Team USA's John Brooks Jr. scored the game winning goal in Monday's World Cup match against Ghana. CBS Sports reports Brooks was put in as a substitute late in the game:
[H]is 86th-minute goal gave the US a decisive 2-1 lead that it wouldn't give up. Off a Graham Zusi corner, Brooks rose up and pounded the ball into the ground and it one-hopped into the net past Ghana's keeper.
Brooks, along with three other members of the U.S. national team, is the son of a U.S. service member. PSmag.com reports that U.S. military bases in Germany have become "fertile ground" for American soccer players who want to play professionally:
Players who wouldn’t stand a chance to make the German roster seek out other countries for which they may be eligible that may not have Germany’s soccer pedigree. For children of U.S. military personnel, America is an obvious second choice. U.S. Soccer has been happy to recruit these Americans who have been trained elsewhere.
Brooks is the son of a U.S. Army veteran, and grew up in Germany, where he attended the John F. Kennedy German-American Community School in Berlin, according to American Soccer Now.
Brooks tattooed his unique heritage on his body: There is a map of Germany on one elbow, and a map of Illinois (where his dad's family lives) on the other.
