Stephen Oyebolaji Payne (born June 16, 1997) 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 ...

player who currently plays as a defender for

USL League One USL League One (USL1) is a professional men's soccer league in the United States that had its inaugural season in 2019. The Division III league is operated by United Soccer League, the same group that operates the Division II USL Championshi ...

side

Forward Madison FC Forward Madison FC is an American professional soccer team based in Madison, Wisconsin. The team was founded in 2018, and played its inaugural season in 2019. The team competes in the third division of the US soccer league system and plays the ...

Career

Born in the

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

, United States, Payne is of Nigerian descent. His father had a scholarship for

college soccer College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. The United Kingd ...

at the

University of Alabama in Huntsville The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is a public research university in Huntsville, Alabama. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and comprises nine colleges: arts, humanities & social science ...

, while his mother ran track at

Alabama A&M University Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Alabama A&M) is a public historically black land-grant university in Normal, Huntsville, Alabama. Founded in 1875, it took its present name in 1969. AAMU is a member-school of the Thurgood Marsh ...

; he is the middle of three children with two sisters also playing soccer, Nigeria women's national team players

Toni Toni, Toñi or Tóni is a unisex given name. In Spanish, Italian, Croatian and Finnish, it is a masculine given name used as a short form of the names derived from Antonius like Antonio, Ante or Anttoni. In Danish, English, Finnish, Norwegia ...

and Nicole Payne. Payne played for four years at

Lake Forest Academy Lake Forest Academy (also known as LFA) is a co-educational college preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9 through 12. The school is located on the North Shore in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States, about 30 miles north o ...

and one year at

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). ...

in 2015 before traveling to Europe for trials. Passed over by several professional clubs in France and Italy, he was taken on by a fourth-division Portuguese club and eventually earned his way into the under-23 team of G.D. Estoril Praia. After a season with their

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

, Payne made his first team debut for

Varzim S.C. Varzim Sport Club () is a Portuguese football team based in Póvoa de Varzim, near Porto in the north of the country. The club was founded on 25 December 1915, and has played at the Estádio do Varzim Sport Club since it was founded. The club pl ...

during the 2018–19 LigaPro season. He played 19 total games, and scored the only goal of the match in the 88th minute at

FC Porto B Futebol Clube do Porto B, commonly known as Porto B, is a Portuguese professional football team, which serves as the reserve side of FC Porto. They compete in the Liga Portugal 2, the second division of Portuguese football, and play their home ...

on 23 April 2019. Payne signed for Portimonense S.C. prior to the

2019–20 Primeira Liga The 2019–20 Primeira Liga (also known as Liga NOS for sponsorship reasons) was the 86th season of the Primeira Liga, the top professional league for Portuguese association football clubs. The season started on 9 August 2019 and was finished on ...

season, alongside teammate Jeferson. On January 20, 2022, Payne returned to the United States by signing with

club

Richmond Kickers Richmond Kickers is an American professional soccer club based in Richmond, Virginia. The Kickers compete as a member of USL League One (USL-1). The club was established in 1993, and began play that same year as a United States Interregional S ...

. Payne signed with rival

club

prior to the 2023 season.

Career statistics

;Notes

References

External links

Stephen Payne
at ZeroZero 1997 births Living people American soccer players American sportspeople of Nigerian descent American expatriate soccer players Association football midfielders Liga Portugal 2 players G.D. Estoril Praia players Varzim S.C. players Portimonense S.C. players Richmond Kickers players Forward Madison FC players Expatriate footballers in Portugal American expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Soccer players from Alabama Soccer players from Birmingham, Alabama UCLA Bruins men's soccer players C.D. Mafra players {{Nigeria-footy-midfielder-stub