Turner brings English soccer experience to South Carolina
Last season, Kurtis Turner led the South Carolina men’s soccer team in assists, started all 19 of games he played in and earned a spot on the Conference USA All-Freshman team.
But Turner’s trip to Columbia for his sophomore year was far longer than that of his teammates; he traveled almost 4,000 miles from his home in Sheffield, England.
After his stellar freshman campaign, the Brit looks to be an integral part of a Gamecock team that finished last season 7-7-5 after an opening-round loss to Tulsa in the C-USA tournament.
And by all indications, he’s ready.
“Now he’s come back, he knows what to expect in preseason,” head coach Mark Berson said. “The rhythm of college soccer is very different than the rhythm of where he played.”
Before coming to South Carolina, Turner started off on the prototypical path of an English soccer hopeful. The midfielder’s first club was Barnsley FC, where he gained experience against the youth ranks of English soccer juggernauts Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United in the Football Association Youth Cup.
After his spell with Barnsley, he signed on with Mansfield Town FC Youth ahead of the 2012-13 season, where he quickly became a captain.
And while coming to America from soccer-crazed England to develop his skills may seem backwards, Turner’s British soccer past has introduced him to many players that have chosen the same path.
“I know a lot of people that have come over,” Turner said. “There’s one lad that’s in Connecticut, another that’s in Ohio, one that’s in Florida. I know people all over the place, people that I didn’t even play with.”
Overwhelming support for the U.S. Men’s National team in the 2014 FIFA World Cup highlighted the drastic change of tone surrounding soccer in America, which could explain the influx of international players considering collegiate soccer as an option.
On the South Carolina roster alone, Turner is joined by two other student-athletes who call foreign countries home: Danish sophomore Mikkel Knudsen and Canadian senior Jeff Addai.
And according to Berson, each international player takes his own route to the U.S.
“We get a lot of input from players, and we look at video and we break things down and then we make decisions,” Berson said. “Kurtis got on our radar, in terms of, we saw some video and some information on him, and we followed up on that.”
Although Turner said he feels much more comfortable in the U.S. heading into this season than he did his freshman year, he chose to spend the summer at home.
He modestly said he “didn’t really do much” in the way of training this summer.
However, his runs and casual games with friends were good enough to earn him the No. 1 fitness score on the team during preseason testing, a stat that has impressed junior teammate Jeffrey Torda.
“It’s obviously so hard to come over in this humidity and heat,” Torda said. “This year he was ready for it — came in two weeks early which helps also — and then just killed it in the fitness testing.”
Torda and Turner have managed to bridge the cultural gap and become close since the Englishman joined the program. But it’s their relationship on the field that will prove to be one of the most critical connections in Gamecock soccer.
While Turner was recording his team-high five assists last season, many of those passes were landing of the foot of Torda. The junior shared the team lead for goals with senior defender Mahamoudou Kaba a year ago, finding the back of the net five times.
“I think the basis is the same. We want to keep a good shape,” he said. “We’re just trying to develop [Torda’s] attacking game at the moment.”
As a midfielder, this is the mindset Turner is supposed to have: feed the ball to the forwards and create chances. But after notching one goal in his freshman campaign, he’s itching to provide more attacking force of his own.
“I want to lead in assists again,” he said. “And I just want to score more goals this year.”
After his sole score last year, he’s shooting for eight in the upcoming season.
According to Mansfield Town’s website, Turner has always set his standards high. When he joined the team in 2012, he said he wanted to win the league in his first season, and his ultimate career goal is to play in one of England’s top-two leagues. And this season, he won’t be the only one with lofty expectations for his performance.
With a year of college soccer in the U.S. under his belt, the training wheels are officially off for Turner, and Berson believes the English midfielder is up for the challenge.
“Huge difference. We generally feel like for kids that come in from a different country, it takes them a long time — about a year — to completely settle in,” Berson said. “For Kurtis this year, it’s all not new.”