[MUSIC] Welcome back. Hailing from Roanoke, Virginia, our next guest was the first American footballer to ever sign a professional contract for English powerhouse, Arsenal FC. Danny Karbassiyoon played for Arsenal, Burnley, and Ipswich Town and made four appearances for the US under 18 team during his injury plagued career which was cut short at age 24. Upon retiring, Danny was hired by Arsenal to serve as their Concacaf head scout. Danny has shown success as a professional scout, being credited with finding Joel Campbell and Getty Anzalalom, who recently announced his allegiance to the US national team. Danny has also co-founded the Miami based Soccer Without Limits, a fast-growing online soccer technology platform. Uniting and empowering global fans of the world's most popular sport. Danny will walk us through how a footballer reaches a premier league club, where their career can go from there, and the relationship between players and agents in the football soccer world. And how a player can prepare himself for when the cheering stops. I hope you enjoy our interview with Danny as much as we did and thanks for being with us again today. Welcome back to our module on soccer football. It's our privilege and pleasure to have with us today. A former player, and now a scout, and Danny I'm going to mispronounce your last name, so why don't you say it for us. >> It's Danny Karbassiyoon. >> Karbassiyoon. And thrilled to have, thanks for being with us. Thanks for being with us. >> Yeah, thank, thank you guys for having me. Absolutely. So, as we said in the prep session we'd love for you to take our audience, our class through your four stages of your preprofessional and professional career. So, all the way back to your school days, how did you get scouted? They have your bio. We know you are now a scout. How did you get scouted, how did you become attractive to Arsenal, and take us through that whole pre-professional phase. It's very different than the NCAA phase that we see in the other sports that we look at in this course. But how did it work for you? >> Yes, I grew up in the states, I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, and I think just like any other youth soccer player in the United States, I grew up playing travel soccer. The team that was in our area was called the Roanoke Star, and I started playing with them when I was about eight years old. At the time, ODP was the main way of getting seen by any sort of state, regional, or national teams. It's now kind of, going to off the boil a little bit with the development academies coming into place, but I started playing ODP when I was about 14. And I made state teams, I was on the B team initially. Made regional pools. I never really made it into the national team until I was about 18 actually until after Arsenal came into the fold. But I guess when I was about 17 yeah 17 years old I got invited to Adidas ESP camp. Which at the time was the, basically the thing that you wanted to be invited to if you were trying to go get a college scholarship and play soccer. Adidas had invited about 150 players from around the country, all high schoolers. And this year, I was in Wilmington, North Carolina, or that year I was in Wilmington, North Carolina. And I actually waitlisted, for that camp, and I was devastated because it was as I said, that was the camp that you wanted to be invited to in order to be seen by all the college coaches and get these college scholarships. So about two days I think before the camp started. They they called and said somebody had dropped out of the list and that I was next on the list. So I called my dad and asked him if he'd drive me to Wilmington which is about eight hours from Roanoke. And he took me down. I was fortunate in that the coach that I was assigned to at the camp was a former Arsenal player, his name was Paul Mariner. And Bob McNabb was another coach there who was also an Arsenal, former Arsenal guy. After about two days of the camp, they unbeknownst to me, they actually called the chief scout at Arsenal. I was having, I was, I don't mean to be arrogant, but I was having a pretty decent camp [LAUGH]. >> I guess so. Must have. >> Even even like I was even surprising myself to an extent. But they called the Arsenal chief scout. His name's Steve Rowley. Steve, flew to Wilmington, immediately the very next day, watched me for the rest of the week, at ESP. And then I ended up actually winning the Golden Boot which is the highest score and the best, I guess, offensive player at the camp. And then two, about two days later I after I got home, I remember sitting at my house and my parents received a phone call. And they said Danny, somebody from England's on the phone and it was Steve Rowley who said he'd like to have me over for two weeks on trial at Arsenal. So about two weeks later, I went on trial, they offered me a contract but I told them, I said schooling for me was very important so they let me finish out my final year in high school. So I wanted to really focus on graduating high school. I actually graduated Valedictorian of my high school as well. So for me growing up this decision was actually pretty difficult. Because I was after ESP I had been offered a lot of scholarships from a lot of the top colleges, which like I said was the goal of the camp. So for me that was really really exciting, getting offered scholarships from some of the best schools in the country soccer wise, but also academically as well, like Harvard, Stanford, all the Ivy League schools. But then also all the soccer schools, Duke, UVA, Wake Forest. So that was great. Now I had this kind of curve ball that came in with Arsenal, which as I said I went to the camp just hoping to get a college scholarship and I ended up getting a lot more. So, they let me graduate high school. I went over again on another one week kind of training stint in December of that year and then when I graduated high school, I ended up moving to London. I think July 7th was the day to start preseason. >> Okay. Thank you for that. So what was the unique skill set that you offered them at that time. We look at these, that which is the scenic of being drafted. What was it that you were showing throughout these showcases and these trial periods? >> Yeah, I was always this is actually going to be kind of funny because I went over there as a striker and my main, what I thrive on was being in front of goal and scoring and scoring goals. And creating opportunities for my team, so when I went over there, I actually got to train with the first team. One of the days of my trial, which was, it was an amazing time at Arsenal, then the Invincibles and everything. My first season there, the team went unbeaten in the league, which just shows how how amazing of a time it was. But on my trial I got to play actually in one in one of the training games I got to play along side Thierry Henry as a striker and it was just kind of a dream come true. But it was also just a way for me to see just how good I was, and I really compare myself to those top guys because when you grow up in the states and you grow up playing kind of travel soccer in a small, I guess mountain town in Virginia, you kind of have a difficult time knowing just how good you really are, compared to the world. After I went to England I actually, after my first year I found it very, very difficult, adapting not only on the pitch, but off the pitch. It's a very, I was an 18 year old, everybody is used to going off to college and dealing with that that in their life. And I had to deal with the fact of living in a foreign country by myself. And then also dealing with all these new soccer things that I had to deal with, and dealing with some of the best players in the world. So, they actually ended up moving me to left back about a year into my contract, and I ended up playing a left back for the final three years of my time in England. >> Let's go back to, since this course is called Representing the Professional Athlete. Who represented you as you entered into that first contract with Arsenal. And without disclosing anything that might be confidential, what kinds of dollars and cents were we talking about when you juxtapose that with a college education you might otherwise have had through a scholarship? >> Yeah, so the initially I guess when I got went over on trial at Arsenal I didn't have an agent or anything. Now they, traditionally clubs like to do everything they can I guess without agents because agents can make things a little bit more interesting. [LAUGH] I say interesting for clubs. They certainly make things more interesting. So I didn't have an agent which was great. They just flew my dad and myself over there. I guess when I came back I started getting phone calls from a lot of the top agencies in the US. I remember actually speaking to Landon Donovan's agent. He called me, and Donovan actually walked into his house when he was on the phone with me, and he put Landon on the phone with me. And it was a very, very awkward conversation between a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old kid. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] That didn't know really why they were on the phone with one another. But one of the agents in particular visited my family and I in Roanoke and left a pretty good, oh, what's the word, impression on us. And he was based in the U.S. at the time, he was an English guy but he was on the verge of moving to England so we kind of kept him kept him in mind. But I wanted to have an agent that was actually going to be in England. They could look after me in case I needed something immediately. So when I did go to England we were put in touch with an agent that dealt with Arsenal quite a bit and he ended up actually doing the deal. I didn't sign actually I didn't sign with him but he did the deal represented me throughout all that initial stage. And then, we kind of I guess split ways after I signed the contract. Regarding the contract, it was about, it was worth at the time probably around 100, 120 thousand dollars a year for my first year and it went up slightly for my second season there. And when you look at these, and you look at college and you compare what you're giving up in college and stuff. That's why I said, it was a difficult decision to make because $120,000 although it is quite a bit of money for a kid coming straight out of high school. If injury does happen, you're by no means set up for life or anything. It's very different from a player who goes first in the NFL draft, for example, and is guaranteed a multi million dollar sum right out of the door. So that was, it wasn't by any means like, at that point we weren't, you don't even particularly negotiate, for way more money. When you're a kid who's coming from, this opportunity wasn't even on the table, two weeks prior. So you can't go in too greedy. But it was a good, it was a great amount of money. Now the contracts have changed drastically in England because clubs like Chelsea, Manchester, City, have so much money at their disposal that they they've made it very, very competitive for kids who are 18 or 19. Some of the kids are getting upwards of 20,000 pounds a week now, and not even playing in the first team, which is which is pretty crazy. But yeah, it made it a bit of a difficult situation or decision for me to make just because of what I was what I would have been passing up on, in the NCAA here. >> Yeah. Any regrets? >> No. I don't have any regrets. I mean I got the chance to play for Arsenal's first team, I played three games. I became the first American to score for them, which is something that's really special to me. I got the chance to play at Old Trafford against Manchester United for Arsenal. In front of 70,000 people, another thing that's, another very special game, especially at the time, so I don't have any regrets. I know it was a short-lived career, but it's opened up a lot of doors for me now. And I don't have any. >> Okay. Well as I say the class has your bio, so we know how the story goes, but, but there was the, you went to Ipswich for a while. Now is that loan out that you asked for, the team requires? How does that, how did that work in your case? >> Yeah, so I was actually I was set to come home back to the US on the 20, like the 23rd of December when I was at Arsenal. And if you're not involved in the first team's plans, they'll give you five days off and you can go home and basically just relax and then come back five days later and continue training for the season. On the 20, I think on the 22nd, actually the 22nd or the 23rd, my agent who is representing me now, the agent that I said came to visit us, in Roanoke. He'd moved to England at that point and was now representing me. And this is when an agent is actually is very beneficial, because he called and said, Danny, Ipswich wants you on loan but it actually the loan deal will start tomorrow. I know you're set to go home. But they actually play Wiggand, who Wiggand were still, they were in the championship at that time and they'd come to this amazing rise from the lower leagues. And it was going to be a top of the table game. So it was a pretty interesting situation for me. Because even though I played three games in the first team at Arsenal, it wasn't something that I was by any means accustomed to, was playing first team games. I was playing regularly in the reserves, which is quite a different setup, in terms of mentality and what is expected of the players and management and everything. So the agent called and said they want you tomorrow. You'll be on the bench for Ipswich. You know kick offs at 7:45. But you obviously you can't go home. So that was another, I keep mentioning these decisions and you keep being presented with these decisions and from a career standpoint it was a no brainer. Like you have to do it. From a from a personal standpoint, after being in England for six months, its raining every day at that point, in the winter. Its dark at three o'clock, and you're just excited to go home and kind of have a little bit of normalcy again in your life. That made the decision kind of hard. Obviously I had swallowed that and said yeah, I'll be at the stadium tomorrow. So I went and I signed my deal with Ipswich initially it was just for a one month loan deal. The winter period in England is very busy and very costly on teams because of all the games. So teams generally try to strengthen a little bit during the winter with loan deals. Or really buckle down and make sure the rotation for players is quite high because of all the injuries in all the games. So I went, I was on the bench that night. And then that was the 20, I believe that was the 23rd. And then we had another game on the 26th on Boxing day. Down closer to London, and I spent Christmas day with my teammate, at Arsenal, who was asked to actually stay with the first team, just with him and his family. He was a Swedish player. He's at Sunderland now Sebastian Larsen. So I just spent Christmas day kind of eating dinner with him and then drove to a hotel on Christmas night, to meet up with my new teammates for two, that I'd just been with for two days. And spent the night in a hotel on Christmas night and then we played Millwall the following day. They ended up actually extending my loan deal another two months so I spent three total months in Ipswich before returning to Arsenal. [MUSIC]
