As the week-long United States under-20 camp ended last Sunday in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., one of the players who is shaping up to be an important part of the team in months ahead is the forward Villyan Bijev.
Bijev arrived in camp after a phenomenal 2011 during which the youngster sign a professional contract with Liverpool. Along with Real Salt Lake midfielder Luis Gil, he is one of the most high-profile players on the 36-man roster.
For Bijev, 18, it was his first time with the U.S. team and he is pleased with how both he and the team performed.
“The camp has been great and there are a lot of great players here,” Bijev said. “I feel like I’ve been playing well. Everybody just came off of winter break so I think it’s kind of normal that a few of the players would be a little bit rusty. But taking that into consideration, I think everyone is playing really well and I feel that my performance has been good at this stage.”
Earlier last year Bijev had been playing with the U.S. U-18 team and had made initial plans to attend the University of Washington. But in the summer he made headlines when he went on a trial at Liverpool and delivered a stellar performance.
During the trial he played in two games for Liverpool’s U-18 team. In the first game against Tranmere, he scored two goals and assisted on a third in a 6-1 win. In the second game, against Stevenage, he scored a hat-trick and added another assist in an 8-1 win.
Club officials at Liverpool were clearly impressed and they wasted no time in signing Bijev to a three-year contract with a club option for two more years.
“I believe the trial worked out so well because I got a chance to play with players who have been playing professionally since they were young,” he said. “I got to train with [the players] before the scrimmages. During the scrimmages I knew what they would be looking for. I was making good runs and the ball was just there. All I had to do was put it away which is the instinct I have as a forward. I guess the chips just fell where they needed to fall.”
Bijev was born in Bulgaria but moved to Fresno, Calif., when he was a child and it is there he began to develop while playing for the California Odyssey, one of the premier youth club teams in the country. When he was 17 he obtained his American citizenship.
Bijev was unable to play for Liverpool after signing for at least a year because he had no way of obtaining a British work permit at the time because of Bulgaria’s transitional status in the European Union.
Because of this issue, Liverpool immediately sent Bijev on a season-long loan to Fortuna Düsseldorf in Germany’s second highest division, the 2.Bundesliga. The club was seen as a solid choice as they were anticipated to be in strong contention for promotion.
“I like being in Germany a lot,” Bijev said. “The style of play at Fortuna Düsseldorf is also possession and the speed of play is very fast. That has helped me a lot as far as knowing what to do with the ball before I get it and playing one or two touch. I would definitely prefer to be in Liverpool from the beginning and not have to go on loan. But due to the work permit situation, if I had to be out on loan anywhere, I would prefer to be in Germany.”
The first half of his season with Fortuna Düsseldorf has proven to be difficult for Bijev to break into the first team primarily because of an ankle injury that lingered.
“I rolled my ankle during a game where we were playing on artificial turf,” Bijev recalled. “I just kept taping it and playing on it. It got to the point where I could no longer play on it. I flew over to Liverpool and had treatment there and came back to Germany to have more treatment. I returned to playing and I made the mistake of playing without tape. I reinjured it even worse.”
The injury kept him out four weeks and it was not until the beginning of December that he began to feel 100 percent. He finished 2011 on a positive note with solid training in Germany before the winter break.
For Bijev, it put the exclamation point on a year that saw a meteoric rise and laid the foundation for him progress at one of the world’s most storied clubs.
“Last year was the most progression I’ve made in my career and I think the main thing has to do with focus,” Bijev said. “I always wanted to go pro as opposed to going to college. Knowing that, I pushed myself to the limits with the California Odyssey as well as doing trainings on my own and in the U-18 camps just trying to get better every day. In the end it worked out for me.”
Now in 2012 Fortuna Düsseldorf is in first place as the end of the winter break nears, and Bijev’s top goal is to make the first team during the second half of the season to ensure the club’s promotion to the Bundesliga. To do that, however, he feels that the next step in his development is to improve his physical strength.
“The areas of my game that I want to improve on are mainly to get stronger and stronger on the ball,” Bijev said. “To be a forward I need to have good upper-body strength. Also, [I want to work on] shooting from range and making better contact with the ball to keep [my shots] low. Other than that, I feel like I have good awareness when I’m in the box. When the ball comes to my feet, I know what to do with it.”
When Bijev joined the U.S. U-20 team last week, he was hoping to boost a team that was coming off a bitterly disappointing cycle in 2011 where it put together a talented team but fell short of qualifying for the FIFA U-20 World Cup after an upset loss to Guatemala in the quarterfinals of the qualifying tournament.
Last fall, U.S. Soccer hired Tab Ramos to coach the U-20 team and reinvigorate the program. Bijev had never met Ramos before the camp but after his first experience playing under the former U.S. national team captain, Bijev said he enjoys the style of play Ramos wants to implement and feels that it will mirror top teams in the United States.
“I like the way he coaches very much,” Bijev said of Ramos. “He seems like a very possession-minded coach, which I think is very important as far as the direction that the United States wants to go soccer-wise. I think it’s important as opposed to in the past [when] we were known to be more physical and fit guys just chasing the ball. I would prefer we keep possession — we play with ball and make the other team chase us. That’s what Tab wants to do.”
Bijev is familiar with most of the key players on the U.S. U-20 team and is confident they will have the ability to succeed as they move forward in building a team to qualify and succeed at the 2013 U-20 World Cup in Turkey.
The development path he is on, however, is different from the path of most of the players in camp. On the 36-man roster, 15 are currently in the N.C.A.A. ranks. There have been many players like Clint Dempsey, Oguchi Onyewu, and Vedad Ibisevic who have played in college that have had great success.
Still despite the success of a few, the environment with professional clubs in Europe is simply different for players at that age.
“There are a lot of great players in this U-20 group,” Bijev said. “One thing I can say is the only difference in playing abroad is that those players play on a daily basis from a young age. With the U.S., most of the players are in college so they have many other responsibilities on top of playing soccer. Whereas the professionals, their main focus is just to play soccer as opposed to going to school and jobs.”
Bijev is excited to be part of the U.S. U-20 team, but as with any player with dual citizenship, the issue of which country a player will represent arises and Bijev’s situation is no different.
Bijev is happy to have multiple options and he does not discount the idea of representing Bulgaria. Still, he happy to be with the U.S. U-20 team and is committed to the U.S. program at this stage.
“Right now the U.S. is in my mind in terms of who I want to represent,” Bijev said. “But at this young stage in my career and also in my life I think it’s a good thing I have an opportunity to play for either country. I would like to keep all my options open. But right now I am committed to the U.S. I’m very blessed to have been called into this camp and I’m very thankful. I’m happy to be here.”
Brian Sciaretta, a native of Bernardsville, N.J., and a graduate of Georgetown University, writes about U.S. national teams and youth national teams for the Web site yanks-abroad.com. Follow him on Twitter, @briansciaretta.