Revel recaps yearlong soccer encounter in Germany, preparations for next steps in college

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be in the stands at a European pro soccer match? 

Newly minted Dublin High School graduate Patrick Revel, during his recent stint in Cologne, Germany with the talent ID program of Bundesliga club FC Köln, got a chance to attend several of them that were just as wild as he’d heard stories about. 

As it would turn out, some of the absurd sights you see go viral in news and highlight clips – and would assume are isolated to certain unhinged fanatics on the most bonkers of occasions – are actually kind of routine occurrences at RheinEnergieStadion.  

“You had fans lighting flares,” Revel said. “It was surprising, it was unreal to experience… At the big games, I couldn’t even put it into words.” 

That taste of international soccer hysteria, at its full scale, was one of the most amazing of experiences, out of many that were eye-opening, during a six-month loan overseas that otherwise served to expand his range as an athlete and perspective as a world traveler. 

Revel, in a unique move, opted to turn his senior year of high school into a sort of study abroad… except the main course in this case was not an academic subject, but the sport of soccer, as he trained and competed with a developmental team made up of peers from all over the world – places like Bosnia, England, Italy, Japan and Germany, in particular – while completing his high school coursework remotely. 

The program, divided into semesters around a short Christmas break, began in late September and wrapped up in mid-April, allowing him to make it back to Dublin in time for soccer senior night festivities with his Irish soccer teammates, and last weekend’s graduation exercises. 

In the month since his return, Revel has also finalized the next step of his soccer and academic journey, which will have him back in the U.S. this fall as a student athlete at Lincoln University, an HBCU located in Missouri. The Blue Tigers are among the top programs in the NCAA Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference. 

Valuable exposure to a different level of the game, and new culture, were among the many things he considered beneficial about this past year’s adventure, which offered the chance to put an increased focus on refining his skills and challenged him to see the field in different ways than he ever had. 

“I would say my vision and IQ of the game have changed a lot,” Revel said. “That’s on the mental side of soccer, which is a big thing. On the physical side, I would say my touch and passing range has gotten a lot better.” 

Styles of soccer vary widely from place to place, and coach to coach. And the brand played at this tier of FC Köln’s developmental pipeline followed methods much more deliberate and conservative than any he’d experienced coming up. 

“It was more of a pass and keep the ball, keep possession and make sure you have the other team running,” he said. “You’re not doing as much running, but your IQ of the game has to be much, much higher. You have to see the field, see the players, know where you’re supposed to be and everything.” 

His transition back to this side of the Atlantic will involve just as seismic a shift in philosophy with a Lincoln squad that, going by the workouts and activities he’s already completed with his new team, prefers exactly the opposite in its emphasis on fast pace and quick counterattacks. 

“If I were to put both of them head-to-head together, I think it would be a good game,” Revel said. “I wouldn’t say one side is much better than the other, but you can tell there’s a very big difference in the style of play and the coaching tactics.” 

A devoted student of the game, he spends a lot of his time thinking critically about these details on the field and where he fits into that big picture as a left back. 

Revel holds up both Alivaro Carreras, of his favored Real Madrid, and Paris Saint-Germain’s Nuno Mendes as the world’s current gold standard at the position. 

“Whenever I’m like daydreaming to myself, I would imagine myself in my position of what I would do here, what I would do there, and reminiscing on past games, what should I have done better, should I have been here, made this pass or done this?” he said. “That’s why I always try to keep my IQ of the game better, that’s why I’m always trying to watch film, watch pro games and just model myself over different left backs in the future, and just see how much better I can improve my IQ game-wise.” 

The past several months of training and competition have given Revel a clear picture of what the next steps in his development should be. Going forward, he plans to focus on continuing to improve his defensive and passing skills, with a goal of recording at least seven assists over the 20-or-so games that are scheduled to make up his freshman season. That, of course, in addition to excelling academically. 

“I want to make sure I manage my time well, and just try to not only become the best soccer player I can be but also become the best person I can be,” he said. 

Revel plans to major in kinesiology, with a minor in coaching management, on a path of study that will keep a lot of options open to potential career paths, though his working goal is to eventually become an athletic trainer. 

He and his family were aggressive about seeking out opportunities at the next level, and cast a pretty wide net when getting in touch with different schools with the help of a recruiting service. A “great experience” checking out the campus and training with Lincoln’s team during an official visit led to his commitment earlier this year. 

The school’s HBCU status, greatly valued by family and mentors, was a major selling point, as was – shamelessly – the great food options around the campus which were also a major consideration. The pizza and loaded fries he sampled at two different stops while in Jefferson City made it even more of a draw. 

“The food, the culture, the atmosphere, the classes, the people there, it’s just a great experience,” Revel said. 

Partaking of the traditional cuisine was a big part of his time in Germany as well. 

Among his favorite local fare was the schnitzel served at a specific cafe just down the street from FC Köln’s home base. 

“It was great,” he said. 

Chances to experience the city were frequent in a weekly schedule that built  plenty of free time around daily team training sessions, the individual workouts and German language classes that were penciled in about twice weekly and matches that typically fell on Saturdays. 

Revel, as part of a steady playing rotation that doled out roughly equal minutes to pretty much everyone on the roster, saw about one half of action in games per week. 

In addition to eating (with meals either provided at the dining facility of nearby university, prepared at team houses or picked up on the town), downtime was devoted to recovering, completing schoolwork or seeing the sights of Cologne. 

Once he was able to figure out the network of buses and trains and got a hang of speaking some basic German – both of which were admittedly a struggle to master – Revel got to explore a good bit. 

“Honestly, I wouldn’t say it’s a difficult language, but it takes time to learn. I would say I’m about average, not the best, but I know enough to get around,” he said. “The first few weeks, I struggled with the trains, the buses, knowing which buses I had to get on, what time it came.” 

By far his favorite landmark was Cologne Cathedral, which he made a practice of visiting regularly. The awe-inspiring structure, which dates to the 13th century, was the world’s tallest building for at least a decade in the 1800s before being surpassed by the Washington Monument and modern skyscrapers. 

“That’s a big part I’ll miss,” he said. 

Köln’s talent ID program, one of a number that exist as part of the “farm systems” of international soccer organizations, is open to soccer prospects whose aspirations are in the college ranks as much as those with a future at the highest levels of the pro game. 

Though some before him have taken part in a similar tour of training post-grad, Revel is Laurens County’s first to sign on to do one while still in high school. 

He leaves the program with high recommendations to players in the future who may get the same opportunity. 

“It’s a once in a lifetime experience. Even if you’re scared, go try it,” he said. “I was scared to death, I was very scared. But after, I was glad to have it. You learn a lot about the game technical-wise, culture-wise. It’s just a great experience. If you live in a country where soccer isn’t the biggest, going to a different country is just the best thing to see, and seeing how the game is played in a different country and how the fans are, unreal.”