Signed for free..Gooch vaults soccer to the top

[Don1]

Defender Carves Out a Space Among Europe’s Elite
Paul Thomas/Associated Press
Oguchi Onyewu, right, is the only United States player in Italy’s famed Serie A league, and the most prominent American soccer player in the world.


By JEFFREY MARCUS
Published: August 21, 2009
It sounds as if Oguchi Onyewu is being showered with derision when he takes the soccer field. But fans are not booing him — they’re bellowing his nickname, Gooooch, in a baritone chorus soon to echo in Europe’s most hallowed stadiums.





Ned Dishman/Getty Images
A.C. Milan, seeking to bolster its defense for the Italian Serie A season and UEFA Champions League campaign, signed Oguchi Onyewu without having to pay a transfer fee.


Robert Ghement/European Pressphoto Agency
Oguchi Onyewu, top, was a key member of the U.S. soccer team that defeated Spain in the Confederations Cup in South Africa in July.





After helping the United States national team reach the final of the Confederations Cup in South Africa in June, Onyewu signed a three-year contract with A.C. Milan, making him the only United States national team player in Italy’s famed Serie A and the most prominent American player in the world.

“This may be a fad,” Onyewu said recently. “When it’s over, they’ll all go back to Landon.”
Landon Donovan, the national team’s career scoring leader, plays in Major League Soccer, and many of his United States teammates play for midlevel clubs in England or in smaller European leagues. But Onyewu, a 27-year-old defender, has climbed to the top of the European soccer hierarchy, and neither the burden of novelty nor the pressure of playing for an elite club seems to worry him.

“When I signed here, I didn’t even think twice about being the only American,” said Onyewu, who played four and a half seasons in Belgium for Standard Liège. “It’s the same as any other club. I think if you don’t perform, then you’re not going to get the results you want.”
Onyewu will try to crack a Milan starting lineup that sometimes features eight World Cup winners and some of the most talented players of their generation.

On the practice field, the 6-foot-4, 200-pound Onyewu (pronounced own-YAY-woo) dwarfs his teammate Andrea Pirlo. His long strides and quick feet seemingly cover more ground in a few steps than Ronaldinho does in 10. And while Onyewu appears more suited for the American brand of football, he seems at ease playing among such stars.
“I think football is football, anywhere,” he said. “I don’t think that because I’m American, or any other factor, I should feel out of place on the team.”
A.C. Milan will begin the Italian season on Saturday without its longtime captain and star defender, Paolo Maldini, who retired after 25 seasons. The team acquired Onyewu and Thiago Silva of Brazil to bolster its backline.
“He brings an American mentality to the team,” Clarence Seedorf, a veteran midfielder, said of Onyewu. “A sports mentality, a winner’s mentality.”

In addition to losing Maldini to retirement, A.C. Milan sold its best player, the Brazilian Kaká, to Real Madrid and failed to obtain a star to take his place. That prompted the club’s most passionate fans to demonstrate outside the team’s training facility the day Onyewu signed.
Only one United States national team player has played in Serie A — Alexi Lalas, who played for Padova from 1994 to 1996 — and Onyewu’s arrival is not likely to quell the fans’ discontent. The Italian news media played down that Onyewu was an American, emphasizing his Nigerian heritage. There have been several prominent African players who have had great success in Italy.

“Anybody who knows me knows that I’m Nigerian, from Nigerian parents,” said Onyewu, who was born in Washington. (At the end of last season, Onyewu filed a legal complaint against another player in Belgium, alleging racial abuse during a game.)
Onyewu speculated that the distinction might have been a way to justify his contract to disgruntled fans. “But if you know me on an international stage, you know me because of the fact that I played for the U.S. national team.”

Onyewu played two years at Clemson before pursuing a career in Europe. He got his break with the national team in 2005 under the former coach Bruce Arena, who valued his size and athleticism.
“Certainly he has the physical qualities you want in the center back,” Arena said. “That’s an area where the U.S. team was lacking. I knew in time he would continue to improve and establish himself as a quality player.”

In the Americans’ final defeat of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, against Ghana, Onyewu challenged for a ball in his penalty area just before halftime. He cleared the ball with his head, but the referee ruled that the much larger Onyewu had fouled a smaller forward and awarded Ghana a penalty kick.
“It was a lesson he learned,” Arena said. “He is a big physical guy and when he establishes contact, guys will go down. With the opponent embellishing it, he’s going to get calls that other defenders will not get.”
Arena and the current United States coach, Bob Bradley, described Onyewu as an exceptionally intelligent player who recognized what was going on around him on the field and re-engineered his game to be more effective.
Onyewu said: “Obviously when I first started I was raw a little bit and I needed to learn my body and learn to control myself. I think that’s the whole process of growing up, learning, progressing as a player.”

Last season, Onyewu played more minutes than any other player on Standard Liège, and he was one of the least penalized, receiving five yellow cards in 45 games.
“There’s a lot of points of my game that people don’t recognize the progress I’ve made or the work that I’ve put in to make my weaknesses a strength and my strengths even stronger,” Onyewu said. “As long as Milan was able to notice that to sign me, I’m sufficed with that.”
A.C. Milan did not have to pay a transfer fee to sign Onyewu, who was unsigned at the end of last season. He had hoped to parlay a strong performance in the Confederations Cup into a move to a bigger club. “Since December of ’08, clubs have been offering me new contracts, but I’ve been delaying or passing them by,” Onyewu said. “I was stubborn. I told myself, look, I didn’t get to this point in my career, work so hard, just to settle. I’ll take the risk.”

He played in South Africa without a contract, and his standout performance helped the United States defeat Spain, then the world’s top-ranked team, and reach the final, where the Americans narrowly lost to Brazil.
“When someone has contributed to his club or national team consistently,” Bradley said, “big clubs take notice.”
A.C. Milan, a 17-time Italian champion and the winner of seven European titles, has not claimed a trophy in three years. This season, the team will return to the UEFA Champions League, the continent’s top club tournament, and could play more than 50 games, taxing even the deepest roster.

Onyewu acknowledged that he would have to earn his playing time, and he says he accepts that it may not happen right away. “Some players don’t get that instant gratification and they get their head down and start blaming the world,” Onyewu said. “I’m not going to be that way.”
It could be a worrisome prospect for the United States team if, in a pivotal year before the World Cup, Onyewu does not play regularly with Milan. But Bradley said he was not overly concerned. “Competing every day in training, at a high level, helps,” he said. “We certainly understand that when you go to a big club, it’s not going to happen right away.”