Hi Danny, for our readers, your name sounds very international – where are you from?

I was born and raised in Germany in the city of Karlsruhe. While my mother is German, my father is from the USA. As a US soldier, my dad was stationed in Heidelberg in Germany. This is where my parents met and our family story began.

Most people know you from your football career. How did it start?

My professional football career started when I was 15-years old. I was scouted for the youth academy by the head scout of SC Freiburg at the time. As Freiburg had one of the best football youth academies in Germany, I was happy to go there. However, Freiburg focused on building up talent and selling them to other clubs as the club lacked the financial opportunities to keep its players.

After growing from the youth team to the second and then first team at SC Freiburg, I switched to 1899 Hoffenheim. Two years later, when I was then 24, I had the opportunity to move across to the UK with FC Reading. At this point, I also became the first US player to earn his first national team cap under the new head coach, Jürgen Klinsmann.