International flavor

When the Chattanooga Football Club opens its season tonight at Atlanta FC, 21 players will be in uniform. And of those 21, 11 are from outside of the United States.

"It's definitely a diverse team with a lot of international flavors," said defender Joshua Scott, a London native who recently wrapped up his collegiate career at Milligan College near Johnson City.

Scott is one of five English players that made the travel squad for CFC, an amateur club that is in its second season. Also represented are a pair of brothers from Mexico, Ivan and Aldo Heredia, as well players from Costa Rica, Honduras, Belarus and Kenya.

Chattanooga FC didn't go overseas to recruit the international players, co-founder Sean McDaniel said. The foreign players on the club have played or are playing collegiately in the U.S.

McDaniel, who is the club's personnel director, said he and the coaches didn't set out to find as many foreign players as possible.

"It really just kind of happened that way," McDaniel said. "We went out and sought and recruited the players, and it just so happens that a number of them are from countries outside of the U.S."

International squads are nothing new for Chris Ochieng, a forward from Nairobi, Kenya, who was an NAIA All-American in the fall as a freshman at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Ky.

At Lindsey Wilson, which won its eighth national championship in December, the 26 players listed on its roster come from 11 different countries. Ochieng said he likes playing on teams with players from different countries and backgrounds.

"At first it's different, but it's good when you get the combinations together, knowing that I'm playing with guys from different countries," Ochieng said. "The way we play kind of brings us together; we do things together and it feels good.

It makes you know that diversity counts and you see that it doesn't hinder you from doing things together."

Soccer is played all over the world, but that doesn't mean that everyone plays the same way. The style of play in Europe is different from Africa, which is different from the United States, which is different from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

It's the job of CFC coach Brian Crossman and his staff to meld all those styles into a successful formula.

"It's fun, different styles, different personalities, different ways that they learn," Crossman said. "We were breaking down tape of our scrimmage the other day and how they see the game is different. ... It's fun, though, and hopefully we can put it all together."

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