Kevin Fixler
Yahoo
The evening is mild, the pitch is pristine and the visiting forward sees only daylight between him and the goal. He is wrong. Behind him, quiet and quick, comes center defender Erik Palmer-Brown. The kid shoulders the evasive striker, slowing him down. His foot connects with the ball. Then comes the slide tackle that dislodges it definitively — and returns possession to the American all-star team.
That whole episode, in Denver last month, took 11 seconds; Palmer-Brown works fast. Not just on the field, where he’s an unabashed closer, but off it, too: He’s all of 18 years old, a phenom with a faux-hawk fade, fresh off his high school graduation. (Not that he attended the ceremony: Palmer-Brown was on a plane to New Zealand with the national squad for the Under-20 World Cup.) At 16 he became the youngest player in the history of his Major League Soccer club, Sporting KC, and then, last year, the youngest defender to start a match in league history. There has been much chatter that Juventus, the Italian powerhouse team, will snap him up in a big-dollar deal, but there are those who speculate that Palmer-Brown could become the next face of American soccer, one whose achievements could bring more racial diversity to the MLS lineup.
“It’s been unreal,” says Palmer-Brown; it’s a signature refrain. After all, the defender is still a teenager, one who trades funny faces with his teammates in the locker room while answering my questions. He lives at home and is devoted to his mom, hangs out with his childhood friends and still hasn’t reached drinking age. Senior spring, he missed a lot of school — six weeks for training camp in January and February, a U-20 tournament in Austria in April. He squeaked by with online courses, study guides and help from friends. Becoming a full-time pro, rather than one who has to split training and tournament time with studies, has been a relief.
But now is when Palmer-Brown must prove his mettle, and hopes are high. “It’s only a matter of time that he’s representing us in the World Cup,” says Sporting KC teammate Graham Zusi, a mainstay of the current U.S. senior team. The next go-around is 2018, when Palmer-Brown will be 21, and it is expected that he’ll make it. There’s also the matter of Juventus. Rumors of the deal have persisted for more than a season and a half, and though most of the trades report that it’s just a matter of when, and not if, nothing’s closed yet. Palmer-Brown has no definite answer on it.
More here:
http://news.yahoo.com/erik-palmer-brown-soccer-phenom-080000127.html
