IU soccer reaches across Atlantic to add dynamic attacker

BLOOMINGTON — Todd Yeagley had nothing to do with putting MLS games on Sky Sports in England. And he doesn’t personally know the American youth player in England who vouched for his program.

But those two things helped Yeagley, head men’s soccer coach at IU, secure the team’s latest signing — an unorthodox addition he hopes will introduce dynamism and pace to his attack.

Rees Wedderburn, a former member of the West Bromwich Albion youth program, will join Yeagley’s program for the upcoming season. Wedderburn turns 18 on Aug. 31, and will enter with full freshman eligibility. Yeagley hopes Wedderburn will give his team a left-sided attacking player skilled enough to wreak havoc on opposing defenses.

“We thought we needed one more attacker, particularly a player who could play wide or underneath,” Yeagley said. “Rees quickly jumped off the board for us in what he can bring.”

Yeagley hasn’t regularly recruited internationally, but with a need, it become an option worth exploring. He and associate head coach Brian Maisonneuve began scouting players. At the same time, Wedderburn, with West Brom since 13, was coming to the end of his youth career on June 30, and he was open to a move to the U.S.

“I was just looking at all of my options, from clubs in England and then a few universities in America, and just thought that this was the best life opportunity,” Wedderburn told The Star in an email. “It’s not often someone from England experiences something like this.”

He scored one goal in 24 total appearances for Albion’s U21 squad, and served as one of his team’s primary set-piece takers as well, a role Yeagley envisions him competing to fill in Bloomington.

“He’s very explosive,”said Yeagley, who discovered Wedderburn via highlight film. “His ability to come inside, and his finishing ability, is something that I think he’s excited about.”

Indiana already returns an experienced attack for next season, including midfielder Tanner Thompson and versatile forward Femi Hollinger-Janzen, who can play in several positions across the front line. The addition of 6-5 grad transfer forward Ben Maurey, from Brown, adds another element to that lineup.

Like Yeagley, Steve Hopcroft, West Brom’s head of academy recruiting, described Wedderburn as a threat to deliver dangerous crosses from the left, and to cut inside and score with either foot.

Hopcroft said in an email he doesn’t think “(West Brom) saw the best or even half the best” of Wedderburn’s potential, and that “if Reece is confident and on the top of his game, he can be a very good team player.”

That’s the layer Yeagley will hope he’s added, with a player who he said will be “thrown in the fire with training, acclimating to school, acclimating to the culture, acclimating to all the things that go on in college.”

Wedderburn admitted the decision to leave home was a tough one, but that he believes he can “add something different,” advancing his career at a different level of his sport.

Yeagley pointed to current Sporting KC forward Dom Dwyer, who took a similar route from English youth football to an American college to the MLS, as an example to follow. He also said an American player in West Brom’s youth setup, one Yeagley has never met, vouched for Indiana’s tradition and status in American college soccer to Wedderburn.

Come August, Wedderburn will experience it firsthand.

“Coach and (IU associate head coach Brian Maisonneuve) have been great,” Wedderburn said. “They have talked about me playing out wide on the right or left and just using my experience from growing up in a Premier League environment and using that experience over here, and just making sure come over here and grab the place that is up for the taking.”

Follow Star reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.