A few weeks ago, 6-year-old Ariana Dos Santos was a guest of honor for Sporting Kansas City, and received an official Major League Soccer ball from the team. She takes it everywhere. When I asked her if I could use her new favorite ball to juggle, she eventually allowed it. But I could only juggle the ball six times in a row."You're not even trying!" Ariana told me.The sad part, Ariana, was that I was trying."But you're bigger than me," she said, smiling. "You should be better."Even though she is just 6, Ariana has already packed more incredible soccer experiences into those years than most people get in a lifetime. Her father, David Dos Santos, grew up in Brazil, and Ariana has been to the soccer motherland several times (she even speaks Portuguese and demanded that David only call her Neymar at just three years old). Recently, videos of Ariana juggling and pulling off impressive tricks went viral on social media. So viral that Andressa Alves, the FC Barcelona Femenino star, eventually saw and invited Ariana, David and her mother, Hollie, to come visit Barcelona. And so earlier this spring they went and spent ten days with FC Barcelona.Even though Arian can juggle the ball upward of 60 times in a row, she has a motto: "Tricks don't do anything." She's not interested in just being a viral sensation that one time when she was six (though, she doesn't necessarily know what viral means). She wants to become a professional soccer player, but that's later. Remember, she's only 6. At one practice this week, she and her friends—a group of eight-year-olds—were daring one another to eat grass.Ariana spent her Tuesday morning with the NWSL's FC Kansas City, watching players like Sydney Leroux, Yael Averbuch, Desiree Scott, and Becky Sauerbrunn train, before eventually joining them. The players hung around afterward to chat with her. After they all said their goodbyes, Ariana's parents drove her back to kindergarten, where like most kids her age, she would spend the rest of the afternoon drawing (she loves to draw) and learning how to spell. After all, not everyone can be a viral sensation, whatever that means.
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