If you’ve ever met Bryan Byrne, you’ll come to two conclusions upon playing with or against him. The first one is that He doesn’t look like a soccer player. You would actually think someone is playing a prank on you because Bryne’s body type doesn’t necessarily yell SOCCER PLAYER! He’s about 5’7, 5’8 with these long arms, small torso and these freakishly long legs and giant feet. The second one will come after you’re done playing with him. At that moment you’ll end up thinking “Wow, He’s soo fast and he’s really good!!” (To this day, being in MLS, I still haven’t seen anyone run faster than him)

Byrne was the team captain of UC Santa Barbara when they won the NCAA Div 1 national championship back in 2006. During that time, there were two big names from that team that were going to join the MLS, Eric Avila and Andy Iro. Both were the “stars” of the team but Byrne always flew under the radar as the heart and soul of the team because he had been there since the beginning of UCSB’s New era of elite soccer players (Dan Kennedy, Thiago Martins, Rob Friend, Memo Arzate, Chris Pontius, Eric Avila, Andy Iro, Ciaran O Brien, Tyler Rosenlund etc).

As soon as his college career was over, there were talks between Byrne and the LA Galaxy. Word spread to the Galaxy that there was this right winger who’s bread and butter was to sprint past whoever was playing on the left side of the field and deliver an average of at least 10 crosses in one half, every time. Talk about being efficient, that’s who Bryan is (I say ‘is’ because Bryan still does this on our team)

For any team, what more do you want out of your right midfielder. At any level, especially the pros, as a winger a lot of times you’re measured more by how many crosses you can deliver in one half. That was never a problem for Byrne, that was actually his specialty.

During that period the Galaxy were struggling! I mean They sucked. They always lost. They needed a winger that could deliver crosses to Donovan, Ruiz and Pavon. At first, Byrne was their guy and then David Beckham came into the conversation. With all the buzz about MLS growing, the league was at a point where it needed a superstar, a face it can attach it’s brand with and expand the game to new heights. We all knew Byrne could do it on the field but this is David Beckham, how can you compete right? Unfortunately, Byrne couldn’t.

The LA Galaxy forgot about Bryan Byrne, contract negotiations crashed and after that, I think we all know what happened. To this day, you could say it sucked that that happened to Byrne but how awesome was it to have the best franchise in MLS think about who to pick between you and David Beckham. Who else can say that. Not a lot of people actually. It’s an amazing story to tell because that didn’t keep Byrne from achieving his dream. He got picked up by the New England Revolution, played in MLS and now as he’s done with playing pro soccer. The great thing about all of this is that Byrne still gets to play a lot soccer. Actually, He’s forced to play a lot of soccer because that’s part of his job He gets to test soccer shoes out for a living. Byrne runs SoccerCleats101.com which is a comprehensive website that gives you full detailed reviews about every and any soccer shoe that is out in the market. Not a bad move to make after getting snubbed by Beckham.

The newspaper clippings are from The Sun in Europe where Byrne had entire exclusive story written about him and David Beckham.

Here’s a great video of Bryan Byrne’s best moments with UCSB. That speed and delivery I was talking about, it’s all here. Check it out.