Colts Kicker Shrader Lives Out Tottenham Dream in London Win Over Washington

Spencer Shrader, a former soccer prospect who spent a year chasing the game in Brazil and Canada, kicked three field goals as the Colts beat Washington 30-13 in London.

The Indianapolis Colts came away from London with a 30-13 victory over the Washington Commanders on Sunday, though for one player the setting mattered as much as the result. For most of the roster, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was simply a striking venue; kicker Spencer Shrader had spent his childhood imagining himself playing there. The difference is that he pictured it in soccer, the sport he pursued before football.

Shrader said the setting tested his focus once the game began. "During the game, you're trying to not get overwhelmed, but there are those moments where you look around the stadium like, 'I cannot believe we're in Tottenham Stadium,' this is so cool," he said. "And then they showed Wayne Rooney."

Rooney, shown on the video board during a break in play, is the former forward who spent most of his career at Manchester United and scored 53 international goals for England. He was the only player Shrader saw in person. "That's the craziest thing, we grew up watching him," Shrader said. "We appreciated the experience and did our best to take it all in and not get overwhelmed by the environment."

Rooney was not the only soccer figure at the ground. Roy Keane, a former Manchester United captain, was also there to watch the Colts beat Washington, and United States forward Folarin Balogun met Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels during the day.

Soccer was Shrader's first love, the sport he played his whole life before football entered the picture. He was an attacking midfielder, a position that kept him involved in attack and defense across a full match, and he did not kick a football competitively until his senior year at Newsome High School in Florida.

The game he grew up on still pulled at him after graduation. Shrader spent a year chasing potential professional soccer opportunities in Brazil and Canada before concluding that football offered him a better path to a professional career.

The two roles, he explained, ask different things of an athlete. "You're engaged in the game the whole time for 90 minutes, and it's a creation game — nothing is the same. It's a free-flowing game, you're creating, attacking, defending so you can really get in the groove of the game," Shrader said of soccer. "Kicking is not like that. They stop the game, you go out there and you have to do your thing."

Against Washington, he delivered again. A week after finishing as the Colts' hero, Shrader made field goals from 48, 52 and 44 yards and converted every extra point, a showing in line with how he has performed for most of the season.

"It's very different than playing soccer was, but I still get to live out my dream of being a professional athlete," Shrader said. The dream has now carried him onto stages of the kind he once imagined for himself as a boy — in a different sport than the one he planned.