My name is Modou Jadama. I was born on March 17th, 1994 in The Gambia, one of the smallest countries in Africa with a population of just about two million people. It’s hard to remember a lot about my early years there before I moved to the U.S., but I can tell you with certainty that I played soccer every single day. I would go out to play pickup games with friends, go home to eat, and then go right back outside and play.
I moved to Atlanta when I was nine years old, and I quickly found that soccer was so much more structured in the U.S. I couldn’t just go outside and play in a pickup game anywhere. There was so much concrete which I wasn’t used to. Back home, we just had dirt. There was no easy access to a field to play on here. I really had no choice but to wait to find a team to play for, and that made my first few months in the U.S. a difficult adjustment period.
“Back home in Gambia, I was often the kid who didn’t get picked.”
When I turned 10 years old, my cousin helped connect me with this club called “Stars” that he played for at the time. It was a huge moment for me when I tried out and got selected for the team, not only because it was my first time playing organized soccer, but also because back home in Gambia, I was often the kid who didn’t get picked when we would select teams for pickup. I was so young and many of the older kids were better than me, so it was an awesome feeling to be picked for a team. My love for the game grew even stronger from that moment forward, and playing soccer was still all that I wanted to do.
As I got older, I was fortunate to have opportunities to play in various places across the U.S. as well as internationally with the Olympic Development Program (ODP). One of my favorite memories was being in a tournament in Argentina and playing against the Boca Juniors team, which was an incredible experience. When I turned 17, I had the opportunity to play collegiately at Elon University, but I turned that opportunity down when I got invited to try out for a club in Chile. This was a step that opened up a brand new chapter in my life and soccer career.
“For the first time as a soccer player, I felt like I was out of my element. “
Playing professionally was something that I always wanted, but it never really registered in my head just how realistic it was until I got the opportunity to play with Universidad De Chile. I started seeing my own potential as I played well in my try out with them over a three week period, and after returning to the U.S. to finish high school, I went back to Chile to play for their reserve team. I enjoyed my time playing there and it earned me an opportunity to go train with a club in Italy for a few months. These two experiences led me to one of my toughest challenges as a footballer: Going to Germany to train with Leipzig.
My experience with Leipzig was very humbling. The talent there was at a level that I had never seen before. The physicality, the speed of the game, and the technical ability of the players were all beyond me. I struggled to adapt and I needed more time to build myself up to that level of play. For the first time ever as a soccer player, I felt like I was out of my element. There were factors out of my control and excuses that I could have made, but at the end of the day, I was simply not good enough. I needed that experience to grow as a player because it established something for me to start chasing.
Back to Chile.
After four challenging months with Leipzig, I got an opportunity to go back to Chile to play for Club Social y Deportivo Colo-Colo (Colo-Colo for short), one of the most well-known clubs in Chile. I signed a one-year contract with their reserve team (second division) in 2015 and we won the league championship that year, which was a major accomplishment. The club hadn’t won the league since Arturo Vidal and Alexis Sanchez were on the roster in 2006.
After the 2015 season, I signed a three-year contract with the first team and quickly started making appearances. I was feeling good about the way I was playing, and I was on top of the world when I was put into the starting 11 for the second game of the season. But about 15 minutes into the game, I jumped for a header and came down on my knee awkwardly and I had to come out of the game. A few hours later, I found out that I tore my MCL.
Back to the U.S.
After sitting out a year with Colo-Colo, I was loaned out to a second division team called Coquimbo. My recovery from the MCL tear was moving slowly and I wasn’t able to get healthy enough to play. We mutually decided that it would be best for me to go back to the U.S. while I recovered.
“I felt like I had failed. My motivation towards playing soccer was very low.”
I thought that simply not being good enough at Leipzig was a challenge, but now I was sidelined due to something completely out of my control. And being forced to wait for the opportunity just to prove that I was good enough made my career goals feel miles out of my reach. I felt like I had failed, and my motivation towards playing soccer was very low. Being a footballer was my identity, and I couldn’t find something else to do that mattered to me. I needed to start over.
I truly didn’t know if or when I was ever going to get back to the physical level I needed to reach to play again throughout my recovery. I felt the same way I did when I first arrived in the U.S., having no choice but to wait to play soccer. That was a feeling I never wanted to experience again. But after a grueling eight month long recovery period, I finally returned to 100 percent health. I was grateful to have been offered and signed a contract with FC Tulsa (Tulsa Roughnecks at the time) at the start of the 2017 season. And a little over a year after the worst injury of my career, I played over 2,500 minutes in 31 games of a special season in which we made the USL playoffs. My body felt great and I was playing some of the best soccer of my career. I was a footballer again.
“I was again in uncharted territory and this time, I knew I needed to focus on adapting to the level of play instead of being a perfect player.”
At the start of the 2018 season, the Portland Timbers offered me a six month contract. For those who don’t know how a six month contract works in the MLS, it is basically a six month long tryout. Within the first six months of the contract, Portland would have the option to cut me from the roster. After the contract was over, if I remained on the roster, they would have to give me at least a year long contract for the next season. A chip back on my shoulder, I signed the contract with hopes of playing in the MLS.Â
I learned the most about myself during that season, as I had to demand more of myself than I ever had before. Knowing that I was fighting for a spot to be on an MLS roster every day was a lot to handle mentally. The first two months were the hardest because I was so uptight and trying to be perfect. My experience with Leipzig helped me in a major way. I knew I needed to focus on adapting to the level of play instead of being a perfect player. I had to observe the players around me and adjust. Once I realized this, I got better with each training session and started to compete at an MLS level.
While I trained with the first team every day, I spent the first three months playing in games with Portland’s second team, Portland Timbers II. I was named captain of the second team, the first time I had ever been named captain as a pro. I was confident that I was playing well enough to earn a contract extension even if I never saw the pitch with the first team that whole season. But on June 3, 2018, I was in the 18 for the first team’s match against Sporting Kansas City. Our starting right back suffered from cramping in the second half, and my number was called. I made my MLS debut.
The rest of that season was really special. On the USL side, we made the playoffs for the first time in club history, and being a leader on that team meant a lot to me. On top of that, I was in the 18 with the first team as we made a run all the way to the MLS Cup final. I didn’t play in those playoffs games, but I trained every day with that group and that is forever special to me to have been a part of.
I picked up right where I left off at the start of the 2019 season with Portland after earning a one year contract extension. I appeared in games on the USL and MLS side, and played one of my best games at right back in my first MLS start. I felt like I was really hitting my mark as a player and I was expected to make another start against NYCFC a week later. Once again, I suffered an unfortunate and untimely injury. I fractured a bone in my left foot during the training session the day before the match. I knew even after I missed that game that I would still have a chance to play for the first team again if I recovered quickly enough, but I was unable to play for the rest of the season. And at the end of 2019, my time with the Portland Timbers was over.
Back to Atlanta.
“As hard as the game of soccer has been on me at times, it has always rewarded me for persevering through my most challenging moments.”
Despite a disappointing ending to my time in Portland, I was fortunate to be able to come back home to Atlanta and play for my hometown club, Atlanta United 2, during the crazy year of 2020 that made soccer feel like a very small priority. On top of being fully healthy again, I was a captain for the second time in my career. I played every minute of the 16 games that year in front of my friends and family. It had been almost ten years since I had them in my life on a daily basis and it was very comforting to have them so close. It took me a long time to see it this way, but I’m blessed. As hard as the game of soccer has been on me at times, it has always rewarded me for persevering through my most challenging moments.
After returning to Tulsa for one more season in 2021, I signed with Hartford Athletic for the 2022 season and I couldn’t be more excited to be here. I’ve been lucky to be a part of some special seasons with past clubs, and I plan on adding to that this year. Every workout, training session, and game day I get to be a part of never feels like a job. I’m going to make sure I enjoy every moment of it.
