Athletes - Edward Johnson

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	Athletes - Edward Johnson

Edward (Eddie) Johnson (born March 31, 1984 in Palm Coast, Florida) is an American soccer player, currently considered one of the best young players in America. He plays striker for Kansas City Wizards in Major League Soccer.

Already an established player on the US Under-17 team and having trained at the Bradenton Academy, Johnson became one of the youngest players to sign with MLS, and was drafted by the Dallas Burn as a Project-40 player in the second round of the 2001 MLS SuperDraft. In his first three years in the league, he did not get much playing time, and was very inconsistent when he did get on the field. Johnson scored just two, two, and three goals for Dallas in those seasons, while missing a lot of time with US youth national teams.

Johnson came into his own at the end of 2003, at the FIFA World Youth Championship in the United Arab Emirates. Eddie scored four goals (three from the penalty spot) to win the tournament's Golden Boot. He translated the success at the world stage to MLS (a change in Dallas' coach likely helped too), as in 2004 he scored more goals than in his first three seasons combined: 12, to co-lead (with Brian Ching) the league in that department, becoming the youngest player to achieve that feat in MLS history.

In May 2005, Johnson suffered an injury to the toes of his right foot that sidelined him until August of that year. After returning to MLS in August (he scored only five goals during the season), and making a brief re-appearance with the national team on September 7, 2005, Johnson reinjured his toes in mid-September and is sidelined until January 2006. With Dallas in salary cap trouble, Johnson was traded to the Kansas City Wizards on February 14, 2006 for two allocations.

Johnson, who has blazing speed, received his first cap and scored his first goal for the senior US national team against El Salvador on October 9, 2004, becoming one of a small group of American players to get his first international goal in a World Cup Qualifier. He then scored a hat-trick in his second appearance, all in a 17-minute span against Panama, just four days later.

Johnson is known to fans affectionately as "grown-ass man" or "GAM". He received the nickname after an interviewer asked him what video games he played. He responded, "I don't play video games. I'm a grown-ass man."

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