MADRID (AP) — For some NFL players, especially those with ties to soccer, playing in Europe is special.
One such player is Washington Commanders kicker Matt Gay, who played soccer most of his life before switching to American football.
he will be at real madrid Santiago Bernabéu Stadium on sunday commander undertake the miami dolphins The NFL’s first regular season game in Spain.
This will be the seventh and final international game of the season, a record for the NFL in a single year. expand globally.
“For me, this is a dream come true. You played soccer in America, you played all the way through college, so the dream was to be successful in Europe and you wanted to play in the English Premier League or La Liga. So for me to play at the Santiago Bernabéu is just really ecstatic,” Gay said. “I never thought I would play American football, but it was still a dream come true.”
This will be Gaye’s third time playing overseas. He was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they played the Carolina Panthers in London in 2019. At the time, he was playing at the venue of his favorite soccer team, Tottenham. In 2023, Gay played for the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt, Germany against the New England Patriots.
As a teenager, Gay was a promising youth soccer player and was invited to join U.S. Soccer’s training program. He eventually switched to American football at the University of Utah and was drafted in the fifth round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2019.
Gay said he was greatly influenced by some of the top soccer players he watched from an early age.
“I grew up watching Cristiano Ronaldo, Dimitar Berbatov and Karim Benzema from Manchester United,” he said. “I was a centre-forward and a number nine striker, so I watched them and of course I just played the game the way it was supposed to and just scored goals. That was kind of where my love grew.”
“I look at all of them. There are players who played in the English Premier League and then switched to play for Real Madrid. So that was my whole life growing up until I switched to American football. So for me, this is again… I’m really happy to be playing here at Real Madrid.”
Manager punter Torres Way likened the Bernabéu to an iconic American stadium.
“If you grew up playing baseball in America, you would love to have the chance to play where the New York Yankees play. When you play football, you play in legendary stadiums like the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. So to be able to play American football now and come and play where Real Madrid plays is like a dream come true.”
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