About Me

Well first of all thank you for visiting my website and wanting to learn more about me :)

To start of, my name is Armin Serdarevic and I was born on April 10th, 1985 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina which was part of former Yugoslavia.

I was 7 years old when the war started in Yugoslavia and did not have much of a childhood during this horrible time of my life.

By the time I was 10 I had lost both of my parents in this war and it was just me and my 2 sisters that were left to take care of each other.

My sisters Alena and Adisa, are the biggest reason I turned out into the person I am today.

Adisa is 10 years older and Alena 8 years older than me and so they were given the role of parenthood very early in their life, however this made our bond together very strong.

I developed my love for this sport at a very early age when I started playing in the streets and school backyard around the age of 8.

My first club team was FK Zeljeznicar where I had started playing when I was 9 along with a childhood friend Edin Dzeko, now playing for Manchester City in the English Premier League.

I remember walking many miles/kilometers to practice and back during the time when the war was still active and danger of getting shot or blown up was very high every day.

Conditions were not very good but showing for practice took my mind off everything else that was going on in what was once beautiful country of Yugoslavia.

The next 5 years I had spent with the club shaped me into a player that I am today, and developed my love for this sport as it is today.

Here I learned all the basic things such as running, passing, and shooting the soccer ball.

I was selected to travel with the club to different countries for tournaments such as Italy, Sweden, Slovakia and Germany as well as being selected for youth squad of Bosnia and Herzegovina when I was 13.

The war was slowly ending and the country started the rebuilding process from all the material as well as emotional losses.

In September of 1999 I arrived to Utah, USA as a refugee with my sister Alena and her husband.

Here came the biggest disappointment to me as I learned that soccer/football was close to non existent here in Utah at the time.

As a matter of fact I had stopped playing at all for the next 2 years until I was 16 and a local club called Bosnia USA was formed by the older Bosnian's who wanted to exercise and play this sport as well as reach out to many Bosnian children that started to get involved into bad things and bad crowds of friends.

I was one of them as well and soccer/football again helped pull me away from all the wrong things I had started to do here in America and instead my focus was shifted back on training and playing this great game.

By the time I was 19, I had been approached by many different people telling me that I am wasting my talent playing in these leagues and not trying to go to Europe in search of more competitive soccer leagues.

Once I turned 21 I went to Bosnia in search of my dream of playing professional soccer but all I got was disappointment as I was turned down by different clubs that wouldn't even give me the chance to show them what I can do on the field and also the fact that the leagues were very corrupt.

People playing there were not on the teams because of their skills but because their moms and pops knew people and had money.

In other words I was disgusted and now realized why Bosnian league was named one of the FIFAs worst leagues in the world at the time.

I realized that I will be one of many talented people out there that will not get my chance to live my dream even though I was ready to work hard for it if I had been given a chance.

I returned to America disappointed but I never stopped playing in the local amateur leagues with my friends.

I even fell for some of the open tryouts that the American MLS had offered such as LA Galaxy and Philadelphia Union but had realized that this was just a way for them to make extra money and market the team since you had to pay upwards to $300 to try out with 2000-3000 other players.

These tryouts consisted of matches that lasted from 15 to 30 minutes. Not very much time to even get touches on the ball let alone show what you can do on the field.

One or two players that made it in these so called tryouts were never heard from again. However this was just another experience in my life around soccer.

I had also made the team for Ogden Outlaws which was in the Premier Development League of USA but the Coach and owner Mike Hickman had favored players from the home town of Ogden as well as 3 sons that he had on the team.

Again I never had the opportunity to play although he kept telling me how good I am during practices.

This just made me more angry and disappointed in American soccer as Ogden Outlaws never had any success so far and many good players had left the team which I learned later because of preferences and not the skill of players.

Success shall come for this club once the players start to believe in this club by playing with heart and skill instead on who you know at the club.

I frequently had fans asking me why I am not in the game, which just fueled my anger towards the team and eventually I quit along with quite a few more talented players that were overlooked while sons and friends played.

I am getting frustrated just thinking back about these times while I'm writing this so I promised myself that I will find a way to help kids that want a chance of turning pro based on their skills and not on how deep their parents pockets are or who they know because nobody ever helped me.

It will take time and this website is my foundation for doing so. I will not ask for money but instead I will dedicate my life to finding money and building a soccer school or camp for kids who are passionate about this sport.

As I kept playing and pretty much dominating amateur leagues, winning different trophies and just playing for fun people constantly ask me why I never tried playing playing in the MLS.

This always puts a smile on my face because it compliments my years spent around this great sport but my answer never changes :(

MLS will not take players from the streets but through a process of draft and bringing players from other professional leagues around the world.

In my opinion home teams should have a lot of players that are from that city which will make kids dream about playing for their home professional team.

There is so much talent here in America but small chance of getting on the local MLS team.

Youth system of the MLS league in my opinion sucks because it is all revolved about how much money the owner will make.

Who else in the world has the playoff system where the champion is decided once the league is over.

The whole season is played for points to decide the league champion, but instead the 5th ranked team can become the champion through this playoff system of the MLS.

Doesn't make any sense, leave the playoff to the NBA.

There are no lower divisions to promote or relegate different teams.

MLS is in my opinion just a bunch of dudes wanting to make millions of dollars and they don't care about this game. They have no passion for it.

They bring Beckham and pay him $200 million while other players wages are so low that they have to get a different job to support themselves. However Beckham will make them twice what they payed for him so its an investment for money not the league.

Everything revolves around money, money, money.... No passion...

It will take time but I hope some day MLS will get reformatted and the reigns will be taken over by somebody who wants to make this game as popular as everywhere else in the world not just for money but for the love of the sport.

This is the time when we will have 2 or 3 different teams in every state bringing people out to watch great sport being played by friends and family that grew up there and not some overpaid veterans that are done playing in top leagues and come here solely for money in their last few years of their careers.

I will continue to play because I love this game and I will also find a way for players living in America to have a shot at becoming professional footballers/soccer players without having deep pockets or family high up in the American association.

I understand that not everyone agrees with me but this is just my opinion about the American leagues and even tho I love soccer I refuse to even go watch the games with the situation that this league is formed around.

Stadiums are full most of the time, concessions are expensive as hell and where does the money go.... Owner....

I am currently 26 and still actively play in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have many ideas of helping Utah soccer players at least earn a shot at turning pro in Europe and South America but it will take time.

I don't follow MLS because I don't like how the league is formed and that no home teams look for players in their city.

There are only 18 teams at the moment in the MLS and over 300 million people living here in the States. There is no reason to bring players from other leagues and countries with this many Americans living here.

If only the focus of the league is turned into developing American players, we would see a lot more Americans playing in top soccer/football divisions around the world as well as high quality soccer in local leagues.

When the league starts spending money on youth and not veterans that are near the end of their career is when we will be able to see a great future of American soccer.

Like I said before, everyone has their own opinion and this is mine but never stop playing as this sport is good for the soul :)

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