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If this looks like expert kicking form, it's no fluke. Odell Beckham Jr.'s youth coach says the Giants receiver could take get a U.Due south. national team role player if he'd stuck with soccer. Associated Press

Before he learned to dance down the sideline, shrugging off defenders looking to maul him, Odell Beckham Jr. danced inside the eighteen-yard box, shrugging off defenders looking to kicking him and grab him and mostly badger the hell out of him.

"The only mode they could stop him was to foul him," says Colin Rocke, who coached a 12-year-quondam OBJ at the Carrollton Soccer Association in New Orleans.

Jersey-tugging and double-teams are mutual in football and soccer; getting kicked by players specifically sent on to take you downwards is non. In part considering of this, a young Beckham learned what it was similar to be shown a carmine card for fighting.

"In soccer, you lot have to pretend that it's OK, and the ref deals with the situation," Rocke says. "He but couldn't accept information technology anymore."

Of form, as those familiar with OBJ's gridiron exploits know, there'south a lot of natural fire bubbles within the star broad receiver. Merely many may not know that the fire has its roots in his adolescent stardom on the soccer field.

"You could put him on a chessboard—he's going to want to fight you," Rocke says.

Beckham has opened a lot of NFL fans' eyes with his love for the game of soccer. He'southward executed nifty backheel flips with footballs during pregame warm-ups, spent time in Germany with his friend David Alaba and the rest of Bayern Munich, and he appeared on Heaven Sports in Britain to discuss his soccer past. He even met one of his childhood heroes, David Beckham.

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Rocke says the Giants wide receiver could have "easily" made the U.S. men's national team if he had decided to stick to soccer, confirming hype OBJ generated a few years agone when he said his youth coaches pushed to get him a national team tryout.

"And he would take been a good soccer player for the U.Southward. for a long time. He wouldn't accept just come in and had a practiced spell," Rocke says. "He could have been one of the all-time soccer players the U.South. always produced. Ever."

Matt Millet, some other 1 of OBJ's youth coaches, says he understands why Rocke says that most Beckham, just "it's difficult to project out."

"Patently, he'south a earth-class athlete. If he'd stayed in information technology, you lot never know," Millet says. "Did he have what it takes at 12, thirteen years old? Admittedly."

Beckham played center forward and loved to run on the ball. Millet describes a youngster who was usually the best player on the field, an attacker buzzing around, making things happen. OBJ got ahead with his physical gifts only still worked hard at the residuum of his game.

"That hunger and willingness to try anything was there," says Glen Benjamin, who coached OBJ with Rocke.

Benjamin remembers a competitive kid who worked on drills during water breaks and ever wanted to check in with coaches so he could larn. Asked to project a grown-up OBJ, Benjamin likens his former pupil to Thierry Henry with more speed, a goal-scoring opportunist who gets behind defenses and likes trying wild stuff.

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Glen's brother St. Nicholas Benjamin envisions simply Neymar. Both brothers come across a player evolving from a middle forward to one who cuts in from the right or left side of the pitch to wreak havoc. Glen sees information technology in his Henry comparison, while St. Nicholas really saw the beginnings of it in a friction match, when he cleared space in the middle of the field past sticking a immature OBJ on the fly as a decoy.

"We won that game because he played his role on the wing and allowed his teammates to smooth," St. Nicholas says.

Says Rocke: "He was creative. He would actually brand that pass to that kid who could score."

The potential parlor games are endless. How dangerous could OBJ have been up summit, next to Christian Pulisic and Clint Dempsey? Which other NFL players would be great soccer players?

Beckham'south potential to be a bang-up soccer player as well puts focus on the disability of U.S. Soccer to steer the state's best athletes to the sport. Imagine LeBron James in goal for the men's national squad, joining OBJ on the roster.

Of course, it was probably always going to work out this way. Beckham's male parent played football game at LSU, and his female parent was an Olympic-caliber track star. He attended the football game powerhouse Isidore Newman School—where the Manning brothers went—and quit soccer to focus on football even though Newman's soccer team won 2 country championships while he was there.

Despite the seeming inevitability of his determination, there'due south a wistful vibe apparent when his former coaches discuss OBJ's choosing football.

"I told his mom," Rocke says, "'This kid could be phenomenal at soccer.'"

Soccer wasn't the merely sport the talented youngster gave upward upon entering high schoolhouse. The same carry-my-team-to-victory attitude Rocke talks about so energetically was on display in baseball also.

"He liked being on the mound," says Donald McKay, Beckham's onetime youth baseball autobus. "Some kids shy abroad from the limelight that is being a pitcher. He relished it."

During an elimination game at a tournament in Cooperstown, New York, the Carrollton Boosters were losing eleven-seven going into the bottom of the last inning. They fought dorsum to get in 11-10. With a wild pitcher on the mound and the bases loaded, a 12-year-sometime OBJ strode to the plate. With the count at two-0 and and so 3-1, McKay let him hit. Sure enough, Beckham launched a fly brawl over the center fielder'southward caput to win the game.

"Always laughed with him," McKay says. "He coulda been a skillful baseball actor."

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Indeed, when OBJ the NFL star returned to throw out the outset pitch at an LSU game, he was said to take hit ninety mph on the radar gun.

Still, all his athleticism—the ability to see space; coordination betwixt hands, eyes and anxiety; how he adroitly eludes multiple defenders—was sharpened on the soccer field. The concentration he needed to brand one of the greatest catches ever against the Dallas Cowboys has roots in a patience learned on the soccer field. The maneuvering of his feet in tight spaces to stay in premises in the back of the end zone confronting the Green Bay Packers recalls the work needed to continue the ball close confronting multiple defenders wearing shin guards. The pirouette to get out of premises confronting the Minnesota Vikings without getting crunched tin can be washed over a soccer ball. Footwork is a universal term in sports for a reason.

"I would argue that he got his able-bodied beginning on the soccer field and it kind of grew from there," Millet says.

When his former coaches sit down dorsum on Sundays and watch Beckham thrive, they come across a grown-upwardly version of the aforementioned kid with the same burn down, doing similar things. There are the attention-drawing antics on the field, the attending-drawing plays and the skills that overlap generations, all of them a tribute to a work ethic and desire to exist the hero that take always been there.

"His mentality is exactly the same," Rocke says. "He's had that from nativity. He wants them to win. And that'southward how he was as a [soccer] histrion."

And if he'd stuck to soccer?

"He'd be playing somewhere in the big leagues," St. Nicholas Benjamin says.

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Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2733881-odell-beckham-jr-nfl-new-york-giants-soccer

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