The day started normally. Kacper Przybylko played in a youth match for his local team in the small german town of Bielefeld. He gave the team everything, and returned home to collapse on the couch. “I was so exhausted,” he remembers. “My mother said, ‘Hey, let’s watch your older brother (Mateusz). He’s doing track and field right now,’ so I said, ‘Okay, I can just sit in the stands watching him.’”
Wrong. “Suddenly, my coach from track and field came to me and said, ‘Hey, do you still have some power to do some running? We need someone to do the 800 meters.’”
Kacper shook his head. He had already compromised the couch for the stands, after all. But the coach pushed him – this was his brother’s team, and they would be penalized without another runner. That did it: For his brother, Kacper was in. “I said, ‘Okay, why not? And I just did the run!’”
Fueled by a desire to help his brother and energized by the exuberance of youth, Kacper ran – and Kacper won. It was a moment that consolidated the two driving forces of the Union striker’s life: Sport and family.
Kacper has room to stretch out as he tells the story of his career, but that was not the case growing up. In the Przybylko family’s Bielefeld apartment, Kacper and his twin brother Jakob – who goes by Kuba – shared a room, and both boys jockeyed for time in a single bathroom with their older brother Mateusz. “That was the worst case,” Kacper says now with a smile.
The three brothers found space to develop in the world of sports, and it didn’t take long for them to get noticed. “We all played soccer in the beginning,” Kacper explains. “There was an event for a soccer team in Bielefeld and we did quite good so they decided to take just us three.” Kacper and Kuba stuck with the beautiful game but Mateusz eventually gravitated toward track and field.
“Our schedule was so busy,” Kacper recalls. “We woke up as a family in the morning, had breakfast, went to school, came back from school. I did my homework; [my brothers] did nothing.” He pauses, laughing.
“My twin brother and me went to soccer practice, came home and had a pre-dinner, then all three of us went to track and field.”
This cross-pollination of sports helped Kacper develop into a well-rounded athlete who is more agile than the typical big striker. “We went out there in the evening just to have fun, not even thinking about a second practice or something like that,” he says. “When I became older I did it in addition [to regular training] to be better [at soccer].
“I was tall and stiff, and track and field helped me a lot.”
Sports and family formed the support system for the talented, energetic Przybylko boys. In fact, you may have missed the tattoo Kacper has on the inner part of his right arm, but it’s a mark that everyone in his immediate family – parents included – now share. It reads, simply: MI FAMILIA. And though the words are etched into his arm, the idea lives far closer to his heart.
There was a time when athletics and a tight-knit family simply helped a young kid find 800 meters in his legs he didn’t know he had. Those same motivators still push Kacper Przybylko today. They push him to build on a 2019 season that saw him break into the top echelon of MLS strikers, and to help his team reach new heights in 2020.
They also explain why Przybylko has quickly embraced Philadelphia. It’s the city of Brotherly Love, after all – and it loves its sports.
