People talk about their favorite players all the time.
“Oh sure, Messi, he’s my guy, love him.”
“Yeah, I like Ronaldo. I know. Sorry.”
“Zlatan’s my favorite. The man’s crazy.”
Sure that’s all great. Whatever. My favorite player? Well, that’s Deshorn Brown. He’s my guy.
This is Deshorn Brown, incase you didn’t know who he was. [1]
To be honest, I’ve never watched him play. I’ve never met him. I’ve never seen him. I have absolutely zero connection with Deshorn Brown and have no reason to know that he even exists.
But all of that excludes one season I played on FIFA.
I was never really that good at FIFA, and I never really played that much. However, when I did play, I’d only pick the 2014 Colorado Rapids. I’m from Colorado so I thought to myself, why not play with the Rapids? One of my friends and I made the fairly daring decision to play an entire season with them. To be honest, we didn’t know the time commitment we had just taken on. Again, we weren’t very good at FIFA so we’d just play on the easiest setting. At a certain point, It got kind of boring to consistently win by five or more goals, but we couldn’t just stop. We had a season to play!
We had quite the trio up top. Gabriel Torres, Dillion Powers, and Deshorn Brown. Torres quickly established himself as our assist specialist, putting up truly historic numbers. Halfway through the season, we started to get lucrative offers to sell off Dillion Powers. He was playing well, but we never loved him so we sold him away. We had big dreams and bought Chris Wondolowski with the extra money. Sadly, he broke his leg in his first game with us. (Who knew he’d also let down the U.S. later on that summer in the World Cup in real life.) This left us with our rock. Deshorn Brown. He averaged over three goals a game. He didn’t run, he flew. He didn’t dribble, he danced. He carried the team. He was the team. His heart beat for us. We loved this guy. He. Was. Awesome.
Now of course, all of this, it was partly a joke. But at the end of the day, Deshorn Brown gave our games meaning. When it’s game thirty of an undefeated season, things can get pretty boring out there. The game wasn’t about winning, it was just about getting Brown the ball. We rooted for (and kind of controlled) his success.
Fast forwarding to last summer, we thought it would be kind of fun to see him play in real life. I mean we were his biggest fans for no real reason at all. He could have been a horrible player and I wouldn’t have cared one bit. So I found Rapids tickets and looked up the roster.
Brown wasn’t on there. I was broken.
He had been traded a few years ago. And actually, that’s been the story of Deshorn Brown. He plays well, quiets down, and gets traded. In 2013, he finished second in MLS Rookie of the Year voting. He didn’t do much else for the Rapids after then. By 2015, he was out, sold to a Norwegian team, Vålerenga [2]. He put up similar numbers for them, effectively scoring a goal every other game. One year later he was off to China [3].The next year he was with DC United [4]. Now, he’s playing for Lorca FC in Spain [5].
Deshorn Brown, playing for one of his many teams in 2017. [6]
Okay. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know about any of this stuff until I looked it up an hour ago. But he’s still my guy!
It sounds kind of weird, but I feel like I know how he plays more than I know how other players (who I’ve actually watched) play. Sure, I’ve never seen Brown run, but I know how he would run. I’ve never seen him cut the ball to his left, but I know how he would do it. I’ve never seen him score a goal, but I know how it would happen. There’s a reason he became my favorite player on that FIFA team. What more can I say, I like his style of play. He’s awesome, he’s a winner, and if he’s ever traded back to the Rapids, I’m not going to miss out on my opportunity to finally watch this guy in action.
(Not sold on him? Watch this video of him scoring the third-fastest goal in MLS history. He’s the real deal.)
If you blink, you’ll miss his 15 second goal.
Written by Michael Olson
Bibliography
[1] Hayden Schiff, Deshorn Brown. April 19, 2017. Cincinnati.
[2] Rapids Media Relations. “Colorado Rapids transfer Deshorn Brown to Vålerenga.” Colorado Rapids. March 17, 2015. Accessed February 14, 2018. https://www.coloradorapids.com/post/2015/03/17/colorado-rapids-transfer-deshorn-brown-v%C3%A5lerenga.
[3] “Vålerenga fikk trolig dobbel pris for Deshorn Brown.” Alternative_text. July 07, 2016. Accessed February 14, 2018. https://www.dagsavisen.no/sport/vif-spiss-deshorn-brown-skal-vere-solgt-til-en-kinesisk-klubb-1.749545.
[4] Goff, Steven. “In need of scoring help, D.C. United acquires Deshorn Brown from Tampa Bay Rowdies.” The Washington Post. June 20, 2017. Accessed February 14, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soccer-insider/wp/2017/06/20/in-need-of-scoring-help-d-c-united-close-to-acquiring-deshorn-brown-from-tampa-bay-rowdies/?utm_term=.095c9d0577e4.
[5] Lorcafc. “Deshorn Brown, potencia y gol para la delantera del Lorca FC.” Lorca FC Web Oficial. Accessed February 14, 2018. http://lorcafc.com/2018/01/31/deshorn-brown-potencia-y-gol-para-la-delantera-del-lorca-fc/.
[6] Hayden Schiff, Daryl Fordyce, Deshorn Brown. April 19, 2017. Cincinnati.
