Filed under: English Premier League, US Soccer, U.S. Men's National Team
The script, so far, could not have worked out any better for Eric Lichaj, who took a huge chance after his freshman year in college and may be rewarded with a dream debut for the U.S. national team.
Lichaj, 21, was born outside Chicago to parents who had emigrated from Poland as teenagers. The city famously has the largest population of Poles outside Warsaw, and will play host to the U.S. national team's exhibition game against Poland on Saturday. It is a night that Lichaj's development may come full circle.
He was on U.S. Soccer's radar from an early age. At 14, he joined the under-17 residency program in Bradenton, Fla. and featured for both the under-17 and under-20 national teams. But after missing his freshman season (2006) at the University of North Carolina with a broken foot, Lichaj made a bold move. Rather than stay in the U.S. and solidify his position in the college soccer/MLS pipeline, he moved to England and entrusted his development to Premier League club Aston Villa.
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