Kacper
Photography by Rodolfho Chona.
If you were to ask Kacper Przybylko what he’s most excited to accomplish in 2021, what do you think his first answer would be?
Here’s a hint - it has nothing to do with soccer.
“I’m so excited to be a dad,” Przybylko said.
On March 2, 2021, Kacper’s wife, Kinga, gave birth to their son Leo, and it was then that Przybylko began to think about how he wants to be as good of a dad to Leo as his own father was to him.
“I’ve always wanted to be a dad like my dad was to me,” Przybylko said. “I don’t know how I’m gonna do it. Because my dad’s still my hero. He did so much for our family and worked so hard so that we could have a great life growing up. Every time he got back home from work, me and my two brothers would just be sitting there, waiting for him. Even after eight or nine hours at work, he still had time to play with us. That was amazing. He’ll always be my hero.”
Przybylko even already has a plan set in stone to introduce Leo to one of his favorite pastimes.
Here’s another hint - it also has nothing to do with soccer.
Przybylko grew up on the Harry Potter movies and is a massive fan. “I watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire every night before going to sleep. I always fall asleep at a specific scene. I can’t sleep without having it in the background.”
Now, after years of being a fan, Przybylko wants to introduce the movies to Leo when he turns seven, which was the same age Przybylko was when he saw the first movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
“Leo will be a Harry Potter fan for sure,” Przybylko said. “I grew up at the perfect age for it, and I want him to experience that too. The first movie came out when I was seven. Then I had to wait two or three years for the second movie. Even though we had to wait, it was perfect because we saw everything in real-time. So when Leo is seven, he’s gonna watch the first movie, but then he’s gonna have to wait two or three years to watch the second movie.”
That obsessive, infectious love that Przybylko has for Leo and for the Harry Potter movies is also what has endeared him to the city of Philadelphia. A German-born but Polish international player who was an unknown commodity prior to the 2019 season, Przybylko has worked his way into the hearts of the Union faithful for a team that is desperate and hungry for more trophies. It’s a Philadelphia love tale as old as time itself.
A tall, lanky forward who stands at 6’4” and weighs almost 200 pounds, Przybylko has been a fan favorite since his breakout season in 2019 for the Union when he scored 15 goals in 26 games.
After falling out of favor with three different German clubs from 2012 to 2018, Przybylko signed with the Union on Sept. 16, 2018, for the remainder of the 2018 season and with an option for 2019. He didn’t appear in a single game in 2018, but his option for 2019 was picked up prior to the start of the season. He later suffered a foot injury and was sent to the Bethlehem Steel on a rehab assignment but was eventually called up to the Union and became one of the league’s most dangerous scoring threats.
“I wanted to show everyone that I was gonna come back strong,” Przybylko said. “But I wanted to find the right team and the right manager for me at that time because Europe wasn’t working out, and I wanted to try something new. I just really wanted the manager and my teammates to still have faith in me, even after my injury. When I came to Philly, I had great conversations with everyone. I did a trial for a week, and they're like, ‘Damn, he looks good.’ My fitness was just OK, but after a long injury, they gave me the time during the preseason to recover fully. They told me we'd get through all this together, and afterward, I could just play like I would in my younger days, which was amazing. Of all the conversations we had, that was the key for why I came to Philly.”
Adjusting on the field was easy enough for Przybylko. The Union gave him ample time to work his way back to being 100 percent, and he has since rewarded them with a quality of play and performance that not many saw coming.
But it was the adjustments off-the-field that proved to be much more difficult than initially thought for Przybylko. He had never been to Philadelphia, let alone the United States, and what he had been hearing from others and what he was expecting to see was lots of “huge buildings and skyscrapers.” That expectation was spot on. But the overall culture and specifically the language were what he had to get used to the most.
“The biggest problem, in the beginning, was having to get used to the Philly accent,” Przybylko said. “There’s such a huge difference between that and the German language. But I’ve gotten better with the language since then. In the past, we’d all be standing in the shower room, and it’s pretty loud in there, and I couldn’t understand anything my teammates were saying. Now I can take a shower and can have the water running, and I finally understand them when they talk to me. Before, I had to walk out of the shower and ask them what they were saying. But everyone was so friendly to me, and they were helping me out a lot at the same time.”
Adapting to American-style cuisine proved to be just as difficult as getting past the language barrier, and it is still something that Przybylko is trying to deal with today.
French fries, yes, french fries, ended up being the first hurdle he had to jump through when ordering food.
“We were at this restaurant near Penn’s Landing, and I wanted to order french fries,” Przybylko said. “And our waiter was already talking Philly slang, and they were asking me what size I wanted and what did I want the french fries to come with, and I was like ‘Oh my god, this is way too much.’ I was so hungry, and I just wanted french fries. My problem was also pronunciation, and I wanted the medium size, but I got like extra-large. I also wanted mayo with them, and I had no idea that that's not a common thing in America. I remember that so vividly.”
And what might’ve been Przybylko’s fatal flaw while living in the cheesesteak capital of the world was his disdain for Philly cheesesteaks. He has since gotten used to them and enjoys them, but he “used to hate those things.”
“Being here for two-and-a-half years, I’ve already become an American loving the food,” Przybylko said. “But I used to hate Philly cheesesteaks. You know why? Because everyone was telling me to ‘order a Philly cheesesteak, order Philly cheesesteak,’ and the first time I ordered it was in New York in the fucking airport -- which was a mistake. I used to hate those things. I like them now, though, but I’m also very much into cheesesteak egg rolls.”
Something else that Przybylko has taken notice of in his two-and-a-half years in Philadelphia is the ascension that the Union have made to become an MLS power in search of their first MLS Cup championship. After his breakout 2019 season, he added eight goals and six assists in 23 games to help the Union win their first-ever trophy, the 2020 Supporter’s Shield.
But winning the shield isn’t enough for Przybylko and his teammates. After a first-round upset loss to the New England Revolution in the 2020 MLS Cup playoffs, the Union are looking for more from up and down their roster to become the league champions and not just the regular-season champions.
“We had our first home playoff game, which was huge for the history of our team,” Przybylko said. “Last season we won the Supporter’s Shield, and this season we want the Cup. We always want to accomplish more. I’m always going to be hungry for more. That’s my next goal. It’s my personal goal and hopefully, it’s the rest of the team’s goal. We can’t just be happy with what we’ve done in the last two seasons. We had a great season last year, but we want to be even better this year. The goal is the Cup.”
As the 2021 season unfolds, that goal is still attainable. The Union currently sit in third place in the Eastern Conference with eleven points in seven games, but they’re only three points behind the first-place New England Revolution. In fact, the top eight standings in the entire east are separated by only six points. In eleven games across all competitions this year, Przybylko already has seven goals and two assists but wants to see more from himself to help get the Union to the top.
But in the meantime, he’ll continue to hold onto hope for one thing: Leo’s love of Harry Potter. Before he signed off for the night, he wanted to show us one last thing that really proved his love and obsession for the Harry Potter films.
“My wife’s best friend gave to me as a gift the entire Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movie collection on DVD, but the cover is a little bit different,” Przybylko said.
Instead of Daniel Radcliffe’s head on Harry Potter’s body, it’s Kacper’s head. And instead of Emma Watson’s head on Hermione Granger’s body, it’s Kinga’s head.
“This is me,” Przybylko said. “This is my beautiful wife, Hermione. And the rest of our friends are spread out throughout the cover of the DVD collection.”
Kinga sat there, embarrassed while also laughing over her husband’s smile over the gift, while Przybylko stared at it for an extra few seconds and said:
“I think I would make a better Harry Potter. I’m a good actor, and I think I would make a better Harry Potter.”
Check out more photos from Kacper’s shoot.
Photography by Rodolfho Chona.
