In the 66th minute of Sporting Kansas City’s 2-1 U.S. Open Cup Championship win over New York Red Bulls Wednesday Sept. 20, former BVNW student Daniel Salloi scored Sporting’s second goal of the night which proved to be the difference in the game. Salloi, who spent the 2014-15 academic school year at BVNW as a foreign exchange student from Hungary, spent time on the U18 academy team for Sporting.

Salloi said he was shell-shocked by the American high school experience and it was everything he could have dreamed about and more.

“I wish I could have spent more time at the school because I really liked it,” Salloi said. “I took a lot of pictures and videos and I remember I was FaceTiming my family real quick because I was like ‘look at this. Look at the lockers, look at everything,’ and I was just super excited.”

Salloi’s ELA 12 teacher, Kimberly Hillstock, said Salloi stood out to her the first time she met him in her class due to the way he presented himself.

“[Daniel] stood out to me right away,” Hillstock said. “You know how some people have that little sparkle in their eye? He had that and you could see that he was just very much into listening about everything.”

Hillstock said she always knew Salloi would go on to be successful, whether it be in soccer or another profession.

“I knew he would be successful,” Hillstock said. ” You could just tell that this kid had had a lot of experience and was a prime athlete. If [soccer] didn’t work out for him, I still thought he would land on his feet. He carried himself with a sense of confidence even though he was an outsider.

During his time in Kansas City as a high school student, Salloi said he visited Children’s Mercy Park and watched Sporting play, something that inspired him to try to get to where he is now.

“When I came here and I went to my first Sporting game I was like, ‘wow this stadium is so cool, I really want to play here,'” Salloi said. “So when I started playing at home, I kind of had it in my head that it would be so great if Sporting would sign me, and when the next transfer window opened up they signed me, and it was great. It feels like a second home and I’m glad they signed me.”

The 21 year old Hungarian has scored four goals in his time with Sporting, oftentimes being used as a second half substitution by head coach Peter Vermes.

Despite falling just short of meeting the Blue Valley district academic credit requirements for graduation, and never being able to walk across the graduation stage with the rest of the Class of 2015, Salloi said he will always consider himself a Husky.

“I’m always going to be a Husky,” Salloi said. “I became American [at BVNW], they helped me to get used to America and everything.”