Daniel Steres gets personal about life as a professional athlete

Everyone, at some point in their life, has held the desire to be a professional athlete. Whether it was baseball, basketball, American football or real football, every single human being on this earth has wanted to do it.

Daniel Steres is one man who has made it happen. Now playing for Los Angeles Galaxy II, Steres has made the climb from a boy who wanted to play football, now to a peripheral MLS player with his sights on climbing even higher.

The trek began when he was four years old. The young whippersnapper was one of those rogue-minded sporty folk who preferred a ball at his feet instead of a leather egg in his hand. Call it revolutionary. Local rec leagues were not enough to convince Steres that football just was not that popular in the greatest nation in the world. At least not yet. But one of the main things that Steres finds so special about doing what he does is that he is part of something bigger.

“I’m going to be able to look back and tell my grandkids that I was a part of the growth of this sport in the Unites States. A few years ago, the MLS had 12 teams. Now they are approaching 30. There is so much more of a fan base and the quality of support has improved. During my time with the Seattle Sounders, we were walking out to the cheers of 60,000 adoring football fans.”

Believe it or not, a rise to the professional level in football is not so different from a rise to professionalism in that other football. Steres was a three star athlete who had to make a decision. He had widdled his options down to baseball or football and he chose the latter. While recruitment was wild for the footballing phenom, Steres chose to attend SDSU for the full four years.

Steres was drafted 28th overall by Chivas USA but, in what Steres himself called “a bit of a disappointment,” never received a contract. He was then picked up by the powerhouse Seattle Sounders.

However, the setbacks continued as he soon found himself in the USL playing for the Wilmington Hammerheads. As the team captain and leading goal scorer, it was pretty clear that Steres had bigger places to go.

“I kept reminding himself that I had one job, to get to a higher level of play.” Steres noted. “I wouldn’t get down on myself.”

Steres’ journey back then took him to where he is now, with Los Angeles Galaxy II.

The team had a strong run in the North American Soccer League playoffs despite being upstarts in the competition and took their run all the way to the finals, where they were were unfortunately knocked out by the Rochester Rhinos.

But one more setback will not stop Daniel Steres from making it back to the MLS. When asked what the next step was, Steres said that he just has to “keep working hard.” His advice for himself was a mirror image (or sound clip) of what his advice to aspiring athletes was.

“Keep believing in yourself. Keep working hard. Train. Never hit your peak. Get good training and progress every day. Always get better.”

Steres is now in the midst of what figures to be an eventful off-season. With the MLS as his target, he has his sights set on playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy. Being from Southern California himself, that hometown feeling is something that Steres has always used as inspiration.

“It’s unbelievable to have close family nearby.” He recalled. “They all come out for every game. It’s really surreal looking back at that.”

However, there is always that chance that playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy never works out. After all, Steres made many mentions of how club politics can get in the way. Sometimes the most deserving players never make it, it’s just a part of life. The concept of such an outcome did not cause Steres to lose his steely resolve.

“If so, so be it.” He stated. “It’s important to never set a ceiling. I don’t want to set the MLS as a ceiling. There are bigger leagues out there like the Premier League.” Naturally, the questioning turned to which team in England he was aiming for. “I trained with my club at Tottenham’s training ground in North London. Ever since that time it has always been Tottenham.”

With United States’ players like DeAndre Yedlin already making headway in the Premier League, at Tottenham, no less, perhaps it is not so far off as it seems. Of course, when it comes to the Premier League, why settle for Tottenham?