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How an earthquake, nuclear fallout and family made Jun Endo one of the world's most electrifying players

Related Topics: Jun Endo, Angel City, Katharine Lotze

If you were to show up an hour early to an Angel City game and skip the very cool fanfest activities happening outside BMO Stadium, you could behold the vision that is Jun Endo juggling: the stadium still mainly empty, the pink-haired 22-year-old Japanese midfielder is alone on the field with headphones on, in communion with the ball. Sometimes she wears only socks.

She listens to whatever music she feels like in that moment, whether calm and slow or fast-paced and intense, and she takes one exquisite touch after another. She can juggle the ball thousands and thousands of times in a row, high and low, low and high, outside foot, inside foot, laces, shins.