- How Richards chose football
- Scouted for Bayern at 17-years-old
- Assisting Robert Lewandowski on debut
Crystal Palace’s American defender Chris Richards has revealed everything about his early career and his time at Bayern Munich in Germany. Bayern face the second leg of their Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint Germain, and currently trail 5-4.
Richards, and his agent Alan Redmond, sat down with Business of Sport to discuss all sorts of topics, one of which being his start to life in professional football and his time at Bayern Munich in Germany.
From dropping basketball for football and being scouted at just 18-years-old, Richards has revealed exactly how the start of his journey to captaining the US men’s national side began.
Life in Alabama
Richards had always intended to study at university, and joked that the “Bayern thing came around” and disrupted it. “I was the smallest kid until literally 17, when I grew 7 inches in one Summer.” Before his growth spurt Richards’ dreams of playing sport professionally felt out of reach.
“If you’d come to me at 16-years-old, if my agent had seen me then, I’m not gonna say I was the hottest commodity.”
“I always wanted to be a basketball player,” Richards revealed, joking that his dad is still disappointed with his decision to pick football. “I took a trip to Argentina and witnessed my first professional football match, I came home and told my dad, who was an ex-basketball player – ‘I think I’m just gonna play football from now.’”
At 16, Richards moved from Alabama to Houston to play for his first academy, after a failed trial at FC Dallas in Texas. Impressing at Houston, Dallas came back in for Richards and he played there for a handful of months.
Bayern Munich had a close relationship with FC Dallas at the time, and it didn’t take long for Richards to be picked up on a trial.
“I got a call from a German number asking me to come on trial, and they signed me pretty much straight away.”
Coming from a humble background, the move to Munich was life changing for Richards. “I went from my parents giving me $50 a month to my first pay cheque, which was 50k after tax including my signing bonus. I went and brought a car.”
Dallas had originally sent Richards to Bayern on loan, but after three months the German club came back asking to sign him permanently.
“It was a difficult decision for me, because at the time I’m like I wanna go and play first team football, like I don’t want to continue playing under-18/under-19 football in Germany, but I’m glad they pushed me to stay.”
‘Starstruck’ in Munich
Richards went into a dressing room with some of the best players in Europe, but his reaction wasn’t quite as simple as one would imagine.
“At first I was starstuck, but then it was more like, ‘cool, I’m here, I’m gonna give it 100% and whatever happens, happens.’”
On his full debut for Bayern, he assisted Lewandowski, a huge achievement in its own right, but not something Richards really fathomed.
“I think being American you don’t quite understand the gravity of how big a club like Bayern is, so when I got there I was naive to how things worked over there, but I think that worked in my favour.”
Richards’ mindset was simply that he was there to play football, and his decision to leave Bayern was purely a footballing decision, which he also references his ‘American naivety’ as a key factor in.
Whilst his time in Munich didn’t necessarily go the way many players would have wanted, his performances there led to where he is today, an FA Cup winner, Community Shield winner and European semi finalist.
