re: Yanks Abroad Thread || Ode to pvilleguru

LINK

Good story on Cole Campbell, who just made his debut for the USMNT u-19 and scored a brace in a 3-2 win over England.

He is currently in BVB's youth setup, but was born and grew up in Texas. He had been representing Iceland at the youth level through his mom's heritage, just filed his one-time switch thanks to Bacon's recruiting.

quote:

---

But it was also in Iceland, where the idea of playing for the United States first crossed his mind after an impromptu meeting with former U.S. national team forward Aron Johannsson. Johannsson had recently returned to play in Iceland after injuries stalled his career in Europe. But it was in 2012 when Johannsson had to make a similar decision with his international career after he was playing for Iceland at the youth levels but ultimately switched to the United States, where he was born while his Icelandic parents studied in Alabama. He would go on to make the U.S. World Cup team in 2014.

“It's kind of funny,” Campbell recalled of meeting Johannsson. “I made the switch to Breiðablik a few months before I left for Dortmund. We were playing against the team that Aron Johansson played for. After the game was over, he came over to me. I had never met him before and he was like you're Cole, right? I was like, yeah. Then he told me I’ve got to consider playing for the US. I was like, really? And he said it's such a great opportunity. It's such a big, big thing. He said he would do it all over again if he could. It kind of got me thinking.”

---