WOLVERHAMPTON, England – The sun is beaming through the windows at the Sir Jack Hayward Training Centre as players begin to filter past, each with something to complain about.
Having just completed a grueling double training session on a spring Monday morning, the younger members of the Wolverhampton Wanderers first-team squad are muttering some choice words as they attempt to describe the ordeal that they have just survived.
Kevin Doyle, though, almost skips his way from the locker rooms to the reserved suite for our interview. Now 31 years old, the Republic of Ireland international cracks a wry smile and doesn’t need to say what he’s clearly thinking: “You’ve got a whole career ahead of you fighting that hard each day”.
That is why Doyle has enjoyed so much success; he has always embraced the work ethic expected of a professional soccer player. He would never have scored 37 English Premier League goals, achieved promotion twice to that league, earned 61 international caps for Ireland and played at the 2012 UEFA European Championships without knowing how to graft at the highest level.
Now, he’s ready to bring that same mentality to MLS and, specifically, the Colorado Rapids. And if it wasn’t clear before, Doyle is quick to reaffirm that “it’s the football that excites me” as he repeatedly shares his eagerness to get the next chapter in his career started. Forget about a summer break, he wants to jump straight in.
Ask him what he knows of MLS and Doyle reveals: “I spoke to [former MLS and US national team goalkeeper] Marcus Hahnemann, who was my roommate at Wolves and I played with him at Reading, and he is telling me that Seattle Sounders are like an English team with the fanbase and the atmosphere at games and a lot of teams are similar now.
“There’s big teams, big crowds, big stadiums, it just seems to be getting bigger and growing all of the time. And there are new teams planning to join from what I hear, so it’s on the up.
“Outside of football, there’s the lifestyle and moving my family to the other side of the world but it’s not like it’s a different language or anything, we’ll settle in pretty quickly. I just want to get on with doing those things and get started.”
Since announcing his signing in late March, Colorado has kept in regular contact with the veteran forward and sent him DVD's of their games this season. Doyle watches them with curiosity about a league that he is still unfamiliar with, the teams he will soon hope to score against, and the teammates he will have to rely upon.
There is still another month of traveling to Wolves’ training base – located on the outskirts of the busy English midlands town – but he can’t seem to shake the “excitement and enthusiasm” that Colorado showed when he visited there for the first time.
It was a whirlwind experience that saw him meet several club officials, including president Tim Hinchey, technical director Paul Bravo, sporting director Padraig Smith, and head coach Pablo Mastroeni, who he shared dinner with on his whistle-stop tour of Denver, and he immediately made up his mind about making the move.
Apart from his 10-year European pedigree, Colorado were also swayed by a glowing recommendation from the league’s reigning MVP, Robbie Keane, who just happens to be a longtime friend and international strike partner of Doyle’s.
He laughs that he was lucky Keane spoke in his favor, but the pair have since linked up on Ireland duty and the LA Galaxy forward shared some inside tips on the logistics of moving to the United States and becoming familiar with factors such as long flights for away games.
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“It’s all something that within five or six weeks you’ll get used to,” admitted Doyle of the travel demands. “Obviously at the moment, the furthest that we go to an away game we’ll be on the bus for maybe three hours maximum, so flying to away games will be a little different but you just get used to it.”
The good news for Colorado is that Doyle says that he has “never felt as fit” following a stop-start season that saw him spend time on-loan at Crystal Palace before returning to Wolves. And he has no intention of retiring from international football just yet.
Along with the fast-approaching switch in July, Doyle is kept busy during his time off running after two young children. Still, he maintains that excitement about what is ahead and has found himself being constantly quizzed by teammates about MLS. Everyone, it seems, is envious of his next destination.
The interview finishes and Doyle leads the way out to the parking lot, where the sun is still shining in a cloudless sky. It’s a good day to be Kevin Doyle, but he knows that even brighter days are ahead.
“I’m just looking forward to getting things started,” stated Doyle. “No niggles, no nothing, injury-free, I’ve been really working hard on my fitness and I can’t wait to try show that on the pitch.”
