Although following in the footsteps of a legendary coach can be daunting, men's soccer head coach Tony Annan said he welcomes the challenge of developing USC's college program.
This opportunity is what brought Annan to South Carolina after former head coach Mark Berson left after more than four decades.
Prior to arriving at USC, Annan spent six years with Major League Soccer club Atlanta United, where he served as academy director and most recently was the head coach of its reserve team, Atlanta United 2.
“It was a bit of a surprise to people when you leave the professional game to come to the college side, but for me, it comes down to one word, and that’s the challenge of it — looking for challenges for my career, looking for challenges in different ways within the game,” Annan said.
Accepting the job means needing to meet the high expectations that Berson set, Annan said. He is determined to do just that.
“There’s difficulties doing that, especially when the guy’s been here for 43 years and was well-liked and a friendly figure in the university, but it’s not something I’m scared of,” Annan said. “It’s not something that’ll scare me off doing the job because I have belief in what I’m doing.”
When Annan was introduced to the team, sophomore forward and co-captain Peter Clement said he immediately believed Annan was a great hire.
“My impression was really good,” Clement said. “I thought he was the right person for the job and a guy I believe could turn this program around.”
Since his first day in charge, Annan has introduced a coaching philosophy aimed at developing young players. He said he has used this philosophy throughout his career.
“We have an opportunity here to take guys who are 18 to 22, 23, and that window for improvement is still there for them,” Annan said. “And to just say ‘Right, we’re just going to go out and play, and we’re going to just try and win games,’ is not fair if you are a developer of players, which, go further back in my career — all I’ve done is development.”
Annan said he believes that any player, no matter how talented they are, is always capable of improving.
“Every player can improve at any point in their career if they’re in the right environment with the right person, and they’re getting the right tuition and education. They can improve,” Annan said. “Even top pros can improve their game if they come across somebody who cares enough to try and improve their game.”
Annan has reinforced this message by making health and fitness an important component of each player’s development, according to freshman forward Harrison Myring.
“That’s one thing I recognized with Tony,” Myring said. “He’s very professional about going to treatment and doing all the little bits such as nutrition, the gym work, to really try and better your performance.”
Although individual development is important to Annan, he also said he wants to make the team a more cohesive unit by holding players accountable on and off the pitch.
“We’re also really trying to implement a lot of accountability between each other and the team, which means we trust the guy next to us on the field and believe he can work as hard as you,” Clement said.
Overcoming adversity on the field is essential to building character and learning, Annan said.
“In the most adverse moments where we faced it, it was ‘You got to get through this. Find a way to get through this, because if you lay down now, you’re never going to get back up,’” Annan said. “I just take that as more lessons to help develop players to be better — you’re developing character, you’re developing strength, you’re developing resilience.”
Annan said he has already found ways in which team can improve ahead of next season.
“There are certain principles of the game that I feel if we do really well, we can expose teams better than we did last season,” Annan said.
Like Annan, Clement said he believes the team has the potential to become very successful in the near future.
“I’m really excited, and I believe if we can all get on the same page, I think this is going to be a really strong program, and we’re going to be a really good team,” Clement said.