Graeme Abel joined U.S. head coach Jill Ellis staff as the goalkeeper coach in March of 2015. Abel has worked extensively with the USA’s youth Women’s National Teams and has previously helped train the senior team goalkeepers in several camps.

Abel has served three seasons as a member of the University of Oklahoma Women’s Soccer staff and was promoted to associate head coach during the 2013 offseason.

He returned to Norman in 2012 as an assistant after serving as the OU goalkeeper coach during the 2008 and 2009 seasons. During the 2010 and 2011 campaigns, Abel worked with the current Sooner head coach Matt Potter at Washington State.

Before Oklahoma and Washington State, Abel worked three years as the University of Nevada’s goalkeepers coach from 2005-2007.

In 2004, Abel started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater Brescia University in Owensboro, Kentucky.

During his youth soccer years, Abel was on the books at Everton FC from 1994-97. He also played with Stockport County FC from 1997-1999 before coming to the USA to attend college at Lindsey Wilson in Colombia, Kentucky. He was a NAIA All-American at Lindsey Wilson and the 1999 NAIA National Tournament MVP, leaving the Blue Raiders to the national championship.

In 2001, he returned to England for half a year at Chester City FC, but then returned to college, this time at Brescia University where he was once again an NAIA All-American and the two-time Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Association Player of the Year.

Abel has a USSF “B” Coaching License and NSCAA Advanced National Diploma.

He currently resides in Norman, Oklahoma, with his wife Katie and his one-year old son, Kian.

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