Spotlight Series: Miguel Berry
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San Diego Soccer Club, throughout its history has prided itself as a hub for youth player development, with a program dedicated to giving players the opportunity to play the game they love at the highest level. Through this mission, the club has produced some exceptional talent that has gone on to achieve great success on the pitch both at the college and professional level. Perhaps no SDSC alumni better encapsulates this road to the top of the soccer world than Miguel Berry, a striker for the Columbus Crew Soccer Club whose commitment to honing his craft now finds him making a name for himself in the MLS.
Berry, 24, began playing soccer at the age of three in his birthplace of Barcelona, Spain before his family moved to America when he was nine. Upon his arrival he began his career by suiting up with the Rancho Bernardo Renegades, one of the founding clubs that would eventually merge to form San Diego Soccer Club. Miguel later played for SDSC at the age of 17 under coaches Brian Quinn and Seamus McFadden, who would prove invaluable to his development as a player. When Miguel made the leap to division 1 college soccer, it was for none other than Quinn and McFadden at the University of San Diego.
“Obviously, when you play in college you get a chance to grow up, being on your own for the first time. It was good to play there and obviously learn from those coaches again,” Berry noted when summarizing his time at USD. “You get your first experience playing at a high level on your own, to still grow and develop before making the jump to pro, so it’s a good transition.”
It was certainly a good transition for Berry, as the striker tallied a remarkable 38 goals and 16 assists in 72 appearances for the Toreros, in addition to being named the WCC Co-Player of the year in his senior season. This production at the collegiate level did not go unnoticed and Berry was selected 7th overall in the 2020 MLS SuperDraft by Columbus Crew on January 9th, 2020, marking the start of his professional career. Before making any appearances on the pitch for the Crew, however, Berry embarked on a loan spell in familiar territory for the San Diego Loyal of the USL Championship where he scored 3 goals in 7 games. “It was great,” Berry remarked on his appreciation for his stint with the USL club. “To play for Landon Donovan is incredible, especially as a striker, so it was really cool to get to play for him and learn from him, and play professional games in the same college stadium that I scored so many goals in.”
All of these steps in his development culminated in the end of his loan spell in June and his re-inclusion into the club that drafted him. Now, during the current 2020-21 MLS season, Berry has been given meaningful minutes in the MLS for the first time and he has not shied away from the opportunity. When asked to describe his own MLS experience thus far, Berry had this to say: “Playing in front of a lot of fans is a new experience, but when you get down to it, it’s still soccer. It’s still the same game you play at the club level as a youth player. Obviously everyone is bigger, faster, and stronger, but you kind of scale up to that. It’s surprisingly similar, just the margins are much smaller, so you have to always be on top of yourself and be sharp.”
Berry has been just that in his first season back from loan for the Columbus Crew so far: sharp. Despite many of his appearances coming as a substitute, Berry has still managed to contribute 6 goals in 15 appearances this season. Perhaps even more impressive than his raw scoring numbers, however, is the crucial timing of his goals. Berry’s first ever goal in the MLS evened the score against FC Cincinnati in the 81st minute on August 27th, and his second goal just over a minute later would prove to be the decider in a Columbus Crew win. Not even a month later on September 14th, Berry once again sealed a win for the Crew, this time with a composed finish in the 88th minute against New York Red Bulls. You can see a video of that moment here.
“You see the play before it happens, because you prepare for it mentally while the play happens and you have to be able to anticipate,” Miguel commented on that winner against the Red Bulls. “Obviously it’s an unreal feeling especially because when I went into that game we were 0-1 down and we scored two goals in a matter of minutes to win the game. It’s an unreal feeling in front of 20,000 to do that, so I’m really blessed and really lucky.”
While his performance this season has been terrific and has endeared him to the Columbus Crew faithful, Berry makes it clear that he’s not satisfied. In discussing his goals going forward, his main goal became increasingly clear: score more goals. “I’m at five right now, which is great, especially for the minutes I’ve played and the chances I’ve gotten . . . But going forward, taking one step at a time, all I care about is scoring goals. I want to continue wherever I play to keep scoring.” With Columbus Crew currently sitting in 11th place in the eastern conference, Berry admitted that making the playoffs is “going to be very tough,” but also let it be known that the reigning MLS Cup champions are “more than good enough.” Berry even teased potential long-term career ambitions before refocusing on the present: “You see all these guys moving to Europe, maybe that’s in the cards for me as well, but for right now it’s just scoring as many goals as possible and contributing to the team.”
Considering that Berry has carried on his own tradition of scoring goals at every level he has played at so far, be it youth soccer, college, second division professional, and first division professional, he has given us no reason to doubt that he will fulfill his career ambitions. Whatever the future has in store for Miguel Berry, there is no reason to doubt that his continued improvement will see him continue to climb the ladder of greatness and stardom in soccer. And with every step he takes, he further paves the way and inspires young SDSC athletes to follow in his footsteps.
