From a distance, footballers' careers may all look the same: compact training sessions, playing uniforms, locker room tales, and racing behind the ball. However, getting closer to each individual story reveals how much each path that led to professional football differs from one another, telling not only different personal stories, dreams, and ambitions but also challenges and difficulties that accompany life on a football field. And it was from this that Danny Williams, captain of the U.S. national team yet born in Karlsruhe, Germany to an African American father and a German mother, drew inspiration in creating his own fashion brand Beautiful Struggles. It illustrates his journey through life as an athlete and as an individual with constant curiosity, ready to challenge the rules of a sport so bound to its traditions, as he told us during this seventh episode of More Than. “The crazy thing is that had started when I was a child, because I was born in Germany by a german mom and an afro-american dad from New York, and when I was young I was very much exposed to that american culture of my dad because he was always loved jazz music and of course basketball so he would show me all kinds of american culture stuff in which I was always more drawn into than german culture because even that I was born and raised in Germany I was always look as an outsider because I’m mixed-race you now and not the typical german person if you look at me and that’s why I always felt ok I’m different in a normal way” he told me while we were in Naples for an event related to his fashion brand. I’ve always been curious about all things in life, whether is me now in Naples exploring Italian culture, or when I was playing in the UK or USA where I discovered these upcoming brands like Rhude, Fear of God, Amiri that later became household names”. Fashion became a channel for Danny Williams through which he can express himself by showing his passions and references.

Hence was born Beautiful Struggle, an intimate and honest journey inside the life of Danny Williams. “Unfortunately my career changed because of this big injury, and I ended up in Cyprus by myself and then Covid hits. Then I received a call and I was out of my contract, and I thought to myself one day I was playing in the Premier League, I’m the captain of the USA National Team and all the people called me to congratulate me. I had one injury, changed my whole life, ended up in Cyprus, I’m not hot anymore, people are leaving, agencies are leaving and I’m alone in my terrace thinking It’s a beautiful struggle. Yes, it is a struggle right now but I have to find the beauty in it, so this is the way I came up with the name of the brand”. Choosing the grounds on which to take the fight is very important to Danny Williams, finding himself constantly looking for the context that allows him to best express his creativity. Thus, when the football pitch became too narrow, he had no problem leaving it to focus on his brand.

A clear separation, contrasting what has been happening in recent years with the boundaries between the world of sports and fashion are blurring, with athletes and football players becoming brand ambassadors or models and fashion collections incorporating styles and items inspired directly from the football pitch. For Danny Williams, on the other hand, it would not have been possible to handle the duties of a fashion brand while still engaged in the daily grind that defines a professional football player.“ That’s why in my opinion it wasn’t right to open a fashion brand while I was playing, because football it’s still a success driven, result based business, where you have to put all your energy onto the pitch, so it’s difficult to make something serious on the side. And I realized having this brand for two years, I could have never done this brand how I’m doing it now while playing football. Look now where I am, I’m Naples for an event, during the season. All this, traveling, creating connections with the fashion world I couldn’t do if I was still playing”.