Seven years ago, Geoff Cameron was scoring goals against Duquesne and Saint Joseph’s. He is now just days away from defending Cristiano Ronaldo and Mesut Ozil when he will represent America at the 2014 World Cup.
Although we typically write about and discuss Atlantic 10 basketball on this site, the former Rhode Island Ram deserves the Atlantic 10’s fans’ praise, as he prepares for the most important games of his life.
Playing against the world’s best, however, will be nothing new for Cameron, who is a starting defender for Stoke City, which finished ninth in the English Premier League in 2014.
“Everyone knows how hard, how demanding it is to play in the Premier League,” Cameron told the Providence Journal’s Tim Donaldson.
Cameron, an Attleboro, Mass. native, played at West Virginia for two seasons before returning home to play for the Rams.
“It was closer to home and, going into my junior year, I’d played in the summer for the Rhode Island Stingrays with a bunch of URI guys,” he said.
Cameron, as one might guess, played exceptionally in his two seasons at Rhode Island, tallying 10 goals and 10 assists. The Atlantic 10 named Cameron its midfielder of the year in 2007.
Despite Cameron’s strong showing as a Ram, he was a relatively unknown professional prospect, according to Fox Soccer’s Ives Galarcep. But Cameron’s athleticism enticed the Houston Dynamo to take a shot on him in the third round of the 2008 MLS Draft.
Cameron didn’t just live up to expectations – he exceeded them. In his four full seasons with the Dynamo he made two all-star teams and helped the Dynamo reach the 2011 MLS Cup. Cameron left Houston in the middle of the 2012 season to join Stoke, where he’s been a regular in two seasons there.
Additionally, Cameron has 27 international caps, but this will be his first World Cup.
Many people think the U.S.’s World Cup run will end early, given their opponents. America is matched up with Germany and Portugal, two World Cup favorites, and Ghana, who knocked out the U.S. in the last two World Cups.
Cameron, however, has different expectations.
“But you know what — we have a lot of good players, too,” he told Donaldson. “Anybody can beat anybody on a given day. This is an opportunity to do something that will turn some heads. This is an opportunity where history can be made.”
Cameron has already proven doubters wrong. Why can’t he do it again?
Thank you Geoff Cameron for representing America in the coming World Cup, and we, the Atlantic 10 community, are proud to call you one of our own.
