The young forward is gaining minutes at Northern Colorado and helping his country towards the World Cup.

Image credit Northern Colorado Hailstorm

Northern Colorado is not a team that will go quietly into the night.

Central Valley Fuego FC found this out the hard way on Wednesday. Up 2-0 midway through the second half on goals from Dembor Benson and Shavon John-Brown, it looked like an upset in the making. The last place side might just beat one of the top-performing ones in the league.

Nearly everyone watching the match at this point likely knew that Northern Colorado has one of the most potent attacks in the league. With 26 goals in 13 matches across both league competitions, it was never going to be easy for Fuego to hold on.

Indeed, league veteran Jake Keegan halved the lead in the 88th minute. With a generous amount of stoppage time coming, and the likes of well-known clutch goal-scorers Keegan, Bruno RendónMarky Hernández and David Garcia on the pitch, it was only a matter of time.

At 90+11’, Northern Colorado’s Danny Robles sent a corner kick into the box, which deflected back out and ended up on a direct path to 21-year-old Real Gill, a forward who had entered the match in the 79th minute.

“When we got the corner, they told me to stay at the top of the box for loose balls and it just fell straight to me and I hit it,” Gill said.

His outside-the-box shot hit the bottom of the crossbar and bounced into the net. It was the first league goal for the Trinidad and Tobago international. The goal secured the draw, and maintained the team’s unbeaten streak.

Gill signed with Northern Colorado in January.

At the time, head coach Éamon Zayed called him “a dynamic winger,” with “bags of speed, bags of energy.”

He’d been competing in the TT Premier League with Club Sando, scoring four times in seven matches in the 2023 season. He also had six appearances with the Trinidad and Tobago national team, with a goal in a 2-0 friendly against Saint Martin.

We asked Zayed on how the signing came about.

“We were looking at adding more quality in the wide areas when Real’s name came up,” he told us.

The coach also consulted with Gill’s Trinidad and Tobago teammate, and returning Northern Colorado defender Noah Powder, who put in a good word for the young attacker.

Gill’s start in a November 2023 upset of the United States national team in the CONCACAF Nation’s League tournament gave him additional exposure to United States-based professional clubs. Several were interested, including at the USL Championship level.

A rising star in his home country’s premier league, Gill wanted the additional challenge of competing in the United States. It was a transition Club Sando seemed happy to help with.

“Sando managers still contact me to make sure I’m good,” said Gill, “it’s a club I will always love.”

He began this challenge with Northern Colorado.

With Northern Colorado so far, his time has been limited.

A visa delay hampered his participation in the pre-season, so he transitioned into the roster slowly. He currently has five appearances across all competitions, including a lone start in the US Open Cup against Colorado Rapids 2.

Gill told us that it was a challenging transition, moving from playing on an island close to sea level to Northern Colorado. The weather and altitude difference especially stood out.

“It was hard adapting, but I believe it happened fast due to the help of my teammate Noah Powder,” he says.

Zayed says he’s seen positive developments over the last couple of months, sharing that Gill has become “more comfortable and confident in his surroundings” and is “starting to look stronger every week in his training.”

“His goal against Fuego the other night is the reason why I signed him,” said Zayed, “he wanted to ball, and wanted to keep taking on the left-sided full back any chance he got.”

Zayed hopes the goal is the catalyst for Gill to continue to grow, having more impact as the team enters the second half of the season.

Despite the limited appearances, Gill hasn’t been rusting on a shelf. Besides training with Northern Colorado, he returned home to Trinidad and Tobago in June to train with and represent his country in World Cup qualifiers against Grenada and the Bahamas. The draw with Granada and win over Bahamas has the country at second in the Group B table.

It’s an opportunity of a lifetime to represent his country, something he says he’s wanted to do since he was ten years old.

“Now that I’m on that level to compete, it’s always a pleasure to represent my country,” he told us, “this is the year I believe we could make the World Cup again.”

Back in the United States, Gill made another appearance for Northern Colorado on Saturday night, entering the match in the 86th minute. While that result ended in a 1-0 loss, Northern Colorado remains in playoff contention with 1-3 matches in hand on most of the teams above it in the table.

One thing is for sure, it sounds like we’re going to see a lot more of him as the second half of the season progresses.

Northern Colorado is in action again on Saturday, June 13th at Knoxville.

Editor’s Note: this story was originally published by the author at Beyondthe90.net on July 9th, 2024.