Johan Gómez is a twenty two year old football (aka soccer) player who currently plays for Eintracht Braunschweig in Germany. He began playing at the tender age of three. His parents registered him to play recreational soccer in a local YMCA in Fort Worth, Texas to try football as his first sport. He immediately fell in love with the sport, the competition, the team concept, scoring goals and it was here where he first experienced success in the striker position. His love for “the beautiful game” was magnified by all the football he watched at home with his family. Although his family did not watch much television during the school week, the weekends were different as there were always football games on TV from multiple leagues around the world. Johan fondly remembers watching his first world cup (Germany 2006) at the age of five.
Johan excelled in several sports as a child; however, he decided to join a soccer club called Solar to start playing competitively. There, he played for five years, where he and his team won many tournaments until he turned twelve years old and then, the time for a new challenge came knocking. Johan and his parents felt it was time to make the jump to a more competitive team. It was then that he went to try out for the then prestigious FC Dallas (pre-academy at the time) Academy and from that moment, he was invited to play with them and became an FC Dallas player . It was at FC Dallas that Johan developed the most as a player and as a person. As an amateur, he joined FC Dallas’ USL 1 professional affiliate team (NTSC) where he scored his first goal and had the opportunity to play with his brother Jonathan (only one game).
However, in the eve of his eighteenth birthday, Johan and his family again decided it was time to give the biggest leap in football and this time move to Europe. With his then-agent’s help and his talent, he received several invitations from clubs in the Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain) and a club called FC Porto (Portugal). After several weeks training and playing in Europe, Porto extended him an offer and he and his family decided it was the best opportunity at that time. Johan is convinced that thanks to the Lord, staying there since August 31, 2019 has marked the beginning of his professional career.
Johan considers himself blessed and is grateful to the Lord, all his family and friends for the support throughout the many accomplishments in his young career. For example, at eleven years of age, Johan and his Solar Red team won the state cup of Texas; “It was an awesome experience”, Johan recalls. At thirteen, he along with his FC Dallas teammates achieved the first undefeated season in the academy’s history, culminating in the national championship where Johan had a chance to score a goal against the LA Galaxy. At the end of that season, he tried out for the futsal (a form of indoor football) United States national team and made the team (in 3 consecutive years). He represented the United States in futsal international competitions in Canada, Costa Rica and Colombia scoring goals in each. All of those experiences in futsal molded him into a better football player.
As a team, FC Dallas was able to win a tournament in Qatar against Leicester City (England) in 2016. At sixteen, Johan managed to score important goals against international teams like the Monaco (France) , Pachuca (Mexico) , Frankfurt (Germany) and Real Madrid (Spain) as part of the Generation Adidas Cup competitions. Individually, Johan was always the top scorer in each FC Dallas team he was a member of and this eventually led to his selection to United States Soccer Development Academy (USSDA) Best XI for two consecutive seasons and in his last domestic season won the highest honor as USSDA player of the year in his conference. Undoubtedly, all these experiences helped him to be called up with the national U20 US twice (and national team -U16- prior to that), and that he could score his first goal at international level against United Arab Emirates (UAE) U23 team. Unfortunately, COVID prevented him from participating in the U20 WC that was supposed to take place in Indonesia in 2021. Prior to COVID, Johan was traveling through Europe (Latvia, Slovania, etc.) competing in the UEFA Youth League with FC Porto and learning a fourth language in the process. He is writing a new chapter of his story everyday….
Other interests
Besides football, Johan has other pastimes, among them are, spending time online (#Chumchat YouTube channel, #TheGomezway YouTube channel), playing FIFA, playing piano, avid reader, writing (currently writing two books), watching movies, learning other languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese, German and French) and most importantly spending time with family and friends.
#TheGomezway 