Ian Feuer

Belgium

Feuer moved to Belgium in 1988, where his Las Vegas youth team had previously played in a youth tournament. When they visited, he stayed with a local Belgian family and the same family contacted a neighbour who was connected to reserve team coach Gilbert Marmenhout at Belgian First Division club Club Brugge. He was offered a trial and impressed enough to be offered a year long deal to play with the club's under-16 squad. Brugge also organised a foster home with a local woman for him to live nearby and he attended a Belgian school that specialised in printing, where he learned Dutch. Unable to drive due to his age, Feuer would cycle to training every day. After nine months with the youth side, he received a call-up for the reserve team, who were short of goalkeepers due to injury and sickness, to travel to France to play in an under-23 tournament. His performances in the tournament led him to be offered a professional contract with Brugge on his return to Belgium and saw him named as third-choice goalkeeper for the senior team. In 1991, he joined Molenbeek, also of the Belgian First Division, on loan from Brugge. He played nineteen league matches for Molenbeek and the club made approaches to Brugge about signing Feuer on a permanent deal but were rejected. While with Molenbeek, Feuer was called up to the U.S. national team and made his international debut when he came on for Mark Dodd in the 71st minute of a 3–1 defeat against Morocco in Casablanca on a March…

Feuer, one of six children of show business parents, was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. His father Ron was born in New York and raised in The Bronx, leaving home at the age of sixteen. He became a musician and toured with singers Diana Ross and Paul Anka and appeared in Elvis Presley's last shows in Las Vegas. His mother Rusty was a showgirl in the city and had appeared in opening acts for Rat Pack singers Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. before becoming an agent. While growing up, he developed a love for soccer after beginning to play at age 8 when he joined local youth club Los Gatos following an invite from his friend Anthony, nephew of Las Vegas gangster Anthony Spilotro, as the club were short of players. He joined another local youth team, the Generals, and by the age of eleven, Feuer had grown significantly taller than most of his team but had been described by his youth coach Larry Griffiths as "the clumsiest, and he wasn't going to make the team". However, Griffiths son Aaron was a friend of Feuer and refused to play unless his friend was included in the team. Griffiths made the decision to convert Feuer into a goalkeeper and trained with him every Saturday to improve his game, building a soccer equivalent of a pitching machine to shoot balls at the young goalkeeper at times for up to eight hours a day. He would face hundreds of shots every hour from the machine and Griffiths praised his determination and noted the improvement in his game, stating "He went…

His sister Debra Feuer is an actress and married Mickey Rourke in 1981, before divorcing in 1989. Feuer performed the non-speaking role of the Predator in the 2007 film Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.