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In the spring of 2018, a video landed on George Gelnovatch’s desk at the University of Virginia.

That was not unusual. Gelnovatch estimates he receives up to 50 a day from young footballers keen to join his programme in Charlottesville.

But this one was different. Something on the tape looked familiar and Daryl Dike’s sporting journey was underway.

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“Daryl’s brother, Bright, played at the University of Notre Dame,” recalls Gelnovatch, a former assistant coach of the US national team and the long-time head of the University of Virginia’s men’s soccer team, known as the Cavaliers.

“We played against him and I remembered what he looked like, and how he played — a lot like Daryl.

“One of my assistant coaches got hold of a video of Daryl and I saw incredible similarities to his brother. We actually never saw him live before we signed him.”

Less than four years later, Dike is a £7 million centre-forward preparing to make his West Bromwich Albion debut at Queens Park Rangers on Saturday and with pressure already building on him to transform his new team.

His new head coach, Valerien Ismael, needs Dike to adapt quickly and score goals.

Those who have witnessed his rise from unknown Oklahoman to USA international would not bet against him doing it.

“I would stand in the middle of the field during our training session talking to Daryl and I could see him taking in the information, blinking like a processing unit,” Gelnovatch tells The Athletic.

“I could see the message I was trying to get across going straight in because he’s such a bright, intelligent guy.”

The University of Virginia staked around $300,000 on Dike being a success. That is the approximate cost of a soccer scholarship handed out to a young hopeful like him — a huge sum of money to spend on a player Gelnovatch had not watched in the flesh.

Yet in Dike’s two years in Charlottesville, Gelnovatch rarely questioned his instincts.

“Daryl is from Oklahoma, which is not a hot spot, by any means, for soccer,” he says.

“He wasn’t playing consistently for his team in Oklahoma and there weren’t a whole lot of opportunities to watch him play, especially as he was in a part of the country where you wouldn’t make a special trip.

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“We relied on video and we flew him in here for a visit so we could get a feel for him from a character standpoint. We also have to check people’s academic background and he was an extremely intelligent guy — he was a very impressive young man.”

Impressive, but not ready, despite a family footballing heritage.

Two of Dike’s four older siblings played internationally for Nigeria — brother Bright also represented Portland Timbers while sister Courtney starred in college soccer for Oklahoma State.

He began his own football education scoring prolifically for Edmond North Huskies, the team of his Oklahoma high school.

Dike’s freshman year in Virginia was a steep learning curve and a gruelling physical slog.

“You could see the potential Daryl had but his first year was about improving himself, and it was the second year that he showed who he really was,” says Nathaniel Crofts, the Sheffield-born winger who was already in Charlottesville when the young Dike arrived.

The first year, Gelnovatch recalls, was about turning Dike from a raw prospect into a player ready to star for the Cavaliers.

“Daryl came in at 6ft 2in and 230 pounds (104kg), which is way too heavy. He was built like an American football linebacker,” says the Cavaliers coach.

“By the end of his first year, he had dropped 15 pounds and was on his way to learning his trade — looking after his body and taking care of his fitness. He always had a good engine for a big guy and he always took care of himself, and really wanted to learn.

“He’s a smart kid and a really quick learner, and he started to understand not just to rely on power and pace.

“He started to understand the phases of the game, the runs he needed to make, why he was making those runs, and not just going out on the field and being a physical specimen.

“By the time he got to his second season here, between the increased physical fitness and his progression in metres covered, and his improved understanding, he was at a high level.

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“It was just about being a little bit more cerebral and less reliant on pace and power. I think, growing up, he could just run by defenders and put his shoulder and backside into people, and make things happen.

“But pretty quickly, he learned about making runs, the timing of the runs, when to drop back into his own half, when to hold the ball up and bring the team out, and not just turn and run 60 yards with the ball like he did when he was 12.

“It helps when you’re an intelligent young man like he is.”

By the end of his second year at Virginia, Dike’s work was paying off. During the season, he established himself as a regular starter and scored both goals as the Cavaliers defeated Wake Forest 2-1 in the NCAA National semi-finals.

His opening goal remains Gelnovatch’s favourite Dike memory and was, he believes, “the moment MLS drew up his contract”.

Dike netted again in the final as Virginia drew 3-3 with Georgetown in the 2019 College Cup, eventually losing on penalties. Having scored five times in 13 appearances in his first season, he started all 23 games in his second and netted 10 times.

“He’s incredibly hard-working on and off the field,” says Crofts, now back in the UK with Stocksbridge Park Steels. “He wants to win and score goals.

“The only thing is that, at times, he can be a bit too hard on himself, which we all can as footballers. If he’s had a bad finishing session in training, maybe, he can sometimes dwell on it too much.

“Off the field, he was really quiet and friendly, but on the field, he was different — aggressive and a real competitor.”

The 2019 Cavaliers team was one that Gelnovatch ranks as the best he has coached and included Joe Bell, now a New Zealand regular and Viking Stavanger midfielder, defender Henry Kessler, now of New England Revolution and the US national team, and a host of others now earning a living in professional football in the United States.

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Dike was not about to be left behind.

“Daryl was in the process of enrolling on one of the country’s top undergraduate business programmes at Virginia,” says Gelnovatch. “The University of Virginia is one of the top 20 universities in the country and he got in here on his own. I didn’t have to help him like I sometimes do.

“I have no doubt that if football hadn’t worked out, he would have been a pretty successful guy at something else.”

The boardroom will have to wait, however. Dike’s life has headed in a different direction.

On the back of his 2019 exploits, he was selected by MLS for a Generation Adidas contract — deals given each year to a handful of the United States’ best young college players. It propelled him in the league’s 2020 SuperDraft and left the next destination in his career out of his hands.

Dike was selected fifth overall in the draft by Orlando City. He was heading for Florida.

He wasted little time making his mark in America’s premier soccer league, scoring eight times in 17 appearances in his rookie season in 2020 and, according to Gelnovatch, shedding another 10lbs in weight.

It was followed by 10 in 18 in 2021, and his success in Orlando brought international recognition and a loan spell in the Championship at Barnsley.

“Daryl has understood very well what it means to be a professional footballer,” Oscar Pareja, Orlando’s head coach, tells The Athletic.

“He had a quick transition from college to MLS, which isn’t the norm for players who come from college. It typically takes those players a year or more to adjust but Daryl adjusted very well, and he began to perform on the pitch like a mature player. He was competing.

“His maturity towards how he trained and how he took care of himself continued to develop. He had different experiences throughout the 2021 season.

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“He went to England and played in international tournaments with his national team. That enriched him and he understood that he has the ability to play at a high level.

“We were patient with him and we let him know that he would go through phases of growth, that he’d grow through a period of adjustment. He had to be patient and wait for his moment.

“He accepted it and managed it well. The most important thing was that once he started playing consistently, he took full advantage of that opportunity.”

“His performance as a rookie, his data in our algorithm in our models, was through the roof,” Dane Murphy told The Athletic during his time as CEO at Barnsley.

“It was something where we could easily see he fit in our system.”

When Valerien Ismael was looking a year ago for a striker to add a cutting edge to his Barnsley team, Murphy went back to his roots.

The former footballer-turned-administrator had played for Gelnovatch in Virginia and kept a keen eye on his former university.

Dike ticked the boxes and Barnsley took a chance. They were rewarded as the young striker hit nine goals in 19 games to fire them into the promotion play-offs against the odds.

“He could score with his head, from long range, tap-ins,” says Derrick Parker, the former Barnsley forward who commentates on the club’s games for BBC Radio Sheffield.

“He scored with an overhead kick and he was very good at getting on the end of everything that was played into the box, but he was a powerhouse — somebody you would probably call an old fashioned centre-forward.

“Without him coming into the team, I don’t think Barnsley would have got into the play-offs. That physical presence was something that Barnsley needed last season and that we’re desperately missing this season.

“He was one of them who would make a bad ball into a good ball simply by hassling the central defenders or whoever was there into making a mistake, or by getting there first and overpowering them.”

Defeat in the play-offs meant Barnsley were unable to activate an option to make Dike’s move permanent. He returned to Orlando and hoped for a summer reunion with Ismael.

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But a deal could not be done and the 21-year-old had to bide his time. On January 1, he signed for Albion on a four-and-a-half-year deal and was reunited with his old manager.

“He was comfortable here but it’s really hard for coaches to hold back a young player when they want to go to Europe,” says Pareja, who is now preparing for the 2022 MLS season without Dike.

“The way he combines with team-mates is still that of an inexperienced player. That’s something he’ll have to focus on but he’ll get there by playing games. He has to improve his combination play and how he connects with the rest of the team.

“His positioning and his duels with opposing centre-backs have greatly improved and he’ll continue to improve because of his physical strength.

“He understands when to dribble and when to combine. He wasn’t a dribbler. Those are areas he continues to evolve. He identifies those moments well — ‘I can pass here or take a touch and find my own shot’. He has a strong shot.

“He has improved in the air. It’s not his forte but Daryl’s aerial game will surprise you. You may not think so, but it will.”

Gregg Berhalter, the USA national team coach, told reporters recently: “I think he’s gonna come out of this playing well and scoring goals, and we’re excited to see his development.

“Daryl was coached by Ismael at his last club, so he’s familiar with him, familiar with the style of play, and I think any player, as soon as you have the trust of a coach and you know how the coach works and you’re used to working with him, you perform well.”

Albion supporters will hope Berhalter, who has so far capped Dike eight times, is correct. Former Barnsley man Parker is in little doubt that he is.

“I would say he is made for the type of football Ismael played at Barnsley: pressing and getting the ball forward quickly,” he says.

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“He probably won’t make the football any prettier but he made Barnsley more effective.

“The players all knew their jobs and then, when Dike came in, he gave them a reason to get the ball forward even quicker and then push up and support this lad. He was a revelation.”

Dike will arrive at Loftus Road on Saturday two weeks into a four-week fitness programme designed to get him in physical shape for a Championship promotion push.

A place on the substitutes’ bench seems the most likely role on day one but fairly soon, Dike will become a key figure in Ismael’s quest to challenge for the top two and win around sceptical Albion supporters.

It is a heavy burden to place on one so young but Dike’s former colleagues do not doubt his ability to rise to the challenge.

They include Nani, the former Manchester United winger who became a mentor at Orlando.

“I’ve always said he has his natural qualities,” the Portugal international tells The Athletic.

“He has time to improve his game much more but if he continues with his feet on the floor, like he’s been doing until now, he is doing great. He’s been improving. He’s been listening. We’ve been talking. He comes to me and then he comes to me again, and I like that.

“That’s what I like because when I was young, I was very humble and listened to the older players, and that helped me a lot. So I know if he continues to do that, he will be a top player.”

(Other contributor: James Horncastle)

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)

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