We are pleased to announce that All-American midfielder, Giorgos Leon Diakos, will be transferring to Cornell University! Diakos spent the last two seasons with UC Charleston. Following an outstanding 2023 season where he scored 10 goals in 14 starts, including a hat-trick in the first round of the national championship, Diakos was named All-American 2nd Team.
Considered one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Cornell is a private Ivy League university based in Ithaca, New York. Notable recent academic rankings include seventh-best in the U.S by QS World University Rankings and ninth-best in the world by Times Higher Education World University Rankings. As of 2023, 62 Nobel laureates and 4 Turing Award winners have been affiliated with Cornell. Cornell counts more than 250,000 living alumni which include 63 Olympics medalists, 10 current Fortune 500 CEOs and 35 billionaires.
Cornell's men's soccer team competes in NCAA Division 1 and is led by head coach John Smith, who previously played for Oldham Athletic and was an MLS draftee in 1997. In recent years Cornell has enjoyed great success on the pitch, most notably in 2022 when they finished the season ranked 10th in the nation whilst qualifying for the NCAA tournament where they were eliminated by the eventual national champions, Syracuse. In addition in recent years Cornell players have moved to the pros, with Tyler Bagley getting drafted by Inter Miami FC in 2022 and Emeka Eneli selected by Real Salt Lake in the 2023 MLS SuperDraft.