‘It’s nice for him to live on through this’
Danny Earls on his grandad and the MLS
THEY say that you should never meet your heroes but in Danny Earls’ case, you should never play against them!
The Wicklow Town man has been carving out a career in professional soccer in America for almost a decade but before that, he grew up worshipping the ground that David Beckham walked on. Fast forward quite a few years and David Beckham of the LA Galaxy found himself being marked by Earls - but the former Wicklow Rovers man couldn’t get a kick!
Earls made the move to America via Aston Villa. Like many talented youngsters, Earls would spend his midterms on trial over the water. He had his heart set on Sunerland but their offer of a two-year scholarship paled in comparison to the three-year contract offered by Villa so it was off to Villa Park for the youngster for three memorable years.
“It was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant. When you’re 16 and moving away from home you can get up to all sorts but we didn’t! We had a good bunch and the coaching was top class. I had two managers - Kevin McDonald and Tony McAndrew - any time I can give them a shout I always do because they were unbelievable. They were proper football men but it was brilliant because I was playing football day-in, day-out with my best mates. What’s not to love about it?”
It was a current Republic of Ireland coach that sold Earls the American dream. He had prospects at Villa but a bit of homesickness left him at a crossroads before he decided to cross the Atlantic.
“Steve Guppy came over and it was him that brought me to America and there was a deal there for me but I’d kind of fallen out of love with being in England. I still loved football, you always hear stories about young lads being homesick and I moved home for three months and I thought to myself; ‘should I keep it going?’ but I woke up one morning and said to myself ‘what am I doing? I have a chance to play football full-time in America’ and that was it.
“I went over for a week of training in April of ‘08 and I was sur- prised because it was a way better standard than I thought it would. I was going over thinking it’s the second division of America and I wasn’t too sure about it but it was a really good standard and the biggest change was going into a league with these big athletes because I was only really growing into my body at the time.”
Top of Earls’ showreel is the MLS Cup that he won with Colorado Rapids in 2010 and his dual with Beckham, even if the footballing legend gave Earls a torrid time.
“During it when you’re there, I won it and I probably didn’t take it into my head as much as I should have. I was 21 so I thought there’d be more in the future but looking back, it was a great year. It was kind of an underdog story, we weren’t favourites at all and we kind of snuck into the play-offs and then winning it was absolutely unbelievable. It really was great.
“Beckham was the biggest one. I couldn’t get near him! He was about 37 and I just could not get near him. When I went over, Beckham was the biggest name obviously but now you get the likes of Zlatan and Lampard, it’s becoming more back page news whereas when I first joined those lads were front page news.
“Beckham was my hero growing up so playing against him was absolutely fascinating. I didn’t get close to him. It’s hard to appreciate a player that doesn’t have pace until you see them up close and you see how clean his touch was and how well he showed for space. Playing against him was phenomenal.”
Earls also played on the night that Robbie Keane made his MLS debut and, like Keane, Earls loved every second of playing for Ireland with the 29-year old featuring up to U-19 level.
“Robbie Keane said the other day in an interview that the best jersey he ever pulled on was the green jersey - not that I ever made my full debut which was my dream - but to play any age for your country is absolutely unbelievable and an incredible honour. It’s the biggest and best thing you can do so looking back on it again, I would’ve cherished those moments more if I’d known I’d never get them again but it was unbelievable at the time.”
Pittsburgh Riverhounds were Earls’ last employers but his contract there ended at the end of 2017. Without employment, Earls had to leave the country and must now secure a green card before returning which is proving more tiresome than expected. He is confident that he will find a new club though once his paperwork is in order.
“t’s a tricky one. I was thinking about playing here but I won’t because if I play here it might jeopardise some opportunities over there or the green card. It’s brutal. You have to go through a lot of interviews.
“The league I was in, the USL, I’ve been there for eight or nine years so I know nearly all the gaffers in there so it’s just a matter of picking up the phone when I get back across and hopefully it’s sorted in a couple of months and I haven’t lost it in the meantime!”
When he does ‘lose it’, Earls has plans in place for retirement. He will become a full-time artist and his work featured on the front page of the FAI match-day programme for the friendly between the Republic of Ireland and USA recently. He also refuses to rule out coaching in the future but art is his preference for now.
Earls is the grandson of the legendary figure Tommy Earls but Tommy sadly passed on before he got the chance to see Danny strut his stuff at a high level.
“I was looking at photos the other day because my nan had come up and she was at my U-16 Ireland debut and that would have been a nice one for grandad to see but we always talk about him and stories of the Oscar Traynor. Grandad has a great name so it’s nice for him to live on through this.”