Damion Downs‘ first sport was American football, a passion he had to give up when he moved from Texas back to his native Germany.
But it didn’t take him long to find joy with the round ball and now at age 20 he’s starring for an FC Köln team on pace to return to the 1. Bundesliga.
With his goal and assist in Wednesday’s 3-2 German Cup loss to Bayer Leverkusen — after his similar feat four days earlier in a 2-1 league win at Eintracht Braunschweig — Downs has nine goals and five assists in 21 games for the German second division’s first-place team.
The son of a U.S. serviceman and German mother, he’s eligible for the USA and Germany.
He played for Germany’s U-20s last year, but has also attended U.S. U-20 and U-23 camps, falling short of making Coach Marko Mitrovic‘s 2024 U.S. Olympic team. With U.S. center forwards Haji Wright, Ricardo Pepi and Folarin Balogun injured, the recent goal production by the speedy 6-foot-3 Downs has likely put his name in the mix as Coach Mauricio Pochettino ponders his roster for the Concacaf Nations League final four March 21-24.
Downs was born in the small Franconian-Bavarian town of Werneck, near the U.S. Army Garrison Schweinfurt. At 18 months old, when his brother was 4, his father was reassigned to Texas.
“So I moved with four suitcases and two kids in tow,” said his mother Tanja Douglas on her podcast, “Mein Sohn. Der Profi?” (“My son. The pro?”). “I gave up everything in Germany — my apartment, my car, everything — and started a new life there.
“But things didn’t go as I had envisioned. The marriage, well, let’s just say it was far from good. But that’s life.”
She stayed in Texas for three years after the divorce to keep her sons near their father. Watching Germany’s World Cup games, while wearing German replica jerseys, was the only soccer in their lives. They thrived in American football. “Damion stood out early on for being incredibly fast,” said Douglas. “His coach was a big fan of his and was sad to see him leave.”
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