Arsenal: The unique story of Calen Carr

Calen Carr knew that he had a dream to play professional soccer. Little did he know that his dream would lead him to his favourite team. Here is the unique Arsenal story of Calen Carr.

Now a host for Major League Soccer (MLS), Calen Carr is reflecting on his Arsenal story. The build-up to it, training sessions with legends and everything in between.

August 2005. Arsenal Football Club was entering a new era under the guidance of Arsène Wenger. It was out with the ruggedness and force of Patrick Vieira, and in with the guile and vision of Cesc Fàbregas. We didn’t know it at the time, but this change was a harbinger of what was to come.

Witness to this was Calen Carr. A fresh-faced, headband-wearing California kid on a short-term trial, although it was not framed as such to him.

“It was framed very loosely to me” he recalls. “It was framed as an opportunity to train there. I didn’t correspond with anybody directly at the club, it was all through my college coach, Kevin Grimes, who basically told me that nothing was promised other than a foot in the door”.

Carr had caught the eye of MLS franchises during his illustrious college career at the University of California, Berkeley, but he was desperate for an opportunity abroad. As noted in this official Pac-12 press release; “Carr was a first-team All-Pac-10 selection in 2004 and an honourable mention selection in 2002”. There was no denying his ability.

“I finished my junior season at Berkeley and I was getting some interest from MLS teams. I was getting told that I was a potential candidate for Generation Adidas but that didn’t quite materialise”.

“I told Kevin that one of my aspirations was to get an opportunity to try at Europe. So the idea was to take an opportunity in Europe over the summer, get that experience and then decide if I wanted to return to finish my college career and then try and go back to Europe, or come back and then go to MLS”.

Calen was offered trials at both Arsenal and Club Brugge KV, and even though he was 22-years-old when he arrived in Europe, he admits that he was still very much a developing player. At that time, 22-year-olds were classed as young players in the United States – young players who still had time to develop. That was not quite the case in Europe, where the concept of age was a little different. There were contrasting expectations. Only recently has MLS embraced the trend of youth and dynamism. 

“It’s funny because in that photo (3:35) I’m standing next to Nicklas Bendtner and Matthew Connolly, those guys were 17 and I was 22. That’s where I was fitting as far as training sessions, that’s who I was hanging out with, eating lunch with. Fàbregas had already established himself with the first team and I know that they were curious to see whether Nicklas could make that jump but I wasn’t ready for that”.

“What’s funny is that Nicklas was actually one of the most outgoing and charismatic guys. He really took to me and asked me a ton of questions about America, rap music, life here. He’d be the diet version of Zlatan Ibrahimovic in MLS!”.

Rather unsurprisingly, Bendtner was not the only one fascinated by Calen and his Californian roots.

“Players would ask me whether I knew a certain rapper or celebrity simply because I was from California, but I would tell them that I was from Berkeley in Northern California, not Hollywood!”.

369 miles is the distance that separates Hollywood and Calen’s hometown. Berkeley, a city renowned for academic achievement and free speech, is where Calen developed his moral principles and worked out “what matters most”. He learned very different life lessons on the field with Arsenal legends.

“I went and did 5v2 and my team was José Antonio Reyes, Pascal Cygan, Lauren and Dennis Bergkamp. Reyes nutmegged me three times when I was in the middle!”.

“However, that became my team when we went to 7-a-side, and I remember just giving the ball to either Reyes or Bergkamp as soon as I received the ball”.

“My physical qualities translated well and those players were so good that I found success. I scored two goals that day off Dennis Bergkamp assists and I remember walking off the field that day trying to take stock of everything that had happened. I got nutmegged three times, that was terrible, but I scored two goals off Bergkamp assists so I could die happily”.

Like many Arsenal fans of his generation, Thierry Henry was Calen’s footballing idol. He would later square up against Henry during the Frenchman’s time with the New York Red Bulls, but Carr admits that it was the magic of Dennis Bergkamp that stood out to him during his time at London Colney.

“He was a genius. The things that he could do with the ball, the way he could see a pass or his technique around the goal was just incredible. He made everyone around him better, that is what great players do. He could do it on his own, but he made everyone else better”.

Although a formal move never materialised, Calen Carr has only fond memories of his time at Arsenal.

“Everybody there was so welcoming, from the kitman to the physio to the chef. I could not have been treated better. It was my first interaction with a professional club and everything after was hard to measure up. Every day was a crazy experience and in two weeks I became a better player”.

“In a lot of ways those two weeks were the highlight of my career”.

If you are interested in learning more about Major League Soccer, I would highly recommend ‘The Movement‘, a show hosted by Calen which explores the growing soccer movement and soccer culture in North America.