Alabama midfielder Felicia Knox is a Manchester City fan.  

Knox and a few of her teammates are City supporters. Their game and training schedule doesn’t always allow them to watch games live.  

“We always try not to see the score before we come home and watch the game,” Knox said. “I can’t even get on Twitter. It’s so bad.” 

As Knox is having her best season yet with Alabama Soccer, it’s only fitting that her teammates have nicknamed her after Manchester City midfield legend Kevin De Bruyne — or KDB, for short. 

Knox’s teammates calling her KDB makes more sense knowing that Knox leads D1 NCAA Women’s Soccer in assists this season with 15. De Bruyne shares the record for most assists in a single English Premier League season with EPL legend Thierry Henry and has tallied nearly 100 assists in 220 EPL appearances. 

De Bruyne arrived in Manchester by way of Belgium. The “KDB of the SEC” arrived in Tuscaloosa by way of Kansas City, Missouri. The “Kansas side,” specifically, she said. 

“I started playing soccer probably when I was like three,” Knox said. “Two-to-three.”  

Knox is one of four children in her family, and all the Knox siblings played soccer growing up. Knox’s father played professional indoor soccer in California and Kansas City. He encouraged his children to play soccer, too.  

“It runs in the family,” Knox said.  

Knox and her older brother are the only two out of the four siblings to play collegiate soccer. Knox’s older brother, Roman, played for three years at The University of North Carolina. He then transferred to Southern Methodist University. Knox’s parents split weekends between Alabama soccer and SMU soccer.  

“They’re actually ranked No. 14 right now,” Knox said. “So, me and my brother are both in top-25 programs at the moment.”  

Before Knox and her brother went on to play college soccer, the four siblings played against each other constantly. She played the most with Roman. 

So, when Knox briefly played on a boys’ club team while in eighth grade, it wasn’t anything different for her. Her girls’ club teammates were a year older than her and playing for their high school teams.  

“Instead of playing with the younger girls’ team, they found me a boys’ team to play with,” Knox said.  

Knox said it was a learning experience.  

“It was actually a lot of fun,” she said. “It was like, ‘How fast can I get this ball off my foot before I get attacked by a boy?’”  

She laughed while remembering the boys wouldn’t know how to celebrate her goals.  

“They would come over and be like, ‘high five?’” she said.  

Knox said her younger brother Simon — who is just two years younger than her — is her biggest fan. Knox’s brother texts her before and after games and catches all Alabama soccer and SMU soccer matches to support his siblings. 

Knox’s older sister and her family are also in Knox’s corner. Her sister has two children.  

“I’m an aunt, and it’s the best thing ever,” Knox said. “They haven’t been able to come down here yet for a game, but I’m excited for when they do.”  

Knox’s family has had plenty to cheer for this season. Alabama soccer is off to the best start in program history, ranked No. 1 in the nation after a top-10 over the Arkansas Razorbacks.  

The Crimson Tide (15-1-1) has not lost since Aug. 21. Alabama has outscored its opponents by 41 goals this season, with 52 goals for and 11 against. Alabama has recorded 47 assists as a team, of which Knox claims 15 — a school record.  

Knox’s nephew waves at the TV when she steps up to take corners, which has happened a lot this season. The Crimson Tide is ranked 17th in D1 Women’s Soccer with 117 corner kicks this season, averaging 6.88 corners per match.

Alabama has been lethal scoring on set pieces through the first 17 matches of the season. The Crimson Tide has capitalized on 19 set pieces with 12 goals resulting from corner kicks, four from free kicks and three converted penalty kicks. Knox alone is directly linked to 63% — just under two-thirds — of these set piece goals. She’s scored three of the 19 set piece goals and assisted nine others. 

The Crimson Tide is always working on set piece scenarios. Knox said over time with more practice, Alabama has become better on corner kicks, contributing to her assist count and the 19 set piece goals.  

“I don’t get the assist if they don’t score the goal,” she said. “It’s the right people being in the right place at the right time, and it is hard to do, so my teammates are good.”  

This season, Alabama features quite a few upperclassmen leading the squad.  

“We have a lot of maturity and a lot of experience on the team,” Knox said. “I definitely feel like my class adds to that.”  

Personally, Knox feels she’s stepped further into a leadership role this season. Knox said she’s a straightforward, “tell-you-how-it-is” person with her teammates.  

“We’re pretty straightforward with each other,” Knox said. “We’re pretty direct about what needs to happen, so I think in games and in practice, we all know what needs to be done and what needs to happen.”  

Knox believes she leads best by example.  

“Even if my voice isn’t saying something, the younger people on the team can just look and say, ‘OK, Felicia is doing this. I can do this, too,’” Knox said.  

She has always wanted to make a program-wide impact like this. Even while looking at schools through her recruitment process, she kept that in mind.  

“I knew I wanted to have an impact on a program rather than trying to go to a place where I was just another player,” she said.  

After visiting Alabama, watching plenty of Crimson Tide matches, and speaking with head coach Wes Hart and his staff, Knox decided to commit to Alabama.  

“I liked how a lot of the young players were playing,” she said. “I was like, I want to be part of this. I want to be part of the SEC, and I want to be part of this program.”  

Now, the program is soaring to new heights.  

“It’s electric,” Knox said. “The chemistry? It’s just flowing right now. I can’t tell you why — it just is,” Knox said.  

Then she corrected herself.  

“Actually, I can tell you why. We worked so extremely hard to get to this point, and now that it is working, I think we just know what we’re capable of?” she said. 

Knox said nothing has really changed. The pieces have always been here. Of her own play, Knox acknowledges that she’s developed in her position since arriving to Tuscaloosa, but she doesn’t think she’s done much different this season.  

“I just want to have an impact on the game in whatever way possible,” she said. “I just want to help the team in whatever way I can. It’s so exciting to watch the program be so good right now.”  

Fans seem to agree the product Knox and the team are putting on the field right now is exciting. Knox said the fans have been great this season.  

“They’ve been the extra energy that we need during our games,” Knox said. “It’s been really exciting. It’s a lot better when there’s a lot of people in the stands.” 

With the regular season almost over, Knox and the team are looking to end the season the right way.  

“Every game coming up is important, just because of where we are right now,” Knox said.  

Knox is confident about the “Iron Bowl of Soccer” — the last match of the regular season.  

“The Iron Bowl isn’t leaving Tuscaloosa, I’ll tell you that,” she said. “There’s no choice. There’s really no choice. It’s staying.”  

All things considered, it’s no wonder Riley Mattingly Parker calls Knox “the Kevin De Bruyne of the SEC.”  

Though, it has been confused with a legend from another sport: NBA star, Kevin Durant, aka KD.  

Mattingly Parker was misheard calling Knox KD.  

“The names got switched,” Knox said. “It was this ongoing joke that I was Kevin Durant, which was hilarious because I’m literally 5’5”, and we have a little basketball background but not enough,” she said.  

Knox played point guard on her eighth-grade basketball team, but then she switched to playing soccer full time. That didn’t stop the joke.  

“We’d walk into the dining hall and Kevin Durant would be on the TV. I’d be like, ‘Hey guys! Look! I’m on the TV!’ and they’d turn their head and look and be like, ‘Come on. Whatever,’” she said. “So that’s how it got started. It’s not that big of a deal, but it’s funny now. It’s supposed to be Kevin De Bruyne.” 

Knox doesn’t seem to believe she deserves the title, but she does think it’s funny.  

“For those of you who don’t know Kevin De Bruyne, I would highly encourage you to watch him, because if you like watching soccer, you will like watching him,” she said. 

Fans can watch Knox and Alabama soccer face off against Florida on Sunday, Oct. 23, at 6 p.m. CT on SEC Network+.

Questions or comments? Email Austin Hannon (Sports Editor) at [email protected]