Claude Flynn '20 Recruiting Profile

I live in Ireland.  My mother is an American and my father Irish, so I am blessed with dual citizenship.  Sport in Ireland is huge, especially soccer. My interest in soccer started when I was very young.  In fact, I can't remember exactly when I first started playing soccer, but there are old videos of me as a toddler kicking a ball around my kitchen.  As I grew older, my interest for the game has been central to my life.  I have been following European soccer pretty much since I can remember, and this has expanded to soccer in the USA.   As a player, I believe I would be a huge asset to any team.   I am a team player and I feel I have developed many unique abilities to bring success to any University team. I always have a positive attitude towards work and nothing makes me thrive more than a challenge.  I am a formidable team leader and have fantastic vision on the field of play. I perform equally well in tight space on the pitch. I am a tenacious player and have equal strength and accuracy with both feet. I have good positional knowledge and can execute a long pass without any difficulty. I maintain tight ball control and have good dribbling skills. My tackling is also a strong point of mine, and I achieve many turn overs during each game. All of these attributes, I believe would be valuable to a college team in the future. Primarily, I would aspire to playing in the MLS after college, however I have  high aspirations academically;  I am currently gearing toward a degree, in sports journalism or sports science/medicine as I am very passionate and interested in these areas. I know a  degree in these fields would greatly enhance me as a person and any aim I have in my soccer career.  I am a high achiever both academically and in my soccer.  I have a strong work ethic on and off the pitch, I am dedicated and open to advancing myself and my team as a whole with the right coach and school.  I have, thus far, achieved a high degree of acknowledgment for my athletic talent. In Ireland, we play primarily for clubs and our seasons run much longer than the USA.  The season starts from mid-August and runs to May/June, to this effect it has been an advantage to me to have lived all my life here in Ireland, as I have much more organized practice.  Soccer at school level is not as high a standard as club level. I have for the last 5 years, played at a premier club league level and also as the selected 20+ elite squad at the county level. I have always been a starter both at inter-county and club level. Going back, some of my awards and achievements thus far have been as follows.  I first received acknowledgment for my excellence in soccer at an FAI (Football Association of Ireland) camp at the age of 6.  Here, I received, the trophy for "most promising player of the camp" which was open to players ages 6-13yrs.  I have played soccer on county level since the earliest the county allowed for my age group which was 11years of age.  I achieved a "Man of the Match" trophy for an inter-county Wexford Challenge Tournament 2013.  I also received "player of the year 2014-2015" within my own club level.  I have competed with club and county in international competitions, and as a county team, we came away as tournament winners in Preston, England April 2015.  In 2014-spring2016,  I also played 3 friendlies with my club team, Under 15's the latest game, against the women's professional UEFA Cup Wexford Youths team and won all three games.   Also at club level, we achieved the title of league winners 2015 and cup winners 4 years consecutively, the latest 2015.  I received, "Player of the Tournament  2016" for charity at men's level proceeds for Wexford General Hospital.  At Club level, with two different clubs NORTH END (Wexford) and BURRIN CELTIC (Carlow), I have achieved success in making it twice, to the round of the best 16 clubs in Ireland within the SFAI (schoolboys football association of Ireland), also once ,I made into the last 8 of the best clubs SFAI, in Ireland. At present this year, I am very excited to have won the national FAI  regional final .  We also Won the entire league for county Carlow. I truly believe with the right university/college coaching I could attain the highest levels in my soccer career.