Meet Villyan Bijev

Who’s this tiny kid who may or may not have braces staring up at you all like he’s Puss In Boots or something? It’s Villyan Bijev. Probably when he was about 15.

Bijev, now 18, not so tiny, braces free, just finished his first training camp with the US U-20 National Team in Florida and Brian Sciaretta of Yanks Abroad gives him a damn good pat down in this New York Times piece.

Read up and you’ll discover, Bijev is not just another Yank starlet. This summer, after scoring five goals in two matches while trialing with Liverpool’s U-18 team, he signed a three-year contract with the Merseyside club. Now, he’s currently serving a season-long loan at Fortuna Düsseldorf in 2. Bundesliga. He’s Bulgarian born, but California raised. So he’s ours. (Here’s a clip of him coming on and scoring twice for Düsseldorf in a reserve match and getting some face time.) Anyway, I’ll leave the rest for Sciaretta to explain.

Bijev also did a Q&A with his hometown paper last week. In which, he’s asked about how easy it was for him to make friends when he got to Europe. His answer explains why the kid’s going places.

Off the field, everyone was extremely friendly. But, to an extent it’s hard to be friends with someone whose job you are trying to take.

Villyan? More like Villain. For the win.