Patrick Agyemang tends to make an impression on those he spends time with.
When the Charlotte FC star made his US men’s national team debut – and scored – in a January camp win over Venezuela, his childhood youth club in Hartford, Connecticut, extended their congratulations in an online post, saluting his "inspirational story." So did the state association of which they are a member, the CJSA, hailing his “resilience and determination,” as well as both of the college programs he played for, Eastern Connecticut State and the University of Rhode Island.
Many of the coaches and families who knew him back in those younger days were on hand at Rentschler Field on Saturday as Agyemang made an emotional return to his hometown, this time as the USMNT’s starting No. 9 in a friendly vs. Türkiye.
“Pat's addition to the team has been great,” midfield leader and New York Red Bulls product Tyler Adams said in the lead-up to the match. “His skill set speaks for itself on the field. You can see just in front of goal how dangerous he is and the attributes that he has.
"But I think it's important, as we continue to build this roster and bring new guys in, that we have good people in our squad as well, so that continues to build a culture, and he's going to be important for us moving forward.”
Unheralded success story
The 24-year-old has come quite a long way on the pitch, as any of his former coaches can and will explain in detail, a painstaking process of personal growth that’s powered his rise from obscurity to one of the top young strikers in MLS, the subject of the latest edition of “Breakaway."
They’re just as likely to wax poetic about the quality of person he is to make it all possible, though.
“Really, the biggest thing with Pat is that he's just such a nice kid,” URI coach Gareth Elliott told MLSsoccer.com. “He's got this big, gregarious smile. He lights up a room. He's always laughing, he's always smiling, he's always dancing. I think you see it in his goal-scoring antics after the goals. You know, I'm always laughing at him, seeing him doing all these different things, the phone calls and all the other stuff.
“I'm happy for him. He's earned where he's got to, and the thing he knows is, just continue the work ahead. You can’t stop working. You can't think you've made it, because things can change very quickly. But he's done a fantastic job.”
He’s made a similar impression in Carolina.
“He fits with the team very well,” said Charlotte’s general manager Zoran Krneta, “and a very nice boy. So we like him around.”
Humble beginnings
Long before he was a contender for a FIFA 2026 World Cup spot, before he became a cult hero at CLTFC – even well before he turned heads at the MLS College Showcase, prompting the club to acquire him with the 12th overall pick in the 2023 MLS SuperDraft – Agyemang was a gangly kid in East Hartford, dreaming of a soccer career but well removed from the typical pathways by which they’re reached in the United States.
Hartford Soccer Club, where he played for a team called the Hartford Hellions during his adolescence, is not known as a youth powerhouse. It’s well removed from the alphabet soup of elite national competitions like MLS NEXT and ECNL, whose events draw the lion’s share of college and professional scouts. Agyemang shined on his high school team, a level of play nudged to the margins over the past decade or two by the aforementioned national youth leagues, while also competing with distinction in volleyball and indoor track.
In other words, there were few signs of the fledgling talent under the surface, and even fewer observers in any sort of position to spot it. Greg DeVito, his coach at Eastern Connecticut, first glimpsed Agyemang play around age 15 or 16 at “an OK level of club soccer,” while coaching an opposing team.
“He was a standout because he was a little quicker than everybody else,” recalled DeVito to MLSsoccer.com. “Patrick matured late physically, and so he was a skinny little thing. But he was a handful to deal with.
“I knew his high school coach, who said you should take a look at this guy; he wants to play in college. And you know, I'm not coaching at Clemson or UConn or anything. So we're looking at guys that might be a little under the radar a little, have something that's holding them back.”
College breakout
ECSU is an NCAA Division III program, where no athletic scholarships are awarded. While it’s not entirely unheard-of for D3 players to reach the pros – New Zealand World Cup veteran and former D.C. United star Ryan Nelsen and a few other MLS alums have made such a leap – it’s quite rare, because a prospect’s physical and technical abilities have usually made themselves clear by college age.
Agyemang was different.
“He was a late bloomer,” said DeVito. “Everybody matures physically at a different age, and so because of that, even though he was a good player, and even though he had talent, he wasn't highly recruited. Even coming to college, he was only 17 when he finally came to college, coming in right away, playing against 20-, 21-, 22-, 23-year-olds … every kid has their own pathway.”
Agyemang was following in the footsteps of his older brother Emmanuel, who was already a trusted defender for the Warriors, and deferred to his sibling in at least one noteworthy area. Even his eye-catching stats as a sophomore, when he scored the seventh-most goals in all of D3 (21g/7a) to draw the attention of several Division I schools, don’t fully tell the story of how rapidly he was developing.
“He had at least six or seven penalties that he won that he didn't even take; he let his brother Emmanuel take,” explained DeVito. “Emmanuel is very good at taking pens and never missed. He was so calm and so collected.
“So Pat could have had upwards of 30 goals. And so that's where the human piece comes in, and just what a good human being he is.”
It was obvious to DeVito and his staff that their young attacker – who also spent time as a winger, honing those dribbling skills that nowadays make him such a menace to defenders in space – was capable of a higher level. He would soon prove as much with 19g/12a in his 37 matches at Rhode Island, though Elliott was blown away right on arrival.
“We obviously had video of him and things of that nature, but we didn't see him really, truly play live in person until he came in that first spring,” said the Rams’ Northern Irish head coach.
“We're training on the [artificial] turf in cold weather, he just gets here, these players that he doesn't know, we don't really know him, he doesn't really know us yet – those first few weeks might have been his most impressive time at URI. He came in, and whether it was the motivation to prove himself or the hunger, I remember the first few weeks [thinking], ‘Whoa, this kid is unbelievable.’ Obviously, he was consistently at a high level. But the first few weeks he came in with us, I just think he was so hungry and so ready to prove himself and show that he belonged.”
MLS takes notice
A few years later, it was MLS scouts’ turn to be surprised. Growing into a strapping forward with an obvious physical presence, Agyemang was invited to the 2022 MLS College Showcase in North Carolina. There, José Tavares, a highly decorated developmental coach who’d arrived from FC Porto to lead the launch of Crown Legacy, Charlotte’s MLS NEXT Pro side, saw a compelling blend of raw materials and potential upside.
“Personally, I never thought that I would find as many talents in the college game as we now did,” said Krneta, recalling that The Crown traded $50,000 in 2023 GAM, $50,000 in conditional GAM and a first-round pick in the following year's draft to the Colorado Rapids to acquire the pick used to nab Agyemang.
A fairly aggressive move by contemporary SuperDraft standards, it looks like a steal in retrospect, particularly considering how much the Rapids prioritize finding undervalued assets in the draft. Agyemang’s 10 goals and three assists in MLS NEXT Pro as a rookie opened the door to first-team minutes, and he’s been scoring goals at a steadily increasing clip ever since.
“Pat obviously took his chance very well,” added Krneta. “Really, the first glimpses of where he could potentially go was when he started working with José and Crown Legacy. Then he started scoring goals and tormenting defenders, and then with his speed and ability to run behind, it was simply unstoppable.”
On the European radar
Today, he’s Charlotte’s go-to striker, the spearhead of a team with trophy ambitions under Dean Smith, a former center back who’s done his part and more to help Agyemang hone the finer points of his game. CLT reportedly rejected multiple transfer bids from English Championship clubs over the winter, including a $4 million offer from Luton Town, according to journalist Tom Bogert.
Krneta leaves little doubt that it will take something special to separate The Crown from their rising star in the short term, albeit recognizing that Europe’s likely in his future, nevertheless.
“We're not in a rush. We might listen to something if there is an offer that satisfies the club first, and obviously that Patrick is interested in going, then we might listen to it,” said Krneta, a former agent and scout with ample connections across the Atlantic. “But we don't need to do it. We need to have a replacement ready as well, which is not that easy. It's very difficult to replace a player like Patrick; I think it’s almost impossible considering his roster spot and that he’s American.
“He's done well and scoring goals, for any striker in the world, is always a good ticket to go up to the next level.”
Self-made star
Wherever the adventure takes Agyemang next, he’ll carry the same individual traits that helped him reach this far. Just ask those who guided him along the way.
“Every player comes to you and says, ‘I want to be a pro.’ And then most of them just say it, and then that's it. Pat went and did what he needed to do during his own time,” said DeVito. “You see all these quotes about ‘it's what you do in your own time’ and ‘integrity’ and all those things. But he's like the definition of it – of doing stuff on your own time that nobody sees, that’s before practice, after practice, all summer long, getting people together to play locally in his community.
“That type of stuff is what made him. It's not like anybody gave it to him, or it's not like it magically clicked. Like, he would always say, trust the process, trust the process. And he realized it wasn't an overnight thing.”
ECSU’s coach points to a small detail he spotted on a recent trip to watch his former student-athlete play for Charlotte.
“I can remember one thing that I know, every time I see him now, I smile when he just passes the ball into the goal. And he does it a lot, where he just rolls it into the far corner. That was something that he didn't have freshman year, but he certainly had sophomore year. He’d just break free and just roll the ball into the far corner,” said DeVito.
“So every time I see him roll it into the far corner, I go, ‘Yeah, man, that's pretty cool. Keep doing it.’”
