Benny Feilhaber plays for a living.
It’s a lot of hard work, though, blended with a lot of fun.
Feilhaber is a midfielder for Sporting Kansas City. He joined the team in 2013 after having started in Major League Soccer with the New England Revolution in 2011.
He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and his family moved to the United States in 1991, when he was 6. He’s 31 now, and he’s been in love with soccer “as far back as I remember,” he said.
“At 2 or 3, I already kicked it around with my dad,” Feilhaber said. “I love playing soccer. I grew up with it, and it’s always been part of my life. My dad played it. I’ve been pretty good at it. It’s my livelihood. It’s really a big part of who I am.”
Feilhaber contrasts the glamour of being a professional athlete — the fame and the fun of it — with the parts of the job that can become a grind, which most jobs have.
“I think in every job there’s a sense of responsibility, and soccer is one of my greatest loves in life, but because it is (my) job, there are some things that aren’t so appealing,” he said. “There’s a lot of traveling, being away from your house and family. There’s a lot of physical training, and that takes a toll. Injuries are definitely tough. It’s very frustrating to not be able to play in games and be in rehab. There’s a distinct line there between the job and the play aspects of it.”
The best part of the job, he said, is game days, “just because it’s the most fun.”
Family life has changed his perspective on his work, he said. He and his wife, Michele Feilhaber, have been married for three and a half years, and they live in Overland Park with their children, Sofia, who’s almost 2, and Julia, who was born in early March.
“It makes you more responsible,” he said. “You’re not just playing for yourself, but you’re also playing for your family.”
He thinks he’ll probably continue to work in soccer after he retires as a player, he said, “probably coaching or scouting or being a technical director.”
Feilhaber started his professional career in Germany with Hamburg’s reserve team in 2005, debuted with Hamburg’s first team in 2006, joined Derby County in the English Premier League in 2007 and signed with AGF Aarhus in 2008. As a sophomore at the University of California-Los Angeles in 2003, he made the soccer team as a walk-on and played 16 games in his first year.
Among his career highlights, he said, are signing his first professional contract, making the UCLA team as a walk-on, playing with the national team in the World Cup in 2010, and winning the MLS Cup in 2013.
He also was one of three finalists for the 2015 Landon Donovan MLS Most Valuable Player Award, along with Kei Kamara of the Columbus Crew and Sebastian Giovinco of Toronto FC, who won the award. Feilhaber scored 12 goals and made a Sporting Kansas City record 20 assists last year. He scored 10 goals and made 15 assists in the regular season, which made him the third player in the team’s history to reach double digits in both categories in a single season. He also received MLS All-Star recognition for the first time in his career and ranked second in assists.
His nomination for the MVP award “was special, but I always think individual awards aren’t as important as team awards,” he said.
“It’s nice to get individual recognition, but I’d pretty much take a championship over that any day.”
It’s common knowledge how important soccer is to cultures throughout Latin America, Europe, Africa and elsewhere in the world. Its popularity and importance in the U.S. are growing, Feilhaber said.
“It’s tough to compare,” he said. “In Brazil, soccer’s been a sport and a passion of the people of the country, and there’ve been so many great soccer players. For the U.S., it’s still a growing process. It’s only recently become one of the top sports in America, but there’s still not enough media coverage or fans. I think we’re on a great path to make it a great sport in the U.S. It’s exciting to be part of the growth.
“I think whenever other teams play the U.S. national team, they take it very seriously,” he said. “U.S. teams are typically very organized, and they’re creative with the ball.”
