With big talent and bigger ambitions, the 18-year-old Campbell has become American soccer's next one up

Cole Campbell is still adjusting to it all, and he's had to do so on the fly. Life has been one big change lately. All for the better, he'll tell you, but even good change can be challenging to navigate – especially as an 18-year-old.

The young dual-national is already thriving with a giant club, recently making his debuts for Borussia Dortmund in both the Bundesliga and the Champions League. He's playing at one of the world's best talent factories, which is a pretty damn good place to be, isn't it?

But the most unexpected adjustment of all? The attention. It can be overbearing. It hasn't quite reached that point for Campbell, but it has been … different. The social media posts, the Instagram highlight reels, the interviews, the hype – he sees it, he knows it, he feels it. Six months ago, he was a rising Iceland youth international. Now, he's something very different.

Very suddenly, Campbell has become American soccer's next one up.

Across all sports, the U.S. is a country continuously looking to anoint its next young star. We've seen it happen time and time again, including multiple times at Campbell's own club. Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna have ridden their own hype machines straight to U.S. men's national team stardom, and the expectation is that Campbell is next. The eyes of American soccer are now fixed on a player with just 74 senior minutes for Borussia Dortmund.

"I've been training for such a long time with no one watching, and now that everyone is, I'm just confident in my abilities," Campbell tells GOAL. "Even if there are people watching, it doesn't really make me nervous. Obviously, it is so much different now, where I'm being followed and everything, but as far as that, I don't really feel much pressure. Obviously, I now have to perform and do well when I step on the field, but really, I just feel joy whenever I step on the field. I don't really feel too much pressure, I just enjoy it."

For several of his predecessors, such pressure has proven too much. For others, it's been what's sharpened them to push the game further than those that came before. Pulisic is the model case. Like Campbell, he arrived at Dortmund as a kid with big dreams and, in the years since, he's become a world-renowned star unlike any American before him.

Now, it's Campbell's turn. He's living with that pressure well, largely because Campbell expects even more from himself than others do. Everything that American soccer fans are dreaming of, well, he's dreaming of it, too.

"My goal was to debut in the Bundesliga and eventually the Champions League," he says. "Now that I've done that, I'm just trying to work hard and obviously earn more minutes throughout the rest of the season. That's my short-term goal. As far as long-term goals for my career, I want to win a Ballon d'Or. That's something that I want to do in my career. I want to win the Champions League and I want to win a World Cup as well. That's something that would be absolutely amazing and I think that, in the future, I think it's all possible."

Campbell is still new to this and, as good as he's been so far, it remains almost impossible to predict the future of an 18-year-old. He's still far from a finished product and he still has a lot of learning and growing to do before he reaches the expectations that those on the outside have thrust upon him, let alone the ones he's now putting on himself.

He's still adjusting, but Campbell truly believes anything is possible.

Getty ImagesBeginnings at Dortmund

It's easy to see why Dortmund made the move to sign Campbell from relative obscurity. Watch him for just a few seconds and you see it. There's a different skill level and, more importantly, a different speed to his game. He's been compared to Pulisic and Leroy Sane due to his ability to dart through defenses. He has the type of pace you can't teach, and the type of ruthlessness needed to make the most of it.

Since arriving at Dortmund, Campbell has thrived at every level he's played at to earn his first-team place. He scored a brace in his U17 debut, adding four more in the following 10 games, too. He scored 10 while assisting 11 for the U19s in 2023. Campbell's rise may seem meteoric, but it's also been carefully crafted by the Dortmund system.

"Cole is a very young and extremely exciting player, who took huge strides in the past year," Dortmund sporting director Sebastian Kehl said of the American forward. "We see so much potential in him."

Campbell's Dortmund move was announced in the summer of 2022. At the time, he'd made just two senior appearances for Icelandic side FH. He made two further appearances for Breidablik before heading to Germany. He wasn't signed for his resume or experiencd – he was signed for potential.

Dortmund have moved him along slowly. He was called up to a January camp last season and has been in and around first-team training. It was in those moments that Campbell learned what it takes at that level, and just how much work he still had to put into get there.

"I started training with the first team a few times last year," Campbell recalls, "and, to be honest, Marco Reus was just amazing. His touch on the ball and everything, there were so many little things that he did. He's just an amazing player, and that made me like, 'Wow, OK'. I remember we were playing four against four, and he told me to just run. There were three players standing there, and I was like, 'How's he going to get me the ball?' He put it through all of their legs. That's crazy.

"When I was younger and coming up, you see the quality and what is expected. Every pass has to be perfect, every touch, everything."

AdvertisementGetty Images SportBig adjustments

Reus provided that on-field lesson. There were also the off-field ones. Campbell moved to Dortmund at just 16. There were things he had to learn, about himself and his career. He was thrust into a new environment in a new country with a new language.

That led to moments of solitude in which Campbell says he leaned on his faith to figure things out.

"Football is not all easy," he says. "You see it from the outside world and it looks like everything's just a smooth road, but my path was definitely not that way. It was ups and downs, and it was definitely very difficult at times. Jesus has been with me and carried me through those hard times, and that's something that is a part of me that I want everyone to know."

His German's getting better, too. That'll help as he continues to adjust to life at Dortmund.

"I can understand everything [in training] now," he adds with a smile. "That was the most important thing. All the trainings were in German, everything, and I didn't understand a word. It was difficult, but after about eight to nine months, I started to understand what they were saying, and now I can speak pretty well, too."

Heading into the 2024 season, Campbell's chance was coming. And it arrived in a big way.

Getty ImagesThe breakthrough

By the time a player hears that Champions League anthem in person for the first time, they've likely heard it a million times in their dreams. Campbell was no different. And it came with a sense of accomplishment.

Campbell heard that anthem for the first time on Oct. 22 ahead of Dortmund's clash with Real Madrid, a match in which he remained an unused substitute. He made his Bundesliga debut four days later against Augsburg, thrown in to help Dortmund chase down what ended as a 2-1 defeat.

“We want to get the young players as close to the team as possible, because they are the future of the club," Dortmund boss Nuri Sahin said of Campbell after that match. "Of course, there are more ideal scenarios than making your debut in Augsburg when you're behind."

His Champions League debut came a few days later as he came on for the final 13 minutes in Dortmund's 1-0 win over Sturm Graz. It was during those anthems that Campbell took a moment to sit back and think about it all.

"It made me realize how far have I've come from when I was just a little kid playing and dreaming about this moment, you know? It was just a surreal moment," Campbell says. "It doesn't feel real. You're like, 'Wow, I'm here, I'm actually in a Champions League game.' "

In the month or so since, Campbell has hovered around the Dortmund first team while also thriving for the club's second. After sitting on the bench in this past weekend's 4-0 win over Freiburg, he went on to score one day later in Dortmund II's win over Erzgebirge Aue in the third division.

"Coming in [to the first team], I was just feeling mostly just excited to come in, " he said. "I know I just have to work hard and do my best with what I'm given."

Campbell finds himself fighting for more minutes in the Borussia Dortmund attack, and he'll now be fighting against another American star.

Getty Images SportFollowing in footsteps

Dortmund's reputation as one of the game's best at developing talent is well-earned. Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham and Robert Lewandowski all arrived and reached superstar status at BVB. So, too, did Pulisic, who emerged as the first in what is now a legacy of American stars.

"As far as when I was deciding which club I should go to," Campbell says, "obviously with the other players who have made it through, you see that there's a path through the academy to the first team, and that was a big thing for me. They really prepare you, not just what you can do, but also mentally, and that's something that has helped me a lot."

That preparation helps reduce the pressure, and keeps Campbell calm. Well, mostly.

"It's just preparing and not being too nervous," he says. "It's always good to have a little bit of excitement but if you're too nervous, you won't perform at your best, best potential. The mental side of things was something that I didn't have before I came here, and when I came here, that was a big switch. It took me some time to get used to everything, but in the end, the mental aspect, that's helped me a lot with getting me to where I am today."

With his ascension to the Dortmund first team, Campbell has joined up with another American in Gio Reyna, who is now looking to rebuild his own career after some difficult moments. Just 22, Reyna is now the elder American at the club compared to Campbell. Due to Reyna's recent injury woes, the two haven't gotten to spend much time on the pitch together, but Campbell does see the USMNT midfielder as a role model.

"He's a great guy, Campbell said. "I've talked to him every now and then. Obviously, it really sucks that he's been injured these last last few months, but I've talked to him and he's helped me. It's just here and there, but I'm glad that I also have another American on the team that I can talk with."

They'll have plenty more to talk about going forward, as Campbell looks to carve out his own USMNT career.