John Harkes

High school

Harkes grew up in the soccer hotbed of Kearny, New Jersey, and played youth and high school soccer with future national team teammates Tony Meola and Tab Ramos.

Harkes graduated from Kearny High School in 1985. During his high school career, Harkes played in four New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association championship matches and led his team to the 1984 Group 4 State Championship and a 24-0 record. He was the 1984 Parade High School Player of the Year.

In 1999, he was named by The Star-Ledger as one of the top ten New Jersey high school soccer players of the 1980s.

College

From 1985 to 1987, Harkes played soccer at the University of Virginia under his future D.C. United head coach Bruce Arena. He was named the Hermann Trophy winner by the Missouri Athletic Club in 1987. He decided to forgo his senior year in order to play full-time for the national team in 1988. That was the year the team played in the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul and began the qualification process for the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

U.S. minor leagues

Harkes began his professional career with the Albany Capitals of the American Soccer League in 1989. He was a first team All Star that year.

England: 1990–1996

Harkes moved to Sheffield Wednesday of the English Football League in 1990. In a game that season against Derby County, his 35-yard blast glided into the net past former England World Cup goalkeeper Peter Shilton and earned him English soccer's "Goal of the Year" award. That season, Harkes became the second American (after Bill Regan, Romford 1948-49) to play at Wembley Stadium when Sheffield Wednesday reached the 1991 League Cup final. There, the Second Division (now Football League Championship) Wednesday upset the First Division (now Premier League) side Manchester United 1-0. Also that year, Wednesday won promotion to the First Division.

In 1993, Harkes became the only American to score in a League Cup Final, in a 2-1 loss to Arsenal. His goal was the second by an American at Wembley Stadium following Mike Masters' goal for Colchester United in the F.A. Trophy Final the year before. He appeared in the FA Cup Final one month after that League Cup disappointment, with Sheffield Wednesday again losing to Arsenal (2-1 in the replay, after a 1-1 draw in the first game). Harkes played one more season in England after moving to Derby County in the summer of 1993. In 1995, Major League Soccer (MLS) began preparing for its first season, which it first thought would come in the fall of 1995. As part of that process, MLS signed prominent U.S. players to league contracts. Harkes was one of the players who signed with MLS, only to discover the league would not begin play until 1996. Therefore, he, and MLS, negotiated a one-year loan to West Ham United.^[1]

Major League Soccer: 1996–2003

In 1996, Harkes, along with his U.S. national teammates based overseas, returned to the U.S. for the launch of Major League Soccer. MLS had signed numerous prominent U.S. players and eventually allocated them throughout the league's teams in order to create an initial equitable distribution of talent. MLS allocated Harkes to D.C. United, making him the team's first player ever. That first season, he led the club to a MLS Cup win and a U.S. Open Cup title. D.C. United successfully defended its MLS Cup title in 1997, with Harkes assisting on the match-winning goal in the cup final.

Despite the disappointment of being left off the 1998 World Cup squad, Harkes helped United capture the Supporters Shield for the best regular season record in the league, before losing in the MLS Cup Final to the Chicago Fire. He also helped United become the first MLS club to win the CONCACAF Champions' Cup and upset Brazil's Vasco Da Gama in the Interamerican Cup.

At the end of the 1998 season, he traveled back to England for a two-week trial with Nottingham Forest. On January 28, 1999, the team accepted Harkes for a two-month loan period. He played only three games for Forest (including the infamous 8-1 defeat to Manchester United) before returning to the U.S. While he was in England, D.C. United traded him to the New England Revolution for the Revs first and second round 1999 MLS College Draft picks. United traded Harkes in order to make room under the salary cap.

Harkes played three seasons in New England before being traded to the Columbus Crew in the mid-season of 2001. After an injury-plagued 2002 season, Harkes announced his retirement in 2003.

International career

John Harkes played in the 1990 and 1994 FIFA World Cups and was controversially cut from the team weeks before the 1998 tournament by national team coach Steve Sampson.

Harkes made his national team debut on March 23, 1987 against Canada. He quickly established himself as a national team regular and was selected for the 1988 Olympics. That year the U.S. went 1-1-1 and failed to qualify for the second round. Harkes continued to play for the national team as it went through the qualification process for the upcoming World Cup. The team qualified for those games after an improbable 1-0 road victory over Trinidad and Tobago in the final qualification match.

In 1990, he was a member of a World Cup squad made up mostly of college and semi-professional players. The United States side was routed 1-5 by Czechoslovakia, but were respectable losing 0-1 to host nation and eventual semi-finalist Italy, and 1-2 to Austria. Despite losing all three matches, many players from the 1990 squad, including Harkes, Ramos, Meola, Marcelo Balboa and Eric Wynalda, formed the core of the U.S. national team for most of the decade and played an important role in the development of MLS.

U.S. fared better as the host nation in the 1994 World Cup, upsetting Colombia 2-1 in a group stage match to advance to the Round of 16. Harkes contributed to the Andrés Escobar own goal which arguably led to the Colombian defender's shooting death weeks later. Harkes delivered a cross from the left aimed at Earnie Stewart, which Escobar attempted to clear, but instead sent the ball past his goalkeeper.

However, Harkes missed the Round of 16 match against Brazil after receiving his second yellow card of the group stage against Romania, earning a one-match suspension. Brazil won the match 1-0 and went on to win the World Cup.

In Copa América 1995, Harkes led the United States, a guest team at the tournament, to a 3-0 upset of defending champion Argentina and a semi-final finish. He was named co-Most Valuable Player of the tournament, along with Uruguayan Enzo Francescoli.

In 1996, before the beginning of the qualifying for the 1998 World Cup, head coach Steve Sampson named Harkes "Captain For Life", which meant Harkes would be the captain of the national team as long as he wished and Sampson was the coach. He responded by leading the team in assists in qualifying and helped the United States qualify for a third straight World Cup finals appearance.

1998 World Cup controversy

However, Sampson controversially left Harkes off the World Cup squad, citing "leadership issues", although the decision was never fully explained. The bitterness resulting from the omission and the irony of the "Captain for Life" title would serve as the inspiration for his autobiography, Captain for Life: And Other Temporary Assignments (ISBN 1-886947-49-X), co-written with Denise Kiernan and published in 1999. In the book, Harkes criticized Sampson for lacking "credibility to a group of guys who had hundreds and hundreds of caps among them" and "putting a huge amount of pressure on young, internationally inexperienced players", and concluded, "I can't think of one thing that Steve did right in the months leading up to the World Cup". The 1998 team went on to lose all three games in the group stage, finishing last overall.

In February 2010 Sampson and former teammate Eric Wynalda claimed that an alleged affair between Harkes and Wynalda's wife, Amy, had prompted Harkes' sudden dismissal. Sampson confirmed Wynalda's claim in a 2016 podcast interview with Alexi Lalas.

Harkes was called up to the national team again by his former college coach, Bruce Arena in 1999, and helped the United States win the bronze medal in the Confederations Cup that year. He ended his international career in 2000 with 90 appearances.

Off the field

In 1994, Harkes appeared in People magazine's annual "The 50 Most Beautiful People" issue.

In September 1997, Harkes prepared for the 1998 World Cup with an ill-advised trip to California that ultimately defined his legacy. In 2010, it was finally revealed By Eric Wynalda that former US national team manager Steve Sampson had cut Harkes from the 1998 World Cup team only two months prior to the tournament because Harkes had been sleeping with teammate Eric's wife, Amy, in the couple's house, and near the playpen of their young child. Sampson became aware of the scandal and brewing feud between Wynalda and Harkes, and chose to cut Harkes to restore locker room accord. Despite intense criticism from the media and subsequent failure in the World Cup, Sampson remained silent regarding the true reason for Harkes' dismissal from the team out of respect for the privacy of those involved. Harkes himself would publish an autobiography in 1999 panning Sampson's tenure as manager, but made no mention of the affair.

In 2003, John Harkes announced his retirement from professional soccer. He became the Director of Youth Development for D.C. United and a color commentator for soccer broadcasts on Fox Sports Channel.

Harkes was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 2005.

Harkes appeared in the 2005 film The Game of Their Lives in the role of Ed McIlvenny, a member of the U.S. World Cup team that upset England 1-0 in the 1950 FIFA World Cup.

Harkes worked as an analyst for ESPN and ABC in broadcasting the 2006 World Cup, also working in 2008 - 2011 as lead soccer analyst for both networks. Harkes returned to his role offering color commentary for ESPN and ABC in those networks' coverage of the 2010 World Cup.

In July 2006, John Harkes left his job at D.C. United to become an assistant coach for New York Red Bulls under coach Bruce Arena. He was let go, though, after Arena was fired.

A longtime supporter of childhood youth development, Harkes joined the National Board of America SCORES in 2010. America SCORES provides afterschool programming to elementary and middle school children in under-resourced communities around the country, providing soccer, poetry and community service.

In 2012–2013 Harkes worked as the lead soccer analyst for Comcast Sports' coverage of D.C. United.

On August 12, 2015, Harkes was introduced as the head coach of the newly formed FC Cincinnati, which began play in the United Soccer League in March 2016. The team plays its home games at the newly renovated Nippert Stadium on the campus of the University of Cincinnati, with a capacity of 40,000.

Personal life

Harkes is a first-generation-born American as both his parents are Scottish immigrants.

He is the father of Ian Harkes, who won the Hermann Trophy in 2016.

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