At 39 years of age, Michael Lahoud has already lived in Virginia, North Carolina, California, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, Ohio, Texas, and now Connecticut. However, his story didn’t begin in the United States, but West Africa.
Lahoud was six years old when he was whisked away from Sierra Leone after his family was the only one in his village to earn an emergency VISA. As a result, Lahoud escaped a life of being a child soldier and likely dying in a gory civil war. He went on two flights all by himself, one from Freetown to Paris and one from Paris to Washington D.C., where he met his parents, who had left a few years earlier.
In order to establish a new identity and fit in with his new neighbors, Lahoud latched onto soccer and tried to become the best player he possibly could be.
Despite being cut from his ODP team at the age of 15, Lahoud got back on track for his high school team and eventually did enough to convince Wake Forest to give him an athletic scholarship. As he played in the shadow of D.C. United who dominated the early years of MLS, Lahoud soon realized that, despite these challenges, he could overcome and establish a memorable playing career in MLS.
“I think every person, every athlete, every human being should go through some rejections in life,” stated Lahoud in an exclusive Citi Sports interview. “I think it’s one of the biggest disservices we do to our kids if we try and protect them from experiencing disappointment. I worked with a therapist who told me this and who’s gonna be doing cartwheels because it’s money well spent….thank you, Tim, I see your teaching now. But there will be disappointment in life. It’s part of the human experience, and so going through that early on with ODP, it taught me how to deal with rejection. And it begged the question, how bad do I want it? How passionate am I about soccer?”
“A lot of my friends were so afraid of dealing with disappointment growing up, that the pressure of always having to have success, of always having to hit the home run, it forced them to fall out of love with the game. It became too much. Lionel Messi had to deal with the disappointment of health issues…if that can happen to the greatest player of all time, who are we to not have to go through it? So, I remember that summer really forged this sense of work ethic, of doing the work when no one’s looking. I got cut from the team, and I got cut from the regional team, and it was actually a chance to go and make the U15 national team for the U.S, so it was a double whammy.”
“It was this real shock to the system, this internal crisis that I had at a young age. Where do I go from here? I’m grateful to my friends like Kyle Allen. I haven’t talked to Kyle in years, but my buddy Kyle Allen, who lives in Fairfax, took me out to his front yard, and we played 1v1. With my good buddies, the likes of Jack Wolf, Sean McCarthy, Steve Pominger, Ross Charlin, when I dealt with the disappointment of falling short in the college season, the uncertainty of not knowing if I was gonna get drafted after I graduated, helping me reconnect with falling in love with the game all over again.”
Lahoud excelled at Wake Forest, leading the Demon Deacons to their first and only national championship in 2007, before being drafted by Chivas USA with the ninth overall pick of the 2009 MLS SuperDraft.
He quickly established himself as a vital presence in Los Angeles, scoring 5 goals and 6 assists in 74 appearances, before heading across the country after being traded to the Philadelphia Union in May 2012.
“My trajectory earlier in my career was not looking good, because I started with a team that folded, and then I started with a team that was struggling. Outside of the first year, the Philadelphia Union didn’t have an identity, they didn’t know what direction they were going in, and to be frank, the ownership wasn’t willing to invest in the ways we see them investing right now.
You need a direction, you need a North Star in order to get the funds and everything, and what we now know of the U.S. men’s soccer team, players like Brendan Aaronson and Mark McKenzie, I had the privilege of mentoring some of those guys in the Union Academy. It was really cool to start getting connected to something bigger than myself. Philadelphia is a sports town, and it’s very unique in this country to play for a town that is not just a sports town, but a soccer city.”
“Being there, I learned what it means to be committed, and in Philadelphia, you will be a local legend if you do one thing and one thing only: Come committed to work hard. You can lose a game 5-0, but don’t do that twice, don’t do it back-to-back.
But you can have a bad performance, you can have a bad game, you can have a bad season, but that fan base will always, always give plaudits, and always celebrate someone who works hard, no matter what, over someone who’s a prima donna, or who chooses to work when they want. I learned to work, and I really learned what it was to get close to competing for titles. We got to two US Open Cup Finals, and unfortunately, people like Benny Felhaber…I know you’re probably gonna read to this, Benny, you still owe me a US Open Cup title. I got robbed.”
Lahoud made 65 appearances before deciding to depart MLS and make the move to NASL side New York Cosmos, where he spent a few months before heading to Miami FC, followed by a move to USL side (currently MLS) FC Cincinnati.
He then played for San Antonio FC before hanging up his boots after the 2019 campaign, calling it quits on a decade-long professional career which also saw him make four appearances for the Sierra Leone national team.
After initially plying his trade as an assistant coach for Trinity University’s soccer team, Lahoud decided to transition to broadcasting, working as MLS expansion side Austin FC’s color commentator from 2021 to 2023. Since leaving Texas in October 2023 and making the move to Connecticut, Lahoud has spent his time as a pundit for the CBS Sports Golazo Network.
