Feilhaber plays Denmark today

Benny Feilhaber was born in Brazil.
 
A U.S. citizen, he has lived in all over the country in cities from New York to California, and he now plays for the USA men's national soccer team.

As a pro soccer player, he plays for AGF Aarhus of the Danish Superliga.
 
Home could be a lot of places of Feilhaber, but chances are, if there's soccer involved, he feels at home.

On Wednesday, home will be at NRGi Park, the home field of Feilhaber's pro team. That's when Feilhaber, a 2008 Olympian and former UCLA star, and his U.S. soccer teammates will make their first visit to Denmark for a friendly game.

"He told me he really enjoys it over there," said Jorge Salcedo, the UCLA coach who doubles as a scout for U.S. Soccer. "He enjoys the league."
 
The game against Denmark will be played at 2:30 p.m. EST Wednesday, and will be televised on ESPN's networks. The U.S. is hoping to rebound following its 1-0 loss against Slovakia Saturday in Bratislava. Feilhaber started that match and played all 90 minutes. Some of the top national team players are absent from the team due to Major League Soccer playoffs and injuries.

These are the first games for Team USA since its final World Cup qualifying match against Costa Rica, which was played last month in RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. The U.S. finished atop the CONCACAF final standings with a 6-2-2 record and 20 points, one ahead of archrival Mexico.

"These matches present a terrific opportunity to continue building on the nucleus of our team, and at the same time evaluate more of the player pool against very good opponents," USA coach Bob Bradley said in a news release.
 
Among those rising stars for the national team is Feilhaber, who has fought back into the national team picture after a suffering a knee injury last year that required months of rehabilitation work in Brazil. Feilhaber, a 5-9 midfielder, is one of just eight players on the current trip who played in the World Cup clinching game against Honduras last month.

It is Feilhaber's energy that impresses Salcedo, who has watched Feilhaber improve since he first surfaced with UCLA as a walk-on in 2003.
 
"He comes on and wants to show he should be a starter," Salcedo said. "He plays like that whether he starts or he comes in as a reserve."
 
Feilhaber has 28 career caps, including 12 caps and four starts this season, a number held down only because of the injury.
 
"It was really tough. I mean, you're out of the game for six months, so it's never easy," Feilhaber said. "I think I only started getting it back during the time I was with the national team in the summer time. With my club team (AGF Aarhus), I started playing in March of this year ... but I wasn't really starting until the very last few games. My fitness wasn't great.
 
"And then I started playing with the national team,'' he added. "I think it helped a bit and I was a bit more consistent with my fitness. Now it's been better and better. My fitness is really good right now."
 
Watching Feilhaber play in practice, or in a game, there is no sign of a knee problem that began with a meniscus procedure before the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and wound up with damage to his cartilage after the Games. He played three games in Beijing.
 
"I don't think my leg was ready to go once I started playing in the Olympics, and that's what caused the cartilage to go, as well," he said. "The cartilage is a more difficult problem to solve. It took a while, and I took really good care of it."
 
Feilhaber is showing some of the flashes of brilliance that really surfaced during summer 2005, when he started all four matches in the U-20 World Cup and wound up leaving UCLA after his sophomore year to pursue offers overseas.
 
Feilhaber and his father traveled to Germany, Spain and France at their own expense-to retain his NCAA and amateur status-and Feilhaber signed with Hamburg SV of the German Bundesliga. Feilhaber's father is one of his biggest supporters, traveling to almost every game.
 
"He did a great job in the World Cup, and I totally supported his thoughts," said Salcedo, a former Major League Soccer player and coach of the USA U-17 team in 2001.
 
After playing in Hamburg for two years, Feilhaber moved to Derby County of the English Premier League in 2007, appearing in 10 games, and then signed with AGF Aarhus in 2008.
 
In the last 18 months, Feilhaber's travels would be dizzying to even the most experienced of world travelers-from Denmark to the U.S. to Brazil to China to Honduras and so on.

 

But really, all this began for him as a child. Born in Brazil, he moved to the United States when he was 6. He spent three years in New York, two years in Houston, three years in Connecticut, and then moved to California when he was 14. The moves were frequent because his dad was an oil trader.
 
Early on, Feilheber would prove his soccer skills only to have to re-prove himself at the next place. He played on a regional soccer team in Connecticut, but didn't make a similar regional team in California.
 
"I was the new guy," he said. "I just never made the regional team."
 
Even after playing at Northwood High School in Irvine, Calif., Feilhaber was a walk-on player at UCLA because coaches did not know about Feilhaber early enough in the recruiting process to consider a scholarship. The late Tom Fitzgerald, UCLA's coach at the time, watched one of Feilhaber's games at Northwood, and invited Feilhaber to try out. Who knew that he would soon become an Olympian or a national team player?
 
"You're training with the team for basically a month and that first part of it is tough because you don't know if you're going to be with the team or not," Feilhaber said. "Once you're told you're a part of the team and everything, you just integrate pretty quickly. Just like being on any other team, really."
 
Feilhaber played in 16 games his freshman year, winning two games with goals. By the next year, Feilhaber was a second-team All-Pac 10 selection and played in all 20 games, scoring five goals and assisting on 13. Salcedo, who was elevated to head coach from assistant in 2004, recognized Feilhaber's talents early.
 
"You knew he wasn't the finished product yet," Salcedo said. "Without a doubt, as time went on, there was kind of a feeling Benny could become one of the best players in the nation."
 
By 2007, Feilhaber was clearly on that stage. He became just one of seven players in U.S. history to play in 10 games or more in his first season with the national team. He blasted home a volley for the game-winning goal against Mexico in the Gold Cup championship game. And then came his appearances in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, which provided both a high and a low for Feilhaber.
 
"It was quite an experience,'' he said. "It's always unbelievable playing for your country in the Olympics. We went to the Opening Ceremony, which was really special. The only thing that was a little bit upsetting is that for soccer, you don't really get to stay in the Olympic Village like every other sport almost. Soccer, you're kind of traveling around the country and playing in different spots."
 
But the team did not advance out of pool play, winning just one of three games. The players had already left China by the Closing Ceremony.
 
"Obviously, it was disappointing how we performed," Feilhaber said. "It overshadowed a little bit the whole spectacle."
 
Because FIFA regulations limit Olympic rosters to U-23, plus three other players of any age, Feilhaber may not play in another Olympic Games. But with the 2016 Olympics going to his native Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Feilhaber does have a hope he could be on the USA roster that year.
 
"It'd be really special to play in that Olympics, but obviously that's so far down the road I'm not thinking about it too much right now," he said.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Paul D. Bowker is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.

Tags: Benny Feilhaber, Paul D. Bowker, U.S. Soccer, US Men's National Team