Real Salt Lake fulfilling his youthful dream
Southern High grad Amo goes in 2nd round, 34th pick
Elijah Amo’s heart pounded in his chest Thursday night. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach.
He waited, as draft picks ticked by, for the chance to be selected by a Major League Soccer franchise in the 2021 SuperDraft.
As hope and anxiety welled within, his phone lit up. Everyone else seemed to know before him.
“A group chat I was in with some friends from my old soccer club started going off,” Amo said. “They’re all saying, ‘Congratulations.’ So that’s when I went onto the draft tracker and saw it.”
What he saw was that Real Salt Lake selected Amo, a 2017 Southern High graduate and Lothian native, with the 34th overall pick in the second round.
Amo, who just finished his senior season at Louisville, couldn’t believe it was real. His lifelong goal had defied the black hole into which so many childhood dreams fall. It was really happening.
“It feels amazing,” Amo said. “Stepping back and taking it all into perspective, I fulfilled a childhood dream of always wanting to become a professional soccer player, so I’m really happy.”
The 5-foot-10 midfielder appeared in 54 games at Louisville, starting 23, and was responsible for multiple victories. In six games in the unusual 2020 season, Amo shot for 60%, leading the team with three goals and finishing with six points.
Real Salt Lake assistant general manager Tony Beltran wrote in a news release, “We are elated to welcome Elijah to the club. Elijah is an dynamic attacking player that our staff had identified high on the list of potential targets. We look forward to welcoming him to Salt Lake in the near future.”
As a child, Amo looked elsewhere to root his soccer aspirations.
Four of the five weekdays, he traveled to Bethesda Soccer Club in Gaithersburg for hourlong practices. In 2012, Amo helped claim a Maryland State Cup and U.S. Youth Soccer Region 1 championship with the Bethesda Gunners. He even made the U.S. Soccer U16 National Team.
Dedicating so much time to bettering his skills out there didn’t leave much time for a varsity life back in Anne Arundel. Amo played one year of junior varsity basketball, but he didn’t play high school soccer.
As much driving and time was involved, Amo knows it led him down the path he needed, first to Louisville and then to professional soccer. He was ranked the 33rd-best midfielder in the country by his senior year and sixth-best overall in the Mid-Atlantic, according to IMG Academy 150 rankings.
“Looking back on it, it was 100% worth it,” Amo said.
That doesn’t mean that Amo was happy to leave Southern behind. A flood of congratulatory messages flowed in from his own hometown since last night. Some told him there are current and future Bulldogs who look up to him.
“That’s something amazing,” Amo said. “I’m just happy that I was able to jump toward the next level and people are able to see me and see where I come from.”
Amo is a member of an ever-growing club of Southern graduates who have gone on to accomplish bigger things in the sports world. Just last year, Bulldogs graduate DeJuan Neal found a place in professional football when he signed with the New York Guardians of the XFL.
That’s not a coincidence, Amo knows, but a causation.
“It’s the people. Without support from people within the area, then none of us would be where we’re at,” Amo said. “I know DeJuan, and I know the support system behind him is major. It’s the same with me, to be honest.”