This is the latest installment of We Are TFC. Every week, we’ll sit down with one of the Reds and help you get to know them a little bit better, on and off the field. This week, Devang Desai chats with Will Johnson. The Canadian midfielder has been massive for the Reds since arriving from Portland via trade in the off-season. We hope you’ll enjoy this series and let us know which TFC players you’d like to see profiled in the future.
Take a look at your phone, what photo to you means the most and why?
JOHNSON: It's a photo of me and my family on my son Jaxx's second birthday. That's me and my daughter Arabella, Jaxx and my wife Caroline. Family is always the most important thing.
How would people close to you describe you in one word?
JOHNSON: Passionately crazy? Is that... one word? (laughs) I want to say passionate but my daughter says I’m a little crazy sometimes, but those two combined.
How much has that helped you get where you are?
JOHNSON: I appreciate what I get to do for a living, I appreciate getting to represent tons of thousands of people through my job and personally when I was in the Timbers Army, I felt like I represented them and act the way they wanted their captain to act and here, I try to do the same thing with the supporters groups and the city and take the red that’s in everyone’s hearts and bring it on to the field with me and understand that the results are the only thing, at the end of the day, that matters. We want to win, we have a responsibility to our ownership group, to our city, our fans – to represent the city the way it deserves to be represented.
You went over to Europe at an early age. What was it like to make that change so young in life and have all these new experiences hitting you head on?
JOHNSON: It was good. You learn a lot about the game and about yourself quickly. In professional sports there’s one team per city and so if there’s a coach there that doesn’t value your qualities or whatever the reason might be that you don’t fit in, then you have the move and you have to get games and experience and be willing to do whatever it takes to make it and so that’s what I did. I started chasing the dream, I started looking for coaches that valued my skill sets, which I still do to this day and you gain experience from that and you learn to evolve your playing style and career to suit more coaches and more clubs and so I encourage a lot of players that if it’s not working out somewhere, not to give up, to continue to try to find a place where you fit in because there are places and coaches that value different skill sets.
Favourite soccer player and why?
JOHNSON: In the past it was Michael Owen. He was coming up in Liverpool when I lived there and I thought he was the new, fresh thing so a lot of kids my age were big Michael Owen fans and big Liverpool fans. He was an inspiration for me, just the way he played the game, how quick he was and how many goals he scored but then I kind of drifted towards Steven Gerrard a little bit. He was the captain; he was a leader. I liked the way he was a leader, ran the pitch – so probably those two guys are the two main players I look up to.
If you weren’t a soccer player what would you be doing?
JOHNSON: I like to discuss topics. I think I’d be a good lawyer. I like to state my case and build arguments. I’m passionate and I believe in positions so I think I’d be pretty good at that.
Who is the funniest player on the team?
JOHNSON: I find Jozy Altidore funny. He’s an interesting guy. He’s got more of a drier sense of humor but he’s funny. I don’t know if he always means to be funny but he is.
Favourite TV show?
JOHNSON: I like Suits. They film it in Yorkville and around the city so I always look for the Toronto license plates.
What are you listening to music wise?
JOHNSON: I like country music just to mellow out because I’m a pretty high strung individual so anything country just to get some of the tension off my mind is a good thing.
I’ve been asking the guys what’s been their favourite moment with TFC thus far. I think the obvious answer for you would be the goal against Vancouver. Can you walk me through that goal but also, the immediate aftermath? Just everything that went into it because it was such a signature moment for the club.
JOHNSON: Well it was frustrating game overall, I thought we came out and did really well in the first 30 minutes, then got into the halftime a little bit lucky and as the game went on, I was a little frustrated and a lot of our guys were fired up in terms of the antics and time wasting and the rest of it. I just knew – I kind of believed that things work out the way they’re supposed to work out if you stay true to the cause, to the pattern and so in my heart I felt as though there was going to be a chance.
If you watch the play back, you can see that in my movement, as this ball is in the air, I jump and I’m ready, I know something’s going to happen here. I just had that feeling and the ball bounced and I knew I had it, I knew I had one look, one chance to take it and obviously it was a huge moment for our fans, for our team, and the young guys just because if you look at the group we had on the field, there was next to no experience other than myself, Seba, Drew and Ben. We had players that were injured or on international duty. I think it was really an evolution in the step of Toronto FC. It just meant so much to so many people that obviously the injury was an afterthought in the end.
Did you have a Eureka Moment growing up, where you knew you could make a living playing professionally?
JOHNSON: It was a steady progression for me. I’m still not the most talented guy or the fastest guy, but I always felt that I wanted it more than other guys. I was willing to train longer, work harder, go to different countries, do whatever it takes – it doesn’t matter to me. I wanted to make it. Probably the time I was a sophomore in high school, 14/15 years old, I had a sense that that’s a quality coaches respected and people appreciated and so I knew I was doing the right thing and I had people guide me, obviously people I looked up to, guide me and put me in the right direction and made sure I stayed the course in terms of the hard work.
When I say Toronto, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?
JOHNSON: Busy. It is busy. Alive. Vibrant. Massive change. We lived in the woods in Portland, in a nice little city, you know, we walked the dogs in the nice suburban life and now we’re in Canada’s version of the concrete jungle.
Who are your heroes in life?
JOHNSON: The people I live with, my wife and kids, they have to put up with me, they have to go on this journey with me. It’s not easy moving, you know, you make friends in the city and then in this profession, stability is not common you know, so I’ve asked my wife and my two children to pack up and move from Portland to Toronto because that’s what’s best for my career and every time they say yes so for them, everything I do is for them and I look up to them and their selflessness that they show to me for me to live my dream for as many years as my legs will allow me.
Ultimate goal in life?
JOHNSON: That’s a good question: it sounds cliché, but to be there for my family. Whatever they need, just be there for them and try to support them after my career’s over. Big picture with the Canadian national team, I’d like to coach them one day. I think that would be an ultimate life goal to try to advance the game in this country in the right way. I think I could offer some really important qualities there. For me, I’m a really simple guy in terms of that so it’s family and football, in that order.
