Daniel Francisco Barrera (born January 8, 1990) is a professional soccer player who plays as a midfielder for Hartford Athletic in the USL Championship. Born in Colombia, he has represented the United States at youth level.

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Barrera moved to the United States at the age of eight, growing up in Thousand Oaks, California.^[1][2] He trained with Sheffield United F.C. as a teen.^[3] He developed his game in the United States both with the US Soccer residency program and at the high school level with Westlake High School, where he skipped his senior year of high school.^[4][5] He was named as a Parade magazine All-American and regarded as one of the top recruits coming out of high school.^[4] RiseMag.com listed Barrera as the #1 recruit in his class.^[6]

He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where he was a student-athlete and played college soccer with the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's soccer team from 2008 to 2010. He would appear for the team in 66 games, scoring 10 goals and adding 22 assists.^[7][8][9] He left UCSB after his junior year to pursue a professional career.

While still attending college, Barrera played with the newly formed PDL team Ventura County Fusion in the summers, alongside his brother Diego Barrera.^[10][11] For the 2009 PDL season, Barrera and Ventura County Fusion beat Chicago Fire Premier for the league championship.^[12] Over 4 seasons, he appeared in 39 games for Ventura County, scoring 13 goals and 15 assists.^{[13][14][15][16]}

After being named to the 2011 PDL season All-League Team, Barrera signed with Serbian SuperLiga side FK Spartak Subotica (for sponsorship reasons the name was Spartak Zlatibor Voda that season) in August 2011 after a successful trial.^[17] He made his debut for Spartak against FK Borac Čačak on December 10, 2011.^[18]

When he was 17 he was a member of the USA team at the 2007 Pan-American Games being the youngest player of the roster. He also represented United States at U17 and U18 levels.^[2]

Individual

• USL All-League Team: 2016
• Hartford Athletic Team MVP 2020
• USL Championship's All-Time Hispanic Team

Danny's older brother, Diego Barrera, is also a professional soccer player. Barrera enjoys being able to experience other cultures through his soccer experiences and plans to be a coach after he retires.^[43] Barrera has a brief appearance and line in the Will Ferrell movie Kicking and Screaming as his coach Dan Metcalfe was also the movies soccer choreographer and used several of his youth players in the movie.^[44]

Barrera and his partner Vanessa have four children, Jacob, Addie and Dallas. The couples fourth child, Dakota Rae was born in February 2021.^[44]