Birmingham Legion FC is a growing force in Magic City

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — In March, Birmingham Legion FC took the field at Protective Stadium for their fourth season as a club and first in their new home stadium. It was the latest sign that Birmingham’s first professional soccer team is a growing force in US men’s soccer and in the Magic City.

Head coach Tom Soehn, a Greystone resident, has been with the team since the beginning. From the very first discussions among team ownership and management, the Legion was intended to be a team rooted in the community. “Our first year, our guys were in the community more than any team I’ve ever been in,” Soehn said.  As things adapt and shift in the post-COVID era, he intends to see that public engagement back in the forefront of their team culture.

For Coach Soehn, a successful team strategy has two main pillars. “You want to win championships, and you want to be really well known in your community, and I think those are two things we’ve done right so far.” It’s that simple—he wants his team to play well and earn the support of the hometown crowd. And that is the legacy he hopes to leave one day.

Last season, the team’s main goal was to play in a home playoff game, which means they finished near the top. And the nominally did hit that milestone, although the game was never played due to COVID cases on the opposing team. Playing the actual home playoff game is still on Coach Soehn’s list, but he believes the team is ready to start setting their sights on a championship.

“Easy to say and hard to do,” he acknowledged, “but we’re getting to the point where that needs to be in our thoughts.”

One of the 2021 season’s achievements was bringing in defender Phanuel Kavita, who earned the captain’s armband. “He encouraged in the right ways and brought a lot of good qualities out of everybody,” Soehn said. “Not just the way he played, but he’s always the first guy in the locker room and the last guy to leave.”

He added that with Kavita’s strong influence on the team and new talent added this year, they have several more players who could easily wear the captain’s armband, “but you don’t need an armband to be a leader.”

His pride in the character of the players is clear as he describe’s the teams growth over their first three seasons. The Legion’s management and coaching leadership has made decisions all along the way to prioritize character alongside skills, and the results speak for themselves.

A club post-game tradition they call the “Iron Man” award gives a glimpse into Soehn’s coaching style. One of the most basic principles of team sports is that no single person makes a successful team. Points scored is the most obvious measure of success, but in soccer, the hardest fought, best played games can’t be measured in points alone. A 1-0 game might be the best one all year!

Soehn wanted a way to both recognize the intangible skills that contribute to a game and to be able to use that information in training. From there, the Iron Man was born. After each game, analysts pore over the footage, logging things like blocks, successful tackles, or challenges won. “We wanted to quantify these actions that lead to results.” The player who logs the highest number of these actions received the Iron Man award for that game, and the players look forward each game to seeing who won the title.

The tradition is a unique way to reward grit and the nuts-and-bolts skills that make a winning team, and it gives Soehn an incredibly detailed set of analytics to inform his coaching.

The Birmingham Legion is a team for not just the Birmingham metro region, but for all of Alabama. And the character of the team behind the scenes is all the more reason to get behind our hometown team. Check in with bhmlegion.com for up-to-date schedules, and come out to see the “beautiful game” in Protective Stadium this season. We can always use another reason to cheer!

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