Huntsville City FC 2024-25 Offseason Recap

(Image courtesy of Huntsville City FC)

Huntsville City FC enter their third MLS Next Pro campaign in 2025. After a disappointing 2024, the club looks to turn around their fortunes this season with plenty of fresh faces.

With former Sporting Kansas City and Inter Miami academy coach Chris O’Neal set to take charge of his first full season as head coach following nine games on the touchline at the end of last season, there’s a feeling of hope in the air in northern Alabama.

If you’d like my deeper thoughts on Huntsville’s progress as a club thus far, and what expectation levels should be in 2025, feel free to head over to my piece for SixOneFive Soccer. I’ll be covering the Rocket Men both there, and right here at Southeast Soccer Report this season. I encourage all of you to support both, as I’m truly lucky to work with two different sets of amazing writers.

One last quick note before we jump in, you’ll notice that, unlike my offseason recap for Nashville SC, there’s a “Players Retained” section instead of a “Transfers Out” section. This is because Huntsville retained exactly four players from their 2024 roster, and many of the players not retained have not found new clubs as of publication.

Let’s get started!

Transfers In:

Goalkeeper Erik Lauta (University of New Hampshire)

Defender Tyshawn Rose (North Texas SC)

Defender Blake Bowen (Tacoma Defiance)

Defender Kevin Carmichael (University of California-Berkeley, 2024 MLS SuperDraft pick)

Defender Zach Barrett (University of Vermont)

Midfielder Alan Carleton (Atlanta United 2)

Midfielder Pep Casas (Inter Miami 2)

Midfielder Bryce Boneau (University of Notre Dame)

Midfielder Philip Mayaka (Crown Legacy FC)

Midfielder Moisés Véliz (loan from Tauro FC of Panama)

Forward Damien Barker John (loan from Real Monarchs)

Forward Malik Henry-Scott (loan from Lexington SC)

Forward Real Gill (Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC)

Forward Christian Koffi (Chicago Fire 2)

Forward Gio Miglietti (Tacoma Defiance)

Forward Gunnar Studenhofft (University of South Florida)

Players Retained:

Defender Kessy Coulibaly

Midfielder Patrick Amarh

Midfielder Ethan O’Brien

Forward Jordan Knight

Roster Thoughts

This is the second season in a row in which Huntsville has retained few enough players to count on one hand. So in judging roster talent, we have more to look at than normal.

There will undoubtedly be bumps in the road with so many young players and so many players who haven’t been playing together for longer than a matter of weeks. However, there’s also a lot more players on this roster than in years past that have experience playing in MLS Next Pro.

These players plus the retainees and rising homegrown trio of Chris Applewhite, Isaiah Jones and Adem Sipic should bring the roster to an overall higher talent level than in 2024.

Whether that means Huntsville can more effectively weather the bumps that come with building chemistry who knows, but I think Huntsville fans are in for more success than last year for sure.