July 28, 2006
After finishing her degree, former All-American Tara Hurless has continued her soccer career in Sweden by playing for AIK, a team in the Allsvenskan, Sweden's highest league. She is currently tied with a teammate for the squad's leading scorer and AIK is on top of the Allsvenskan standings.
Hurless recently traded e-mails with Illinois Soccer sports information contact Ben Taylor. Here are her answers about soccer, Sweden and the metric system.
How has your experience been so far?
My time here in Sweden has not only been a great soccer experience but a great life experience as well. My team is currently in first place; we are at the midpoint in our season and when we return we have 10 more conference games, so hopefully we can keep the first place position. I think I am tied for leading scorer with another girl on the team, so things are going well.
How did you find out about this opportunity?
The way that I got placed into this team is from a company called CONNECT, which is basically a recruiting company that contacts players and asks them if they would like to further their career. Khaled El-Amad was the guy that contacted me. He currently coaches for the University of Marquette men's team so he can no longer run the company, but it still exists. So he emailed me and then from there the process went very fast. There were two teams he was looking to send me to and it's not like I knew anything about either of them, so I really didn't care where I went.
Why did you want to do this?
I just knew that I wasn't done playing soccer. I would go and watch the (Illinois) girls play last year and there was still a desire inside of me that told me it wasn't time to hang up the cleats. I couldn't have asked for a better set-up. I am rooming with another American girl in Solna, Sweden, which is five subway stops away from the center of Stockholm.... My roomie's name is Sarah Uyenishi.... she just finished her soccer career at the University of Marquette...
What are some of the biggest cultural differences between Sweden and the U.S.?
One of the biggest cultural differences is walking everywhere. They don't drive here at all compared to the U.S. For the most part, people just get around by subways, trains and buses, so I got a pass that gets me on all of these for free. When we went grocery shopping for the first time and realized after we had 10 grocery bags total that we had to walk home - let me tell you that was NOT a pleasant walk! Now we have learned to not wait until the fridge is empty - head to the store every other day because things here all come in small amounts. And it's taken some time to adjust to using the metric system. So when you buy milk, you get 1 liter, which lasts me about two days. I guess everything in the States just comes in such bulk that when you buy a gallon of milk, or whatever, it will last you a lot longer.
How hard has the adjustment to a different language been?
It hasn't been too bad because almost everyone my age here speaks English. They all start it in schools at age 5, which I think is awesome and I wished that we would do that at home too. To be able to speak more than one language says a lot about a person.
Have there been many differences in the style of play?
To me, soccer is soccer. The thing that would cause the most confusion would be the language barrier - even though everyone speaks English, I think they sometimes forget that I don't speak Swedish! So when they give directions they forget and talk to me in Swedish. They are also very, very technical here; very good with their feet. I am not saying it's not like that at home, but in small sided games it's nothing for them to play the entire game one-touch, which, when I first got here, my balls were going all over the place! We play a 4-4-2, which took me some time to get used to. I'm used to a 3-4-3 from when I played for U of I.
Have you been able to talk with people back home much?
I'm able to keep in touch with friends and family back home through MySpace, AIM and e-mail. Skype, too. It is a way that you can talk to someone over the computer, but you both have to have the program to do it.
What do you plan on doing after the season's over?
If I get invited back to play, I think that would be an option. And I know I want to coach sometime in my future. I also hear rumors of the league starting up in the States. That is also another thing I would like to do, so we'll see.
