Legion Signs Midfielder Sam McIllhatton
The Birmingham Legion today announced the signing of Australian midfielder Sam McIllhatton for the remainder of this season.
McIllhatton is 26 and since 2022 has played with Sydney Olympic FC in Australia’s National Premier Leagues, the second tier in that nation. Before that he played 2 years with APIA Leichardt, also of the NPL (but with a year off in 2020). He appears to be a central attacking midfielder – a position that has been screaming to be filled for quite some time now – and like Kobe Hernandez-Foster and Roman Torres also has a penchant for taking set pieces, both free kicks and corners. He looks to be dynamic and likes to get into the opponents’ box.
It is unclear if Sam has been playing as a professional; the NPL in Australia is semi-professional so he could also be amateur. Either way this is a big step up for him. The NPL is effectively comparable to USL League Two and has a complex regional structure. The name is confusing: it is plural because the organization is an association of the various state-based federations within Australia, so it’s not technically national. The federation count is confusing too: there are 8 federations although Australia only has 6 states. New South Wales is broken into two federations and the Australian Capital Territory (analogous to DC here) has its own as well. Sydney Olympic is in New South Wales, the largest federation (16 teams). Over McIllhatton’s career the team has won the state league regular season once in 2022 (Sam’s first season) but failed to make the playoffs (which are a bizarre structure in their own right much as the Australian Rules playoffs are) every other year. They are currently 10th, although they could be as high as 7th based on recent results (the league website does not do a very good job of updating; scores from last weekend are not posted). The NPL has internal promotion and relegation but does not have promotion to the A-League, Australia’s top tier. It also runs women’s and youth leagues so it’s a pretty broad-based operation. APIA Leichardt were federation champions in Sam’s first year.
Statistics on him are hard to asess; various have completely different numbers. Trasnfermarkt shows that so far this season Sam has not recorded any goals or assists in 7 games and over a total of 80 appearances has 4 assists including 1 in the Australia Cup (the national knockout competition) and no goals ever. Soccerway puts him at 4 goals and 13 assists. That seems weak but is deceptive given that a CAM is frequently the hockey assist guy, as it were. A quick review of the limited film available shows that he provides service and is a chance creator. He’ll get his first chance at action next week when the Legion faces El Paso Locomotive.
Finally: LinkedIn lists him as a US citizen but I’m pretty sure that’s wrong!
