Mike Keeney (born March 18, 1974) is an American

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

coach who is currently a first team coach of

HIFK Fotboll HIFK Fotboll or IFK Helsingfors is an association football section of HIFK, a sports club based in Helsinki, Finland. The men's football team competes in the highest tier of Finnish football, Veikkausliiga. Their home ground is the Bolt Arena. ...

in Helsinki. A native of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, Keeney has previously coached clubs in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

and

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

, and worked with the

Oceania Football Confederation The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is one of the six continental confederations of international association football. The OFC has 13 members, 11 of which are full members and two which are associate members not affiliated with FIFA. It ...

. Prior to coaching professionally, Keeney coached collegiate soccer with the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

University of Alabama at Birmingham The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is a Public university#United States, public List of research universities in the United States, research university in Birmingham, Alabama. Developed from an academic extension center established i ...

, University of

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

, and

Bellarmine College Bellarmine University (BU; ) is a private Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest ...

Coaching career

Domestic

Mike Keeney started his coaching career at Javanon Soccer Club from Louisville, Kentucky. Keeney spent four years at Javanon, from 1996 to 2000, and during his time there, he coached the team to the State Cup Championship in 1997 and again in 1998. Keeney also finished his USSF B License. From Javanon Soccer Club, Keeney moved to Bluegrass Soccer Club, to be the director of coaching and player development. During his three-year stint with the club, Keeney directed all the coaching operations of a club with 16 competitive teams, developed and implemented a progressive coaching curriculum for players within the ages of 8 to 18 years old. He was also directly responsible for the coaching staff of 16 team coaches, five age group trainers and two goalkeeper trainers. Keeney would spend a total of three years at the club before moving to Birmingham, Alabama, where he started working with the Hoover Soccer Club. At Hoover, he was named the executive director and director of coaching and player development. Just like in Javanon, Keeney was responsible of all coaching operations of the club, but this time with 1,200 players (300+ competitive and 900+ recreational). He was also given the responsibility of developing and implementing a progressive coaching curriculum for players age 4 to 18 years old and he was directly responsible for the coaching staff of 12 coaches, 8 age group trainers and 2 goalkeeper trainers for competitive program as well as one-part time club administrator. At Hoover, he also established a direct link with Celtic FC of Glasgow, Scotland for coach and player exchange program. This led to the Celtic FC coaching staff working in the 2006 competitive team camps for Hoover Soccer Club. After Hoover Soccer Club, Keeney made an appearance at Thoroughbreds Soccer Club, from Louisville as a staff coach, team trainer and as a goalkeeper coach. He also coached and trained several teams in various age groups. Keeney spent a year at Thoroughbreds.

Abroad

Keeney moved to Finland to join FC Viikingit from Helsinki, Finland. He spent two years at Viikingit, where he was the director of coaching and player development for academy teams (11 a side teams) During his time at Viikingit, he developed the club academy format and coaching structure, trained various teams within the club, was in charge of the day-to-day operations of the club and as the head coach of the U20 boys Academy team, achieved promotion to ASM (Top Youth League for the country, with only 10 teams) which was the first time in the club's 45-year history. He also worked with the first team, and during the 2009 helped his team to a 3rd-place finish in Ykkönen (1st division) and again in 2010 he helped his team to finish 2nd in Ykkönen. At Viikingit, Keeney also got his UEFA B License. His work at Viikingit caught the eye of the Veikkausliiga side MYPA, where he moved in 2009. At MYPA he was the men's first team's assistant coach from 2009 to 2011. During his time at MYPA he got valuable experience of coaching in the Veikkausliiga, and in the UEFA Europa League. In 2013, he coached the

Papua New Guinea national soccer team The Papua New Guinea national soccer team is the men's national soccer team of Papua New Guinea and is controlled by the Papua New Guinea Football Association. Its nickname is the ''Kapuls'', which is Tok Pisin for Cuscus. Papua New Guinea's h ...

. Since 2014 he was coach of the Finnish MYPA. Since 2016 he is coach of Slovak FC Šamorínhttp://www.profutbal.sk/ligy/svk3z/clanok202429- Samorin_prehlbuje_spolupracu_s_Fluminense_tim_povedie_americky_trener.htm

Honors

;FC Šamorín *

3. Liga The 3. Liga is a professional association football league and the third division in Germany. In the German football league system, it is positioned between the 2. Bundesliga and the fourth-tier Regionalliga. The modern 3. Liga was formed for t ...

: 2015–16 (promoted)

References

External links

Profile
at Soccerway.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Keeney, Mike 1974 births Living people Sportspeople from Antioch, California Sportspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area American soccer coaches Kentucky Wildcats men's soccer coaches UAB Blazers men's soccer coaches Louisville Cardinals men's soccer coaches Papua New Guinea national soccer team managers Myllykosken Pallo −47 managers Kuopion Palloseura managers HIFK Fotboll managers Veikkausliiga managers 3. Liga (Slovakia) managers 2. Liga (Slovakia) managers FC ŠTK 1914 Šamorín managers American expatriate soccer coaches American expatriate sportspeople in Papua New Guinea American expatriate sportspeople in Finland American expatriate sportspeople in Slovakia Expatriate football managers in Papua New Guinea Expatriate football managers in Finland Expatriate football managers in Slovakia