Darlington Nagbe: The Enigma

Darlington Nagbe could be the best player on the U.S. men's national team. Does he want to be? 

- Andrew Helms

THE WARNINGS COME EARLY. When I tell other writers I’m heading to Oregon to profile Portland Timbers attacker Darlington Nagbe, the words shy and introverted invariably land in my lap. These aren’t criticisms of Nagbe so much as attempts to regulate my ambition. I want to find out what makes Nagbe tick; they aren’t sure I’m going to be able to.

This much I know: Born in Liberia during the blood-soaked civil war in 1990, the 6-month-old Nagbe escaped the devastation and ended up in France, where his father— Liberian footballer Joe Nagbe—was playing professionally. After a childhood spent following his dad’s football career across Europe, Nagbe’s mother moved the family to Ohio, where he catapulted into the American football pipeline: top youth club to top college program to Major League Soccer club.

Now 25 and a freshly-minted U.S. citizen, he’s just received his first call-up to the U.S. national team. It’s a development that fans have been anticipating since he joined the Timbers in 2011. “It’s almost like he’s a magician on the field,” says teammate Rodney Wallace. “When you think you’re going to win the ball from him, you have no chance.” His longtime coach Caleb Porter says, “I firmly believe it—and some people laugh when I say it—that if you took him right now and threw him in a Barcelona training session, he would not be out of place.”