It was last October in the tunnel leading to the field at Red Bull Arena when Teal Bunbury found himself standing next to his boyhood idol as the Kansas City Wizards prepared to play the Red Bulls.

“Arsenal is my favorite team and growing up Thierry Henry was always my favorite player,” Bunbury, 20, said in a telephone interview from California, where he is training with the United States national team. “And there I was standing next to him. At first, it was weird. I was in awe. But I had to snap out of it and play the game. We talked briefly and he sent me one of his Red Bulls jerseys autographed.”

One can forgive Bunbury his sense of wonder. From a stellar career at the University of Akron to Major League Soccer, Bunbury, a promising 6-foot-2 striker, has moved up the soccer ladder quickly. After a recent trip to Spain with a collection of young M.L.S. players, Bunbury was invited to train with Stoke City of the English Premier League. Quickly the chatter turned from a training spell to a possible transfer.

“I was there for 10 days and they gave me an opportunity to train and build relations,” Bunbury said. “Guys like Gudjohnsen and Fuller helped me out and gave me advice on how to take things to the next level.” He was referring to striker EiDUR Gudjohnsen of Iceland and the Jamaican striker Ricardo Fuller.