Frisco, Texas – From playing street soccer with friends in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to playing professionally at North Texas SC, Leo Ronde Jr. climbed the professional ladder by a different route than he ever imagined.
Ronde was born on February 27, 2003 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. When he was young, he used to play soccer on the streets near his home with his friends and family. He never played in an organized team back in his home country.
“It was mostly streetball at home,” Ronde said. “I was never part of a team or an academy. I was always outside with friends and family.”
Little did he know that his family had big plans for the future. Ronde's mother was selected as one of the recipients of the 2016 Diversity Visa Lottery. Each year, the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program selects more than 50,000 recipients from countries that send few immigrants to the United States and helps them become permanent residents. Ronde and his family moved to Grapevine, Texas, just 22 minutes from Choctaw Stadium, home of NTSC.
“My mother won the lottery and without hesitation, she uploaded our photos and began the process of immigrating to the United States,” Ronde says. “We went through that and ended up here in September 2016.”
It wasn't easy for Ronde to settle here. He started studying in his fifth grade because of the language barrier, but he had to make new friends in places he never imagined. In ninth grade, Ronde began learning what it felt like to play organized sports. He played two semesters at Bell High School before he transferred to Grapevine High School.
