Fish ’n’ chips or currywurst? In Danny Williams’ world, the two are in leagues of their own. “They are both different in their own tastes,” says Reading’s Germany-raised, US-repping midfielder.
Williams moved from Baden-Württemburg to England two years ago, and there’s not much he doesn’t love about his new home. Not even the local cuisine has put him off the place. (The club nutritionist should look away now.)
“I’ve learnt a lot about the English culture. About fish ’n’ chips and all that stuff. Next to my place, I have a good restaurant that serves fish ’n’ chips, so when my parents are coming over to visit me, I am always having fish ’n’ chips. It’s very good.”
The football is a different story. It’s been an up-and-down couple of seasons in the Championship for Williams and his Royals. In 2013-14, they just missed out on promotion. Then last season, they battled to avoid the drop.
“It was a disappointing season,” the heavily tattooed, punkishly haired 26-year-old says in his gentle timbre. “The manager, he made it clear already he don’t want to have a season like that. He wants to push for promotion. We just have to get our confidence back.
“It’s a new season, new start. So we all start from zero again, and it’s about us, only about us. We have to find a rhythm, we have to find a way of winning because especially at home, we didn’t win too many games. I think that’s the biggest change that we have to try fix.”
They are a work in progress. Five rounds in, and Reading have only just notched up their first win, the weekend’s 3-1 victory at Brentford. They are yet to score at home, but they are undefeated in four matches. Their 2-1 opening week loss at Birmingham City was a big turnaround on the 6-1 hammering they were given there last year. Williams has been looking dangerous, and has scored once.
It’s something he only managed to do once last season, in part due to a knee injury. The injury has disrupted a good deal of his time in England. It sidelined him for the crucial final weeks of the 2013-14 campaign, kept him from going to the World Cup in Brazil and meant a late start to last season.
“I fought my way back to the team [in early 2014] and all of a sudden I got this big knee injury, six weeks or five weeks before the World Cup. And I was [playing well] again and all of a sudden the doctor says I have to make other plans for the summer. That was a tough moment.”
That troublesome knee also saw him rested for this summer’s failed Gold Cup campaign before getting called up for this month’s friendlies against Peru and Brazil. With hindsight, it’s a decision US coach Jürgen Klinsmann may well regret, especially given Williams’ performances in end-of-season friendlies against Germany and Holland.
In that match in Amsterdam, he scored his first international goal, and you only had to see his celebration to know how much it meant to him. He raced up the field thumping his heart, before jumping into Klinsmann’s arms on the sideline.
“It’s the best moment when you score for your country, you know. You can make so many people happy. Because I think we represent one of the best countries in the world. You saw it in my celebration, it was a moment I’ll never forget.”
He says it was an especially significant moment for his dad, a New Yorker who grew up in North Carolina. “He was proud, because he’s American, and his whole family is from the States, and they all watched it.”
Williams’ parents met in a way that is almost becoming cliched in the US men’s national team: it happened while his soldier dad was on a tour of duty in West Germany at the end of the Cold War. At least a half dozen of his national team-mates have a similar story to tell.
Months before the Berlin Wall was torn down, Danny was born in Karlsruhe, just outside the Black Forest. He graduated from the youth team to the Bundesliga side at Freiburg, was quickly signed up nearby Hoffenheim, and then Reading came calling. Until that move to the UK in 2013, Williams had never lived outside his home state.
In the Championship, Reading aren’t expected to challenge Hull City, Middlesbrough, Ipswich Town and the like for the title. But Williams, like his manager, is expecting a big improvement on last season, for both himself and the team.
“Everyone can step their game up [and] I want to be more of a threat in front of goal … I always say when you work hard, someone up there he will reward you for that, see it, and as long as you work hard you will always come back stronger.”
