Gooooch! Onyewu takes his game abroad

It sounds as if Oguchi Onyewu is being showered with derision when he takes the soccer field. But fans are not booing him: They're bellowing his nickname, Gooooch, in a baritone chorus soon to echo in Europe's hallowed stadiums.

After helping the U.S. national team reach the final of the Confederations Cup in South Africa this summer, Onyewu signed a three-year contract with A.C. Milan, making him the only U.S. player in Italy's famed Serie A and the most prominent American player in the world.

"This may be a fad," Onyewu said recently. "When it's over, they'll all go back to Landon."

Landon Donovan, the Americans' career leading scorer, is wiling away in Major League Soccer, and many of his United States teammates play for middling clubs in England or in smaller European leagues. But Onyewu, a 27-year-old defender, has climbed atop the European soccer hierarchy, and neither the burden of novelty nor the pressure of playing for one of Europe's elite teams seems to worry him.

"When I signed here, I didn't even think twice about being the only American," said Onyewu, who played four seasons in Belgium for Standard Liege, which has won the past two Jupiler League titles. "It's the same as any other club. I think if you don't perform then you're not going to get the results you want."

Onyewu wants to crack a Milan starting lineup that features eight World Cup winners and some of the most talented players of a generation.

On the practice field, the 6-4, 200-pound Onyewu towers above his tiny teammate Andrea Pirlo. His long strides and quick feet cover more ground in one step than the talismanic Ronaldinho does in 10.

And though Onyewu appears more suited for that other brand of football, he is at ease playing among such superstars. "I think football is football, anywhere," he said. "I don't think that because I'm American, or any other factor, I should feel out of place on the team."

Milan began the Italian season yesterday without its longtime captain and star defender, Paolo Maldini, who retired after 23 seasons. The team acquired Onyewu and Thiago Silva of Brazil to bolster the backline.

"He brings an American mentality to the team," said Clarence Seedorf, a Milan midfielder. "A sports mentality, a winner's mentality."

Onyewu played two years at Clemson before pursuing a career in Europe. He got his break with the national team in 2005 under the former coach Bruce Arena, who valued his size and athleticism.

"Certainly he has the physical qualities you want in the centerback," Arena said. "That's an area where the U.S. team was lacking. I knew in time he would continue to improve and establish himself as a quality player."

In the Americans' final loss of the 2006 World Cup in Germany against Ghana, Onyewu challenged for a ball in his own penalty area just before halftime. He cleared the ball with his head, but the referee ruled that the much larger Onyewu had fouled the smaller forward, awarding Ghana a penalty kick.

"It was a lesson he learned," Arena said. "He is a big, physical guy and when he establishes contact, guys will go down. With the opponent embellishing it, he's going to get calls that other defenders will not get."

Arena and the current U.S. coach, Bob Bradley, described Onyewu as an exceptionally intelligent player who recognized what was going on around him on the field and re-engineered his game to be more effective.

"Obviously when I first started I was raw a little bit and I needed to learn my body and learn to control myself," Onyewu said. "I think that's the whole process of growing up, learning, progressing as a player."

Last year, he played more minutes than anyone else on Standard Liege, and he was one of the least penalized, drawing five yellow cards in 45 games.

"There's a lot of points of my game that people don't recognize the progress I've made or the work that I've put in to make my weaknesses a strength and my strengths even stronger," he said. "As long as Milan was able to notice that to sign me, I'm sufficed with that."

Milan didn't have to pay a transfer fee to sign Onyewu, who was unsigned at the end of last season. He had hoped to parlay a strong performance in the Confederations Cup into a move to a bigger club. "Since December of '08, clubs have been offering me new contracts, but I've been delaying or passing them by," Onyewu said. "I was stubborn. I told myself, look, I didn't get to this point in my career, work so hard, just to settle. I'll take the risk."

He played in South Africa without a new professional contract, and his standout performance helped the Americans beat Spain, then the world's top-ranked team, and reach the final, where they narrowly lost to Brazil.