UK Men’s Soccer Adds 9 Newcomers to 2021 Roster
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The 14th-ranked Kentucky Wildcats are set to enter the 2021 season with a retooled roster.
Tenth-year head coach Johan Cedergren announced the signing of nine new players on Friday, including four freshmen and five upperclassmen, to join 17 returners from last season’s 12-5-2 team that notched the program’s third ever appearance in the NCAA Championship round of 16.
Cooper Kieran, Casper Grening, Martin Soereide, Oliver Juul and Nick Gutmann will begin their collegiate careers in Lexington, while graduate transfers Luke Andrews, Cameron Wheeler, Lucca Rodrigues and Jan Hoffelner have arrived in Lexington to finish theirs.
Kieran is a 6-foot freshman from Virginia Beach, Virginia. The midfielder is a graduate of Floyd E. Kellam High School and a product of his hometown Beach FC. He will wear No. 25 for the Wildcats.
Grening is one of two incoming freshmen from the country of Denmark. The 5-9 Roskilde native and FC Roskilde club member will wear No. 14 in the Kentucky midfield.
Soereide is a childhood friend of fellow Jessheim, Norway, native Eythor Bjorgolfsson, who led the Cats with 12 points a season ago. A rising freshman who last played midfielder for the Icelandic club Haukar, the 6-1 Soereide will don the No. 16 jersey.
Juul, the final freshman in Cedergren’s 2021 class, comes to Kentucky from Rudkøbing, Denmark. Another alumnus of FC Roskilde, the 6-foot defender will wear No. 20 in blue and white.
Though Gutmann is a first-year college player, he enters the NCAA ranks as a junior. A 5-7 midfielder from Hamburg, Germany, and FC Eintracht Norderstedt 03, Gutmann will wear No. 21 across his chest.
Andrews joins Kentucky from Saint Mary’s, where he was a first-team All-West Coast Conference performer last season. The 5-10 forward hails from San Jose, California, and will wear No. 19 for the Cats.
Wheeler is the only UK newcomer who is also a Kentucky native. The 5-11 midfielder spent the last four seasons with his hometown Louisville Cardinals but will conclude his college career 80 miles east in the No. 28 uniform.
Rodrigues is set to make his second NCAA Division I stop with his third college team overall. Beginning at Benedictine College (Kan.) of NAIA, Rodrigues was most recently a second-team All-Summit League defender at Oral Roberts. The 6-1 São Paulo native will wear No. 3 on the Kentucky back line.
Hoffelner joins redshirt junior Ryan Troutman as the only goalkeepers on the Kentucky roster. The 6-3 Langen, Germany, product embarked on his collegiate journey at Presbyterian but spent the last two seasons at St. John’s. The 2019 Big East Co-Goalkeeper of the Year will wear No. 1 between the pipes.
Admission to all 2021 UK soccer matches at Wendell & Vickie Bell Soccer Complex is free to the public. For the latest on the Kentucky men’s soccer team, follow @UKMensSoccer on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as on the web at UKAthletics.com.
