By RIDGE MAHONEY
In Port of Spain, Trinidad
By his own admission, if a game or training session wasnÆt clicking, Eddie Johnson would be finished long before it was over.
''When things werenÆt going well, IÆd put my head down,'' he says of tough times that frustrated him, his coaches, and the MLS fans in Dallas after heÆd joined the pro ranks at age 17. ''Being a good forward is how to deal with situations when things arenÆt going well.
''Now, when things are going bad, itÆs 'Get the next one, get the next one.' Just little things like that, advice that guys give me that IÆve added to my game. ItÆs worked well and IÆve had a lot of success.'
Johnson has yet to celebrate his 21st birthday, yet his success has already superseded the superlative. He met a cross from Steve Cherundolo and snapped a header into the net Feb. 9 for the first U.S. goal of a 2-1 win over Trinidad & Tobago.
''Once the game settled down after about 15 minutes, we started the play the way weÆre capable of playing and we were getting chances,'' said Johnson, whose run up the right wing set up the second goal, a searing strike by Eddie Lewis that banished Angus EveÆs goal in the 89th minute for T&T to the realm of consolation.
''It was one of those situations where I put myself in a good position, kind of like when I scored against Panama. à I made my run near-post, it was a good ball from Steve and I just got on the end of it. The weight was already on the ball, it was just about me re-directing it, and I think I caught the keeper off-guard.''
Six times heÆs scored in his first four internationals, a feat unmatched in American soccer and probably in most nations. El Salvador, Panama, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago donÆt rank among the worldÆs elite, but a streak is a streak and he seems poised to perpetuate his feats of 2004, when he tied for the league lead in scoring and rubbed elbows with some of the elite while training at Manchester United.
''It was one of those years that everything fell into place,'' he said of 12 MLS goals and an astonishing run of five goals in his first three U.S. appearances as well as bumping into Cristiano Ronaldo and Rio Ferdinand on his first day at Old Trafford.
''It didnÆt just happen, I worked hard for everything. All those little things that I didnÆt have the previous years I put into my game, and it showed.''
A BETTER PATH. Those previous years in MLS were laden with far more promise than production for the prodigy. He rang up goals for the U.S. U-17s and U-20s but against grown men, not surprisingly, the strong and agile yet psychologically fragile youngster faltered more often than not.
''He used to be a kid who got frustrated the moment anything went wrong the first thing in practice, the first thing in games,'' says former Dallas coach Mike Jeffries, who selected him in the second round of the 2001 Superdraft more than two months before his 17th birthday. ''If it didnÆt go his way from the beginning, he was done for the game or done for the day or whatever it was. HeÆs gotten past that.''
His mother, Lewanna, moved her single-parent family (daughter Shaunta, brother Cecil, and Eddie) away from the dark alleys of Bunnell, Fla., to the suburban community of Palm Coast when he was 12. Left behind were the projects, a wasteland of drugs and guns and horribly ruined lives.
Yet temptation lurks everywhere for a young pro athlete. One of JohnsonÆs counterparts from the under-17 residency program in Bradenton, Fla., Santino Quaranta, is rebounding from being knocked back by injuries and indiscipline at D.C. United. He knows the tales of Jamar Beasley, whoÆs putting his life and career back together after some wild living derailed his dreams
The cancellation of national-team training camps in December and January gave him ample time to sit and chill at home. Stark reminders of the different phases of his childhood abounded.
''Going back home, all the friends you grew up with you canÆt hang around with them anymore,'' he says of those swept up by crime and gunfire and violence. ''TheyÆre not doing anything good with themselves. They chose the bad path to go down.
''Everyone thinks IÆm different when I go back home and IÆm too good for everybody, but the fact is I canÆt hang around with those guys like I used to. TheyÆre around things I canÆt be around and itÆs not my fault. ItÆs easy to get in trouble. I see it all the time when I go back home and I think, æMan, IÆm lucky.Æ''
The idle hours had begun to weigh on him by early January. He thought heÆd be in a long training camp with the national team but when that was pushed back three weeks, he regretted somewhat passing up a training stint at PSV Eindhoven that would have followed the Manchester United gig.
''This last year was my first year of playing every game and playing all year round,'' he says of triple duty with Dallas and the under-23 team as well as the national team. ''I talked with Bruce [Arena] and he thought the best thing would be to come back and take off some time. My body was getting kind of tired.''
That body and its athleticism have drawn coaches to Johnson ever since he was a youth player. ItÆs hard for them or anyone else not to love a fast, strong kid (6 feet, 180 pounds) who can crash through tackles or zip past defenders and smash the ball into the net.
''Scoring goals is important,'' says Arena. ''HeÆs demonstrated that ability in the MLS. HeÆs had a variety of experience at the youth and national level with some of our youth teams and has done well. But one thing that separates him from a lot of players is that he can run. He has outstanding speed, and I think thatÆs still a quality that you need to have to be a forward and heÆs a guy whoÆs proven that he can get behind teams.''
Yet in his first few years as a pro, immaturity often defused his speed, strength, skill and raw power. He labored to break free of strong, older defenders. When deployed to race behind or past them with his blistering speed, offside calls or balls played too far ahead — or not at all — rankled him.
''The first couple of years we tried very hard to get him into positions where he could run at players and he never quite found the way,'' says Jeffries. ''Obviously we thought he was a very talented young player, thatÆs why we took him in the draft where we took him. He was going to be a longer project because he still had to finish high school. EddieÆs got great feet, great touch, heÆs good running at players.
''IÆd say that four years later heÆs better at using his athleticism, heÆs better in the penalty box. Clearly heÆs a lot more mature than he was even two years ago.''
NURTURING NEST. JohnsonÆs maturity is a direct result of environment, a nurturing nest of stability and security and support as well as patient counsel. When he first arrived in Dallas after finishing his under-17 residency in Florida, Johnson shared space with the family of Chefik Simo, a Texas native whoÆd been a teammate at Bradenton and chose to attend college at Furman.
On Oct. 11, 2001, the phone rang in the Simo home. The news was grim. Gray Griffin, another former under-17 teammate who also went to Furman, had been killed in a car crash while driving home from a concert in Charlotte, N.C. Chefik Simo lay in a hospital, alive but critically injured: broken pelvic bone, fractured shoulder blade, deep stomach gashes, and nerve damage.
For Johnson, a pending training stint with Manchester United quickly paled in importance. ''I was set up to go but my friend got that really bad car accident and I was trying to get over that situation,ö he recalls. ôI had to be around my family at that time so I backed out at the last minute.''
Simo needed 15 surgeries to recover and eventually transferred to Virginia to distance himself from the memories of that terrible night.
''HeÆs recovered really, really well. I was with him during his rehab in Dallas and everything,'' says Johnson. ''HeÆs worked so hard to get something he wanted so bad, to get to where he is right now.
''WeÆre more than friends, weÆre like brothers. His family took me in and I lived there for a year and a half when I came to Dallas. Our friendship became more than a friendship.
''He definitely deserves everything he has right now. The doctor told him at one point heÆd never play soccer again. I remember him saying every day, æIÆm going to play again, I know IÆm going to play again.Æ''
Simo did play for the Cavaliers this past college season, a product of his determination and rehab, which included occasional visits to train with Johnson and his MLS mates. But without him there came a void in JohnsonÆs life, that of a peer and confidant, that has been filled by a much different figure: assistant coach Brian Haynes, more than twice his age but a good father and family man who welcomed Johnson into his home.
''HeÆs a very religious guy, Christian guy,'' says Johnson. ''HeÆs great with young players and with kids generally. I give him full credit for everything I did last year. He knows my situation, that I never had a father figure. He never tried to play that role, but whenever I had girl problems, soccer problems, family problems, he was always there to talk to me and make me feel like I have a dad here.''
Watching movies, eating meals, and attending church with HaynesÆ family softened JohnsonÆs angst. Long talks with the former Dallas midfielder refocused his energies.
''ItÆs a fine line,'' says Jeffries of balancing the personal life of a young athlete. ''Living with Brian, we tried to keep him away from some of the problems you can have hanging out with young guys. The flip side is he didnÆt have guys his age he could relate to.
''It was hard for him because he didnÆt have guys to hang out with. He would love it when Chefik would come out and train with us, theyÆre good friends. He would enjoy that. But also being young, part of his frustration was he expected a faster development curve. He expected to be starting right away. He was hurt a lot, so it didnÆt happen for him. That part of being young was tough.''
ALL ABOUT TIMING. That aspect of frustration — development and improvement — gnawed at Johnson his first three pro seasons. In his view, Bobby Convey and Justin Mapp and Mike Magee and Quaranta had zoomed past him to nail down considerable MLS playing time and in ConveyÆs case, lengthy stints with the national team as well as a job in Europe.
In those first two MLS seasons, Johnson played in 21 games but only 589 minutes. He scored three goals in 22 games in 2003, the same year he hit four goals and won the Golden Shoe as top scorer in the Youth World Championship.
''Those guys they adapted really quickly,'' he admits. ''One day I just realized my situation was different. I came into a team where there was two all-star forwards [Ariel Graziani, Jason Kreis] and other college forwards who had been playing here and there and scoring goals. ItÆs all about timing and once my time came, I showed I was ready to do the job.''
HeÆll have a job to do in 2005, getting FC Dallas into the playoffs with a new partner in ex-Metro Cornell Glen while keeping his place in a U.S. forwards phalanx of Brian McBride, Brian Ching, Josh Wolff, et al. HeÆll be a target of foes every game he plays.
Bring æem.
''I want the team to rely on me to score goals,'' he says. ''I love challenges. ThatÆs the only way I move forward. Every day I challenge myself on the field. ThatÆs what keeps me going.''
(This is an updated version of Ridge MahoneyÆs article that appeared in the Jan. 24/31 edition of Soccer America Magazine.)