We are pleased to announce that Andreas Charalambous will be joining Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Fall 2022. Charalambous, a 6ft4 centerback, who represented Cyprus at U17 and U19 level, made his first-team debut with Apollon Limassol at 17 years old.
The SMU Mustangs are considered one of college soccer’s most prestigious programs. Only two programs have won more games than SMU in NCAA history. In the past 40 years, SMU has finished 30 times in the top 25 teams in the nation. 58 SMU players have gone on to play professionally in the program’s history. Since 2018, 8 SMU players have been selected in the MLS SuperDraft, with an additional 8 players signing professional contracts outside the draft. Most recently in 2022, Skage Lehland was selected by DC United in the MLS SuperDraft, whilst Papa N’Doye signed with Houston Dynamo 2 and Gabriel Costa signed with the Rochester Rhinos.
The program is led by head coach, Kevin Hudson. Hudson was a standout student-athlete at SMU from 2000-03 and was selected by DC United in the 2004 MLS SuperDraft. He first joined SMU’s coaching staff in 2007 and he was named head coach in 2015. During Hudson’s tenure, the Mustangs have been ranked as high as no3. in the nation and have made the NCAA tournament 5 times in 7 years.
Andreas will have the opportunity to be one of the first players to play in SMU’s brand-new soccer stadium. The stadium which cost $5 million will have a capacity of 2,577 and will be one of the premier stadiums in all of college soccer.
SMU’s campus was ranked as the No. 1 Most Beautiful Campus by the Huffington Post and No. 2 by the Princeton Review
SMU is located in Dallas, Texas, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country with 7.5 million people. The Dallas metropolitan area hosts twenty-three Fortune 500 companies, the fourth-most in the nation. 11 of those companies are located in Downtown Dallas which is only 5 miles from SMU’s campus. This is one of the reasons SMU ranks as one of the top 5 universities in the USA for internship opportunities. SMU’s business school regularly ranks in the top 40 in the nation, whilst according to Bloomberg Businessweek SMU’s business undergraduates rank 5th in the nation for post-graduation salaries.