Haji Wrights USMNT World Cup journey began with the zombie Cosmos: My feet are burning

Haji Wright’s path to the World Cup made a memorable start on Long Island. Wright, the United States forward who had been discussed in recent days as a potential fill-in for Folarin Balogun before Balogun’s red-card suspension was nullified, was a rising 17-year-old talent when he joined the New York Cosmos in 2015.The club made famous by Pele in the 1970s glory days of the North American Soccer League was briefly revived during the NASL’s second act in the 2010s, based at Hofstra’s facilities in Uniondale. The Los Angeles native came across the country to play and train with legendary players such as Spanish forward Raúl and Spain midfielder Marcos Senna.Alecko Eskandarian, a former USMNT player who was an assistant coach with the Cosmos at the time, recalled how Wright struggled at first with being a pro. During a summer game with the Cosmos B-team playing in soaring temperatures, Eskandarian noticed Wright fidgeting with his cleats.“I’m like, ‘Haji, you good, like, what’s going on? Do you have an injury?’ Eskandarian remembered.“And he was like, ‘Nah, the turf is hot, my feet are burning.’ I came over, I took a bottle of water, and I squirted it on his feet.

… And he played for like 10 more minutes, scored a goal, and then he was like, ‘Coach, I think you gotta sub me out.’ “…The guys in the locker room gave him so much crap to be out of the game because your feet were burning, I think for him, at the time, as a 17-year-old, he’s like, ‘Yeah, like my feet were burning, I don’t know what else I was supposed to do.”Despite the growing pains, Wright’s “god-given talent” always showed.“You look at a player with his size, speed, mobility, first touch, and you’re like, ‘Wow, the sky is the limit for him,'” Eskandarian told The Post.Wright’s talents were quickly noticed by European clubs, resulting in his move to Schalke in Germany’s Bundesliga in 2017.Wright, now 28, since then has played everywhere from...