Meet the Publisher
Coach Mark “Loki” Abboud
Coaching Experience
USSF A License
2018 - current | Staff Coach Minnesota Thunder Academy 09G
2008 - 2016 | Head Coach East Ridge HS (Woodbury, MN) Varsity Girls
2008 - 2010 | Technical Director, Minnesota Thunder Academy
2004 - 2008 | Director of Player Development, Bangu Tsunami FC
2000 - 2004 | Director of Coaching, Woodbury SC (now Salvo SC)
1997 - 2000 | Director of Youth Development, MN Thunder Pro Soccer Team
Professional Playing Experience
1994 - 2000 | Minnesota Thunder (A-League)
1994 - 1995 | Milwaukee Wave (National Professional Soccer League)
1993 - 1994 | FC Dubai (UAE), Lommel SK (Belgium)
1993 | Tampa Bay Rowdies (American Professional Soccer League)
1992 - 1993 | FC Grenoble (France)
1992 | Tampa Bay Rowdies (American Professional Soccer League)
REALLY Meet the Publisher
This is my blog, so I’m going to be writing about myself here…and about how great I am.
Just kidding.
This section is really only here in the event that someone finds this blog and wonders if the publisher has any experience to back up all the talk.
The Youth Years
I’ve been involved in the game for 4+ decades now.
Holy ****! I’m so old....sigh.
I grew up in Rochester, Minnesota, and my dad recalls dragging me, kicking and screaming, to my first recreational soccer practice in 1977. The Rochester Youth Soccer Association (RYSA - now the Minnesota Rush) was taking its first baby steps at that time, with my dad helping to start the program the year before.
Back then…way back then…small-sided games weren’t even a twinkle in the Soccer Father’s eyes yet, so to speak, so we played 11v11 on a regulation soccer field as a U8 rec team. That sounds absolutely horrible these days, but it was heaven to me back then!
I fell in love with the game, showed promise, and moved to the traveling program at the age of 10, again with my dad as the coach.
There were not enough clubs/teams yet to have the numbers to make single-year age groups - only U12, U14, U16, and U19. So we’d play our first year at an age group as a younger team, get the crap kicked out of us by the older teams in the age group, then come back the next year at the same age group, and get to do some crap-kicking of our own. It was awesome! Well…every other year it was awesome!
We, under the guidance of my dad (couldn’t shake this guy), brought home the city’s first State Championship of any kind in 1982 as U12s, then again in 1984 as U14s, and again in 1986 as U16s. We got completely robbed in the state championship game in 1989 as U19s, but that’s a whole other story.
1986 (my first year in high school as a sophomore), high school soccer came into being. My dad, a physician at Mayo Clinic, volunteered to coach the new program (What the heck?!?! He must be stalking me!) and I played varsity for 3 years earning All-State honors each season.
Off to College
I was pretty full of myself back then, and had dreams of playing Division I soccer at the University of Virginia or at Duke, both soccer powerhouses at the time. But, my parents decided that they wanted to keep me close to home, and made me attend a small Division III school, Macalester College (St. Paul, MN).
I had never heard of the place.
To this day, this was the best decision (in terms of soccer, and in terms of life) that I never made.
If I would have attended one of the DI schools, I likely would have been red-shirted and struggled to see the field the first year or two. At Mac, under the watchful eye of coach John Leaney, I was able to come in day one as a starter on the team, play a key role on the team for all 4 years, and set myself up to take my game to the next level.
The Professional Years
It’s funny how things work sometimes.
I had met Coach Buzz Lagos while attending Kick’s Camp (a residential soccer camp put on by the Minnesota Kicks professional team) in the early 80s (he was an instructor). He coached his sons’ teams in the St Paul Blackhawks SC (teams we played against growing up), and I had had him as a coach for a number of years on the MN State Select teams and in the Olympic Development Program.
In 1990, Buzz was looking for a higher-level summer playing option for our generation of guys (now in college), and the Minnesota Thunder was formed. We competed as an amateur team in the summer of 1990, and held a series of what turned out to be very successful exhibition games that summer against 6 pro teams from the US and Canada.
The Thunder’s roster that inaugural season was a mix of Minnesota’s top younger collegiate and amateur players, with a couple elder statesmen sprinkled in like ex-professional players Neill Roberts and Tony Pesznecker - both in their mid-30s at that time.
As fate would have it, Neill ended up at Mac as an assistant coach for my senior year, and in a random conversation one beautiful fall day before practice, he and I were talking about my dual major in Math and Music, and how that was setting me up to do absolutely nothing useful in terms of work upon graduation.
I mentioned that I would love to continue to play soccer somewhere, and Neill offered to reach out to the coach of the Tampa Bay Rowdies on my behalf. Neill had played with the Rowdies for 4-5 seasons and one of his teammates at that time was now the head coach there.
Based on Neill’s recommendation, the Rowdies were open to explore things further and asked to see a highlight tape. Luckily, Coach Leaney was a huge proponent of video analysis, and had recorded all our games. Leaney was one of my biggest fans and obviously knew that if one of his players made it into the pro ranks it would be a tremendous help when it came to recruiting down the road. He spent countless hours pouring through 4 seasons of video footage, used a second VCR to copy clips to a highlight reel, added a voiceover in his English accent which automatically gave the tape a professional appeal, and we sent it off.
Long story short, based on Neill’s recommendation and likely the most professional looking prospective-players highlight tape mankind had ever seen to date, the Rowdies offered me a contract for the 1992 season, and I became the only Division III collegiate player to be drafted into the 5-team American Professional Soccer League (APSL).
I spent the summer of 1992 with the Rowdies, then the winter with FC Grenoble in France. I came back to the Rowdies for the 1993 season, then left to play in Belgium and in the United Arab Emirates for the winter.
In 1994, the Thunder we preparing to make the switch from an amateur team to a pro team the following year, and joined the U.S. Interregional Soccer League’s Midwest Region, so I returned to my home state to continue my soccer playing career and take up a part-time position in the Thunder front office.
In 1995, the Thunder partnered with a local soccer camp company in order to increase exposure and give players the opportunity to earn extra money.
In 1996, the Thunder started their own camp programs, and I became the Director of Marketing in the front office (while still playing).
In 1997, I moved from the marketing side things to take the lead role in building these camps as the club’s Director of Youth Development until my retirement 3 years later.
The camp and community coaching work I did here in MN from 1995-2000 really solidified my passion for coaching young female players. It would also build personal relationships and connections that would lead to a DOC position in one of Minnesota’s largest youth clubs upon my retirement, and eventually to the start of the Minnesota Thunder Academy. See Evolution, and the Inception of MTA.