When Steve and Anne Johnson preside over their quartet of sons at Christmas dinner in their Duluth, GA home, it will be as happy and typical as any other occasion.

 

It’s after the holiday season where the unique quality of the family situation kicks in. The Johnsons’ son Daniel is an exceptional case in the context of American elite youth soccer. It’s not that his dreams are so different from those of many other young men playing the beautiful game, but rather how vigorously he has, with his parents’ help of course, pursued them.

 

Daniel, 16, is in the middle of his 3rd season with the youth side of English club West Ham United. He will learn in the coming year whether he is being signed on as a U18 “scholar” player with the club (the final step before the professional reserves and first team side of the London club). Regardless of whether that ultimate dream is realized, Daniel has been on a rather extraordinary journey. Both the details of it and the attitude which he and his parents have developed in the process are part of a story worth telling.

 

While his brothers (Zack-21, Nick,-18, and Drew-13) continue their educational and athletic pursuits back home, Daniel’s route has been far more cosmopolitan. He was a precocious player who showed a tremendous enthusiasm for the game at an early age. Anne Johnson explains how things changed.

 

“His oldest brother Zack played for the Norcross Fury Gold and so Dan was dragged to games when he was younger. You know how it can be for the younger siblings, so we just said ‘Here’s a ball, go over there and kick it around,’” she explained. “Well around the time he was 7 or 8, he was just doing circles around the other kids. He had an affinity for the ball. He loved to dribble and he always had a ball in the house or in the backyard. We had him in other sports and he would do his requisite season in those and then just tell us ‘Nah, I don’t like that sport. I want to do soccer.’ My husband played baseball in college and he wanted him to do that, but Daniel just said ‘I don’t like baseball. I like soccer.’”

 

Anne explained that while she had some exposure to the game growing up in Africa (child of a foreign service professional), neither she nor her husband had any understanding of the American competitive or player development scene. Daniel continued to progress in part through extra training at an area indoor facility and through coaches like Tony Annan at Norcross and Forsyth Fusion director Kerem Dasar. She mentions Casar passing on one particularly helpful point of advice.

 

“He told Daniel he would hear parents on the sidelines screaming things like ‘Pass the ball.’ But he said ‘Don’t listen to them. I want you to take on players. If you can take on the entire team, I want you to do it.’ It was the right idea for him at that time (U11). It’s not that you would do this at U15, but it turned out to be astute advice. He let Daniel be Daniel and the little guy was able to go a little freestyle and have fun on the pitch.” 

 

Around this time, Daniel, a 1995 birth year player, made the Georgia ODP ’94 team in the age group’s first year. As a result he went to the U.S. Youth Soccer Region III ODP camp in Mississippi, which began to open up a new world in terms of his possibilities.

 

“That’s when we started to get the idea that maybe Daniel really is good at this sport,” she said. “So my husband is in Mississippi and he calls to say Daniel made a pool game. I asked what that meant and he said he didn’t know, but then he made another pool game.”

 

What it meant is that despite playing a year up, Daniel was selected to be on the Region III team and traveled to Disney’s Wide World of Sports where he played in the ODP Interregional, despite giving up a considerable amount of size to his teammates and opponents. 

 

As Daniel continued catching eyes in the soccer marketplace, he had what turned out to be a life-changing opportunity to go on a soccer trip to England with some Atlanta-area players including an older brother. The Johnsons made it a family trip and Daniel was allowed to train with coaches of English clubs like West Ham and Tottenham.

 

Part 2: Find out what happened to Daniel after this trip