SN: Any hard feelings about getting cut?
CG: It was awesome, and I wish it would have worked out, but they just were not in need of players. They won the championship last year, their backline is seven-to-eight players deep, so it just didn’t work out. The MLS is one of the toughest leagues to break in to just because it has limited roster spots and the Reserve League was just starting. It was just like, I really shouldn’t dwell on it because it happens to everyone that gets drafted. So I was like, “Okay, get on the ground, and let’s go straight over to Europe and not take a couple days off to just hang out. Let’s just go do this while I’m in great shape.”

SN: What were the tryouts like?
CG: (I) had two tryouts (in Scotland) with Division 1 teams and one with a Division 2 team. One didn’t go well because a team filed for bankruptcy during my tryout, so I basically talked to my agent and decided to just leave that tryout because it was going to be sketchy. But the other team, Stirling Albion, they had me for two weeks and wanted me to stick around for another week to play in their game, and it looked like a pretty good chance they would give me a contract. But my agent gave me a call and told me a team in Finland was ready to offer me a contract, and it was a for-sure thing and all in writing. So I left Scotland and told the coaches, “Thanks for the opportunities, but I have to take the sure thing, I can’t take a chance.”

SN: What was Finland like?
CG: I came home for four days, signed the contract and took the next flight to Helsinki, and I was there for about two weeks, and I just wasn’t happy. It just wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted ­— people over here are so naive, they think, “Oh, I’ll just go play soccer in Europe.” No one really spoke English on the team, and you’re just in an apartment in a city of 4,000 people. There’s nothing to do. I didn’t have Internet or a TV with English-speaking channels. So I was honestly just sitting in an empty room for two weeks. I wasn’t making hundreds of thousands of dollars, I was making enough money to live off of.

SN: What’s next?
CG: I talked it over with my dad and family and decided, while my knee is getting better, just to go back to school and work away at my degree a little bit more. Figured that was the smart thing to do because I’ve never had a bad injury, but once soccer is in jeopardy, you realize, “I don’t have my degree, so if I plan on living in America it’s pretty important to have it.” It’s a tough pill to swallow right now, but I’m only 22. I’m definitely going to try to play again. If I didn’t get hurt, I wouldn’t be here right now. It’s good, I was a little burnt-out with all the travel and not necessarily the rejections, but wondering what my situation was going to be. It’s good to just relax and focus on school and hang out with the guys and take a step back from it all. And maybe if I’m healthy enough and an opportunity comes along in December or January I’ll be there to take it. But (I’m) just taking it day by day.