John Harkes

High school

Harkes grew up in the soccer hotbed of Kearny, New Jersey, and played youth and high school soccer with future national team teammates Tony Meola and Tab Ramos. Harkes graduated from Kearny High School in 1985. During his high school career, Harkes played in four New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association championship matches and led his team to the 1984 Group 4 State Championship and a 24–0 record. He was the 1984 Parade High School Player of the Year. In 1999, he was named by The Star-Ledger as one of the top ten New Jersey high school soccer players of the 1980s.

College

Harkes played for University of Virginia where he was named 1st team All-American in 1986 and 1987, and was the Hermann Award winner in 1987, as the best player in US colleges.

England: 1990–1996

Harkes moved to Sheffield Wednesday of the English Football League in 1990. In a game that season against Derby County, his 35-yard blast glided into the net past former England World Cup goalkeeper Peter Shilton and earned him English football's "Goal of the Season" award. That season, Harkes became the third American (after Bill Regan for Romford in the 1948–49 FA Amateur Cup final and Mike Masters for Colchester United in the 1991-92 FA Trophy final) to play at Wembley when Sheffield Wednesday reached the 1991 League Cup final. There, the Second Division (now Football League Championship) Wednesday upset the First Division (now Premier League) side Manchester United 1–0. Also that year, Wednesday won promotion to the First Division. In 1993, Harkes became the only American to score in a League Cup Final, in a 2–1 loss to Arsenal. His goal was the second by an American at Wembley Stadium following Mike Masters' goal for Colchester United in the F.A. Trophy Final the year before. He appeared in the FA Cup Final one month after that League Cup disappointment, with Sheffield Wednesday again losing to Arsenal (2–1 in the replay, after a 1–1 draw in the first game). Harkes played one more season in England after moving to Derby County in the summer of 1993. In 1995, Major League Soccer (MLS) began preparing for its first season, which it first thought would come in the fall of 1995. As part of that process, MLS signed prominent U.S. players to league…

John Harkes played in the 1990 and 1994 FIFA World Cup Harkes made his national team debut on March 23, 1987, against Canada. He was on the U.S. team at the 1987 Pan American Games. He quickly established himself as a national team regular and was selected for the 1988 Olympics. That year the U.S. went 1–1–1 and failed to qualify for the second round. Harkes continued to play for the national team as it went through the qualification process for the upcoming World Cup. The team qualified for those games after an improbable 1–0 road victory over Trinidad and Tobago in the final qualification match. In 1990, he was a member of a World Cup squad made up mostly of college and semi-professional players. The United States side was routed 1–5 by Czechoslovakia, but were respectable losing 0–1 to host nation and eventual semi-finalist Italy, and 1–2 to Austria. Despite losing all three matches, many players from the 1990 squad, including Harkes, Ramos, Meola, Marcelo Balboa formed the core of the U.S. national team for most of the decade and played an important role in the development of MLS. U.S. fared better as the host nation in the 1994 World Cup, upsetting Colombia 2–1 in a group stage match to advance to the Round of 16. Harkes contributed to the Andrés Escobar own goal which arguably led to the Colombian defender's shooting death weeks later. Harkes delivered a cross from the left aimed at Earnie Stewart, which Escobar attempted to clear, but instead sent the ball past his…

In August 2015, the formation of FC Cincinnati, a new franchise in the then-third-division United Soccer League, was announced, with Harkes as the team's first head coach. In FC Cincinnati's first season under Harkes, the club finished third in the USL Eastern Conference with a 12–6–4 record. However, on February 17, 2017, FC Cincinnati announced the firing of Harkes ahead of the 2017 season. From outside the club, the dismissal was seen as a surprise; reports later emerged of a 2016–17 offseason that was "unstructured and somewhat chaotic behind the scenes", according to The Cincinnati Enquirer's Pat Brennan. In August 2018, Harkes was named as the first head coach of Greenville Triumph, a new club set to join USL League One in 2019. Harkes was signed to a three-year contract to lead the entire technical side of the organization. In the team's first season, they finished third in the standings and were the runner-up in the playoffs. In the 2020 season, the Triumph finished first in the standings and won the playoffs, and Harkes was named the USL League One Coach of the Year. On January 26, 2021, the Triumph extended Harkes's contract through the 2023 season. The Triumph finished second in the standings in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons.