Ex-Southeastern soccer player Salgado finds success with Lakeland United
It wasn’t the ultimate goal for Tauan Salgado’s Lakeland United team to beat the Florida Tropics in the first round of the United Premier Soccer League Florida West playoffs.
But Monday's 2-1 victory at Lake Myrtle Sports Complex was historic and a nice stepping stone for the first-year program.
“First of all, (I’m) really proud,” Lakeland United head coach Salgado said. "More than the win, I think the work that we’ve been putting in, (it) came together. I know that every coach will say that but it’s clear for us.”
Still, Salgado has a bigger vision.
UPSL playoffs: UPSL soccer: Florida falls to Lakeland United in first round of playoffs
Salgado, a Brazilian native who played professional soccer for six years for the Associacao Atletica Portuguesa (2008-2013), ended up playing college soccer at the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2014, Lindsey Wilson College in Kentucky in 2015 and Southeastern University, where he played under current indoor Florida Tropics head coach Clay Roberts. At Southeastern he was the Sun Conference Player of the Week and earned SEU Offensive Player of the Year honors in 2017.
He graduated from Southeastern in 2017, and his first coaching job was with the Tropics. After that, he went back to Lindsey Wilson College as an assistant coach, a program in Kentucky with nine national championships and the winningest tradition in NAIA history. His next stint was back in Florida for the Villages Soccer Club as an assistant coach.
One of his job responsibilities as an assistant coach at every job was to help players earn scholarships at bigger college programs.
So he met with Sylvio Maia and Werner Fomin in Atlanta to devise a plan to create the Lakeland United as a bridge program for college-bound players. Maia, a professor with an MBA in sports management in Brazil, and Fomin, an immigration lawyer, are old friends from Brazil. Their goal was to own a professional soccer team in America.
Salgado’s ultimate goal was to develop players and get them enough exposure to move on to the next level. Maia and Fomin eventually bought into Salgado's dream, as they put their monies together as co-owners and founded the Lakeland United FC.
“I’ve always been doing that because I liked it, and it gave me great connections and network," Salgado said. It was something that I realized that I was really good at."
Ultimately, attracting really good talent could equate to winning, but the Brazilian native wanted so much more.
“For me, winning is important (and) we want to win and we want to produce a winning culture," he said. "But the end product, the way I see it, parents are spending a lot of money with clubs, with camps with your whole son’s career from 7 years old until 18 or 19. The only end product for me is a college scholarship.
"The (best scenario) would be to sign a professional contract. That’s going to be 0.1% of the kids. And they need to dare to dream. Dream every day. Be the LeBrons and the Bradys and the Tiger Woods. Dream to be the best. And carry yourself every day like you are going to get there. But the minimum is a college scholarship. That’s what changed my life.”
Salgado’s assistant coaching job in Florida was in full swing by August of 2020. At the end of 2020, plans had officially started for Lakeland United as a bridge program in the UPSL; UPSL in April of 2021 announced the addition of the United. And by August of 2021, Lakeland, with Salgado working full-time as director and coach, embarked on its first season.
The program
While Salgado could have taken his semi-professional soccer team to Atlanta, he chose Polk County because the location is a hotbed for soccer talent that has not been offered scholarships — and he played in Polk County.
The team is a "hybrid men's soccer college program that has its players enrolled full-time" as Polk State College students. Paying for the program out of pocket, many of the players are from overseas and have played at Polk County high schools.
One Polk County player on Lakeland United this year is Armando Maldonado, a striker from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and the 2021 Polk County Boys Soccer Player of the Year.
The Lake Gibson High graduate led the Braves to the district title game after a 17-year drought and back-to-back district championships. He ended his high school career as the second-leading goal scorer in school history with 91 goals in four seasons.
Maldonado, who tore his ACL and meniscus in a regular-season match against the Tropics, said the Lakeland United program helped him.
“The program has helped me to see new opportunities to play in college,” Maldonado said. “It has also developed me as a player to be prepared to play at the college level. Last season, we made it to the final but unfortunately, we lost. This season, we are on the same mission to make it to the final and win and go win nationals.”
Other Polk County players on the Lakeland United include: Caden Maldonado, of Lakeland Christian, Alan Yakhin, of Auburndale High, and Zac Coppin, of Ridge Community. Caden Maldonado and Yakhin are headed to Faulkner University, while Coppin will attend Salem University in West Virginia.
Lakeland United provides transportation to training, games, trips and to school. But the real perk is it helps players get full scholarships, six so far this year.
The work begins at the Southwest Complex in Lakeland where players train, and most home games are played at Mulberry High School.
With the win over Florida in the first round of the UPSL playoffs, Lakeland (5-2-4) will take on Leg-AZ World FC (8-1-2), the top team in the Florida West division.
The second round playoff game will be held at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Feltrim Sports Complex in Haines City.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Ex-Southeastern soccer player Salgado finds success with Lakeland United
