Odisha FC add experienced and former new castle and English international Steven Taylor to their squad to add a prime finesse and lots of experience to their satisfying defense consisting of Gaurav Bora, Narayan Das and Subham Sarangi.
Steven Taylor was born in Greenwich, London on the 23rd of January 1986.At the age of 14 taylor joined the new castle United youth academy after being scouted at cramlington juniors.
Prior to being a defender tailor was a striker who at the age of 13 switch to defence . After that he finished his studies and started his journey of becoming a professional footballer when he was nearly 17 years old. Then he played for few smaller clubs on loan until 2003 after which he returned to New castle.
On 25th of march 2004 in the UEFA cup fourth round second leg tie against Mallorca, taylor made his debut for the first team after coming on as a substitute and became the youngest debutant for the magpies’ in European competition, which was wistfully broken by Andy carroll in 2006.
Three days later against Bolton wanderers Steven also made his premier League debut And played as a right back. His first few seasons with New castle was really disheartening and was a really tough time for him as a result of various injuries and some bad luck.
But the 2006-07 season turned out to be a breakthrough season for him as he scored as he scored his debut senior gold in a UEFA cup match and also scored his first League goal against Blackburn rovers as a result of which he started playing more frequently.
The following seasons saw a few ups and downs for Steven Taylor as a result of injuries and the bad performance of the club and also rumours of him leaving the club
But good times for tailor also came as he now became the teams first choice in defence and started to get more recognition.
After that, on the 3rd of June 2016 after 12 years with the club, he left Newcastle United and signed for major League soccer club Portland timbers. After a long span of twelve years with Newcastle United, Steven was not able to be consistent with other clubs as in a short span of 2 years he played for 3 different clubs, after which he finally joined Wellington phoenix where he played for the next two season and also wore the captain’s armband before joining the Indian super league with Odisha FC.
His international career with England wasn’t much satisfying because even tough he played for for the u-17 and u-21 squad, he never got to play for the senior team even though he was included in the squad on 2 occasions.
Nevertheless, he is is a great player with lots of experience as he played which some of the best players of that time playing in the premier League and also as a part of the English national team and we hope that he helps Odisha with his experience and his skill so that they can have a season to remember.