About Daniel

Hello, 
My name is Daniel Pena, the founder of The Art of Football. In this blog I focus on sharing insights about training and player development, soccer gear/equipment, soccer lifestyle and recovery, and general football knowledge and culture.
Before we start, soccer is the more popular term in the United States but for my website I chose the name “football” because I grew up calling the sport “futbol” and it’s the more popular term around the world.

My Expertise: Private Soccer Coaching, Personal Athletic Training, Blogging, Sports League Coordinating
Where to Find me: Instagram @Theartoffootballofficial and @bayarea.champions
My Experience: 10+ years of experience playing in club soccer, high school, college, and top adult amateur leagues in the United States, a Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology Rehab:Science, Certified Personal Trainer and Nutritionist, owner of this website (The Art of Football private training program, and the Bay Area Champions Adult Small-Sided Soccer League.


Who is Daniel Pena

Hello, I am Daniel Pena. I help footballers become better players through this public blog, private training programs, and by hosting leagues and pickup games for players in the Bay Area.

What you should know about me

  • I am currently 24 years old and turn 25 on Christmas.
  • I have been playing competitive football since I was 11 years old and I am currently playing in the 4th tier of US soccer which is considered a high-level amateur league called the SWPL with Atletico San Jose
  • During my youth playing career I always wanted to learn more about how to improve performance and prevent injuries due to experiencing various injuries myself such as ankle sprains and other foot problems . This is why I went into studying kinesiology after graduating from high school in 2018.
  • In December 2022 I graduated from San Jose State University with a degree in Kinesiology: Rehab Science as well became a Certified Personal Trainer and a Certified Nutritionist.
  • About a year later around December 2023 I began The Art of Football which started out as a public blog. The Art of football has now evolved to a private training program and a small-sided adult league expanding beyond The Art of Football called: Bay Area Champions.

My Story

Growing up I always wanted to play at the highest level, and I still do, but looking at it now I did not do as much as I could have, but at the same time I did the best with what I had. I grew up in a small, but beautiful beach town called Cambria, CA, which is part of San Luis Obispo county, but it’s still about an hour away from any major city in the county such as San Luis Obispo or Paso Robles.

During my youth career the closest teams were about an hour away from me by car, they were expensive, and it was hard for my parents to make the drive sometimes due to work. For these reasons from about the ages of 7-11 I played a lot of local soccer, but at the recreational level, and then finally when I was about 11 I joined a competitive travel team with some of my local friends which meant our parents could take turns taking us to the weekly trainings that were about an hour away.

I played club soccer for Legacy United Soccer Club based in Templeton, California until about middle school and then with Madrid Premiere based in Atascadero, California all the way through high school, where I also played 4 years of varsity soccer with Coast Union High School. During this time, from middle school and even through high school, I become known as the guy who spent his time kicking the ball against the wall for hours and I also become known as the guy that would always organize pickup games because again, I had to do the best with what I had and find different ways to train.

After high school, I transferred to Santa Monica College where I got to train with the Mens soccer team and played with a UPSL team called Lobos FC. I lived in Los Angeles for a year, but after that year I moved back to San Luis Obispo County and trained with the Cuesta College Mens Soccer Team. After I graduated from Cuesta I transferred to San Jose State University and played with the school’s club soccer team. After graduating college I was playing in various leagues and pickup games in the area and recently I started playing with Atletico San Jose, a new amateur team in the Bay Area.

Throughout my soccer career I had multiple injuries such as ankle sprains on both feet a couple of times from middle school to high school. Thankfully I’ve never had a major injury, but I did have some big toe pain a bit before COVID that was unusual. When I went to a foot expert to see what I had, he only looked at my foot and did some palpations for a minute or so and determined I had “arthritis”. The “expert” told me that this was an autoimmune disease that was never going to heal and the best things I could do where use his “solutions”, which were to buy custom insoles and buy some other things he recommended.

At this point I was about to be a sophomore in college and only knew some basic anatomy topics, but I knew the “expert” was wrong because what he had told me made no sense. How can there be no solution to an autoimmune disease especially when I was only about 19 or so at the time? How can a 19 year old have arthtiris and not be able to do anything about it?

At that time I had something called “hallux rigidus” which is a type of arthritis that most likely came from all those years of not prioritizing my footwear on and off the soccer field, as well as spending so much time wearing tight and cushioned shoes. After this meeting with the podiatrist I was determined to figure out how to fix my problems and not let them happen again and this is what led me to exploring the world of alternative medicine and alternative training methods, which helped me reverse my autoimmune condition that the “foot expert” said was “irreversible.”

If you have not been to University before to study it’s important to know that the first one to two years you have to take a bunch of general education classes that have nothing to do with what you are majoring in. This is another reason why I began studying independently so much. Because I was already done with one year of college, I was in my second year, and I was barely starting to learn real topics about my major. So I thought, if these schools are making me take music classes, art classes, and all these general ed classes, when am I going to finally learn how to fix people’s injuries?

So again, I kept taking more responsibility and I came across the following groups of people / experts and a lot of the information they were talking about went completely against what I was learning in school. The crazy part was that when I applied this information, I began to experience tremendous health, performance, recovery, and even mental benefits.

Then it become very clear that there is a lot of information not taught in schools, but whether that is by choice or by accident I am not sure. One of the things that I did learn in college was the ability to think for myself and come up with my own conclusions.

A lot of people think college is about believing everything they teach because supposedly it is the most correct and up-to-date information, which is just not true. Think about this, the science that is coming out today in 2024 won’t be in the textbooks until decades from now. Why? Because it takes time to put all that information in the textbooks, which means the current textbooks cannot possibly be up-to-date and are teaching things that came from decades ago, not right now.

Of course a lot of the information they share is true, accurate, and helpful, but another thing to think about is that there are so many amazing scientists and doctors that have made huge scientific discoveries that can change the world, but they are never talked about in these textbooks. This make you wonder, why? Why are the discoveries of these people not talked about?

These are some of the groups of people that have had a huge impact on my training and lifestyle philosophies.

To summarize everything I’ve learned from these groups of people into a couple of sentences is that working with nature is by far the best way to improve sports performance, recovery, confidence, and overall health. A lot of our training philosophies were inspired by these amazing groups of people and I cannot thank them enough for everything they have taught me that I now want to teach to my players.

If you want to learn more about our training philosophies and would like to get started with using our training tips head over to the training and player development section of my blog. From there also make sure to checkout our recommended products, Game fundamentals, and general knowledge and culture blogs, or contact me if you are interested in private training.


About the Author- The Art of Football