If you aren’t an Orlando City SC fan, Daryl Dike (Dee-Kay) might be a name you haven’t heard yet or just recently discovered scrolling through the last two weeks of MLS Highlights. Recording his first MLS goal and assisting on the road in a narrow loss to instant interstate rival Inter Miami on August 22, he returned days later with two goals to his credit, one of which was a beautiful brace on the counter against Nashville FC at home.
What you haven’t heard is that Daryl comes from a soccer pedigree, with a brother, sister, and cousin who all play/played for the Nigerian National Teams. Eligible for the Nigerian squad through their parents, his sister wore the No.10 jersey in the middle of the park for Nigeria in the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada. Daryl also has an older brother who had a career in MLS with the Portland Timbers and Toronto FC. You probably haven’t heard of his multiple youth state championships, his Region III USYSA title, nor his and his youth teammates’ deep run into the 2017 USYSA National Championship. That was a tournament he would take the highest honors in, being named to the Top 11 in the tournament, all while playing two years above his age group.
If he seems to have arrived on the scene out of nowhere, you would be wrong. The state is called Oklahoma… and believe it or not, the soccer culture continues to grow at a rapid rate despite being overshadowed most of the time by their “everything is bigger” southern border neighbor. Daryl didn’t just spring from the obscure plains of middle America though. A big reason Dike’s story is not out there lies with Daryl himself. He comes from a good and supportive family who believe in educating, hard work, and results. He is an extremely humble player and you can see it in the interviews that are starting to pile up on social media. He is not a self-promoter and comes off very genuine in his responses to the media. But at 6’ 2” 220 lbs, excellent hold-up play, incredible strength, and pace, it’s was hard for Daryl not to be noticed.
Dike’s youth accolades had gotten the attention of DI college programs across the country in the final years of his youth career, one program, in particular, the University of Virginia. After just two years with the program Dike became an intricate part of the team and instrumental in getting his team to the National Championship; Dike signed a Generation Adidas contract and entered the MLS draft, where he was picked up in the first round as the fifth overall pick by Orlando City SC.
Daryl Dike, fourth from top left.
Everything in this article, up to this point, you can find on the internet if you look hard enough. Based on that information, it is probably too early to say that Dike is the real deal, right?
Well, let me tell you why this Dike is the real deal! You always hear that expression “Oh to be a fly on the wall”, well, in this story I WAS that fly! I was able to periodically get “snapshots” of the player, little snippets of a potential star. Having been a youth soccer coach for over 20 years and a soccer parent as well, in a relatively small state, this Dike kid kept popping up!
I first observed Daryl at a state Olympic Development Program session in Tulsa when he was 14 years old. Daryl was already very mature standing 6’ and already starting to fill out. There were a lot of whispers amongst the parents, “That’s the kid, the one whose brother plays in MLS” and “look at him, he’s a man among boys out there”. I was very excited to see this player after hearing all the buzz. I have to admit though, I wasn’t completely sold on Dike at first. It was through his development I saw him transform into the type of player that breaks into Virginia’s starting XI as a freshman.
That first ODP session I was puzzled by some of his decisions making in the game which is where doubt first crossed my mind. The next time I saw Dike was at ODP Region III trials in Tuscaloosa, AL summer 2015. Oklahoma’s opening match was against Mississippi and they had no answer for Daryl. With his immense speed and strength, he calmly shrugged off double teams on the way to the goal. My son, the right-wing, stopped trying to beat people down the line early in the game and just kept feeding Daryl. Our team would cruise to a 4-1 victory, Dike with all four goals. You would have thought at that point I was sold on the player. You would be wrong though, as he pulled up in the second half of that first game with a thigh injury. Now you might be thinking, that’s unfortunate and I am being too harsh on a young player. That fall though, I saw the player again at his club practice off to the side jogging. I asked some of his peers what happened and they said “he’s hurt, it seems likely he’s always hurt”. So immediately my mind went back to Alabama months previously.
Now I never doubted for one second the immense pressure I am sure Daryl felt with the expectations swirling around him and pressures he might be putting on himself to meet those expectations. At this point he was still a kid, developing, and had such a higher ceiling already that he may not have even realized it himself which is often true of young athletes. It was the 2016/17 season that I really saw Dike’s game evolve and I started thinking, he could be the real deal! That year and the following season, Daryl was coached by the now-retired Oklahoma Energy FC coach Jesse Faily. The best way I can describe coach Faily is a perfect mix of tough love and one for all, all for one mentality! He ran a tight ship and he liked to have his team together to prepare for and simulate that next level experience. For example, your parents can come to the tournament but we are riding down together as a team and rooming as a team. It was under his direction you started to see this impressive hold-up play that Dike is now displaying in the MLS.
This is where the decisions making in the run of play made sense and didn’t stifle the attack. My son played a year down from Faily’s team at the same club and I recall a conversation he had with Dike during one of the scrimmages we had against them. Our defenders were being particularly rough with Dike, knowing they had to do everything in their power not to let him turn on the ball. I think Daryl also knew it was a scrimmage and he was longtime friends with our defenders which had him holding back. When Faily inquired why he wasn’t holding up the ball, Daryl said “they are pushing me”. Faily quickly replied “You have had people pushing (physically) on you your whole life!”, “Sit in, receive the ball, and turn him!” That’s all Dike needed to center himself mentally and the remainder of the scrimmage he was a force to be reckoned with. That mentality, along with great technical instructions, prepared him for an institution like the University of Virginia.
I never saw him as injury-prone again and I think he also had fortified his mental toughness in his final years of high school. I believe that at Virginia, Dike realized he did have a rather high ceiling when it came to his potential. I tried to catch every game in Virginia’s march to the College Cup Final in 2019, when I heard Dike had become a mainstay in the line-up. The player I saw on the screen was everything I had hoped for this player, his finishing had improved, his passing had improved, his tactical awareness was heightened. In the College Cup Final, Dike kept the Cavaliers’ hopes alive with a strike in the 86’ to take the game to penalties. Unfortunately, Georgetown prevailed 7-6 in penalties but Daryl Dike’s work throughout the match did not go unnoticed as he received Outstanding Player of the Match.
So, is Daryl Dike the real deal? I think the cards have fallen perfectly in his favor. At Orlando, he has the support system he had during his youth career in Oscar Pareja and the company. It’s no secret that Pareja invested in the youth of the club as seen in his tenure at FC Dallas. Also, as a player progresses through the levels, he’s increasingly surrounded by better and better players. What better player to learn from the first hand than his team captain Nani. I have observed Dike as a student of the game many times and by Nani taking him under his wing, we are going to see a Dike who will become a household name of the American soccer landscape!
