an early age. Yeah, so I grew up in Nottingham, England.

I started playing soccer at an early age

and used to watch my dad play on Saturdays

and just fell in love with the game in Nottingham.

At 14, I was a school boy at Nottingham. At 14 I was a school boy at Nottingham Forest. Then at 16 had that dream taken for me of a

plan at Nottingham Forest and was released but then went and played as a

trainee in those days called YTS over at Knox County and whilst I was at

Knox County one of the coaches named Pat Barrett was emigrated during my first year to North Carolina Greensboro, UNC Greensboro, as an assistant coach.

And you know, when he came back to visit the next Christmas, he basically said he you know there will be an opportunity

for you as a college in America. I didn't know where Queensville was at that time, but it was at UNC Greensboro and he ended up recruiting me and at that time in 1991 there wasn't that many necessarily international players playing in North Carolina

...