If you were to show up an hour early to an Angel City game and skip the very cool fan fest activities happening outside BMO Stadium, you could behold the vision that is Jun Endo juggling: the stadium still mainly empty, the pink-haired 22-year-old Japanese midfielder is alone on the field with headphones on, in communion with the ball. Sometimes she wears only socks.
She listens to whatever music she feels like in that moment, whether calm and slow or fast-paced and intense, and she takes one exquisite touch after another. She can juggle the ball thousands and thousands of times in a row, high and low, low and high, outside foot, inside foot, laces, shins. (She can juggle a golf ball. She can also juggle while jump-roping.) When the ball drops, it’s because she wants it to.
Watching her feels like witnessing something personal — a private relationship between ball and human. And you are: her extraordinary control is born out of extraordinary circumstances, each touch informed by her story.
On a rainy March morning in Santa Monica, California, Endo walked into Angel City headquarters, a building with a warehouse vibe, a reclaimed shiplap wall and triumphant photos. She…
