Yanks Abroad: Summer 2017

Titans Bastard

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The European season is nearly over; all that remain are various cup finals, relegation playoffs, and 1-2 rounds of matches in places like Italy and Turkey. That means summer transfer season is upon us. MLS players are a bit more likely to head overseas in the winter because clubs are hesitant to sell midseason, but there are always a bunch of overseas players on the move as well as domestic amateurs heading abroad when they turn 18.

I'm not even going to bother with players in Mexico because the way contracts work down there are equally as weird and even more opaque than in MLS.

Promoted
England
DeAndre Yedlin (Newcastle)

Germany
Julian Green (Stuttgart)
Mael Corboz (Duisburg) - to 2.BL
Kenneth Kronholm (Holstein Kiel) - to 2.BL


In Contention
Danny Williams (Reading) [out of contract] - Champ playoff final
David Wagner (Huddersfield Town) [manager] - Champ playoff final
Jann George (Jahn Regensburg) - pro/rel playoff vs. 1860 Munich
Shane O'Neill (NAC Breda) [out of contract] - pro/rel playoff vs. NEC

Relegated
England
Brad Guzan (Middlesbrough) [leaving club]
Lynden Gooch (Sunderland)

Germany
Alfredo Morales (Ingolstadt)
Terrence Boyd (Darmstadt)
Shawn Barry (FSV Frankfurt) - to Regionalliga


Confirmed transfers
Brad Guzan, Middlesbrough to Atlanta United
Desevio Payne, Groningen to Excelsior
Corey Anton, Kaiserslautern U19 to Hoffenheim U19
Bryan Gaul, Kickers Offenbach (Regionalliga) to Elversberg (Regionalliga or 3. Liga)
Will Pulisic, Borussia Dortmund U19 to Duke
Paolo Belloni, Genoa Primavera to Harvard


Out of Contract Players [according to Transfermarkt, mostly]

Here are the ones I think are the most interesting:

GK Justin Vom Steeg (Fortuna Düsseldorf II/GER)
RB Eric Lichaj (Nottingham Forest/ENG)
RB Marlon Fossey (Fulham U23/ENG)
CB Shane O'Neill (Apollon Limassol/CYP) on loan to (NAC Breda/NED)
CM Danny Williams (Reading/ENG)
AM Junior Flores (Borussia Dortmund II/GER)
AM Mukwelle Akale (Villarreal C/ESP)
AM Kevin Lankford (Heidenheim/GER)
FW Andrew Wooten (Sandhausen/GER)
FW Andrija Novakovich (Reading U23/ENG)
FW Rubio Rubin (Silkeborg/DEN)
FW Kai Koreniuk (Vitesse II/NED)

Fossey, Akale, Lankford, and Koreniuk all seem to be doing well at their clubs and I suspect they will at least be offered contracts. Novakovich was reportedly offered a new deal by Reading; if I were him I'd wait to see if Reading get promoted. If Reading go up, his prospects for playing time aren't good.

Rubin and Flores have seen their stock nosedive over the past few years and need to find the right fit. I could see both signing in MLS. Lichaj, Williams, and Wooten are solid second division pros. Williams has a chance to make it to the top flight with Reading or as a free agent. I'd be very surprised if the other two moved up.

After a promising start with Colorado, O'Neill's career got weird after a move to a Cypriot waystation club that immediately and continually loaned him out. He has done well at NAC, becoming captain this season.

And everyone else:

GK Steve Clark (AC Horsens/DEN)
GK Brendan Moore (Torquay United/ENG)
GK Mike Lansing (Vejle/DEN)
RB Ashton Götz (Hamburg II/GER)
RB Shaq Moore (Levante B/ESP)
CB Babajide Ogunbiyi (Hobro/DEN)
CB Demarveay Sheron (Karlsruhe II/GER)
LB Antonee Robinson (Everton U23/ENG)
CM Conor O'Brien (AC Horsens/DEN)
CM Kevin Dzierzawski (Peterhead/SCO)
CM Omar Castro (Eintracht Braunschweig II/GER)
CM Fito Ovalle (Fidelis Andria/ITA) on loan to (Sambenedettese/ITA)
CM Alec Becker (Freiburg U19/GER)
AM Devann Yao (Berliner AK/GER)
AM Masami Okada (Schönberg 95/GER)
AM Eric Lickert (Freiburg II/GER)
FW Matt Taylor (Kickers Offenbach/GER)
FW Alassane Kane (Bayern Hof/GER)
FW Charlie Rugg (Pirmasens/GER)
FW Danijal Brković (Čelik Zenica/BIH)
FW Sammy Adjei (Næstved/DEN)
FW Aris Briggs (Osnabrück II/GER)
FW Kevin Coleman (Kaiserslautern U19/GER)
 

Titans Bastard

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Bjørn Maars Johnsen, a big center forward at Hearts, has been called up by Norway. He is a Norwegian-American who grew up in North Carolina and went to Europe after HS where he's taken a real journeyman's path. Norway, lower divisions of Spain and Portugal, Bulgaria with a club that later got kicked out of the league, and finally Scotland.

He's 25 now and I don't think he'll ever be good enough to be part of the USMNT, so I hope he does well with Norway.
 

Titans Bastard

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German-American winger Jann George is heading to the 2.Bundesliga thanks to Jahn Regensburg's playoff win over 1860 Munich.
 

Dummy Hoy

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I'd love Danny Williams in a Wednesday shirt next season- he'd be a great fit and possibly a missing piece for going up.
 

Titans Bastard

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Wolfsburg have officially announced that Brooks has signed a contract through 2022.

https://www.vfl-wolfsburg.de/info/aktuelles/detailseite/artikel/brooks-kommt-46356.html

Hertha will play in the Europa League next season while Wolfsburg had to play in the relegation playoff. However, Wolfsburg has a bigger budget so if they stop underperforming, they should do better than Hertha over the next few years. In any case, Brooks is getting paid.

I don't know exactly what the transfer fee was, but the reported range is €17-20m, easily enough to break the transfer fee record for an American player.
 

Titans Bastard

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That's George Weah's kid, no?
He is.

--

A few other things:

  • David Wagner has signed a new deal at Huddersfield, ending speculation that he may be heading for a bigger club.
  • Kai Koreniuk has moved from Vitesse to AZ. The 19 year old forward scored 10 goals in 19 games for Vitesse's reserves in the Tweed Divisie (third division), but his playing time evaporated towards the end of the year. (I suspect this was because Euro clubs tend to bury players who they suspect will walk on a free.) He never got a U20 look this past cycle, but his resume thus far is somewhat interesting. He was born and raised in the US, but has actually played for both US and Dutch NTs, though only in friendlies.
 

Titans Bastard

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Ken Gipson, a 21 year old Germerican right back, has moved from RB Leipzig to Sandhausen.

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/vereine/2017-18/1/tm-news--18282-8760-.html

He got into a couple of first team games in 2015-16 when RB Leipzig were in the 2.Bundesliga, but it seems he has been left behind by their rise. Gipson also only played 11 games for the reserves in 2016-17 because of two injury absences. No idea if he's any good, really.
 

InstaFace

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BleacherReport with some lengthy Pulisic sportswriting-porn - part biography, part diagnosis of the state of our top-level-talent funnel:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2713937-the-christian-pulisic-blueprint

Snippets:
Hewerton Moreira, one of Pulisic's early Brazilian tutors, believes that if Pulisic were Brazilian, he could make that country's 2018 World Cup team.

...

Christian is still young enough that Mark clearly recalls the first step in his son's development, when four-year-old Christian joined a league run by Gunners FC, a club near Hershey. The games were three-versus-three with little goals, and Mark and Kelley coached Christian's team and the team of his sister, Dee Dee, who is 17 months older. No one would have tabbed Christian as a soccer prodigy back then. If anything, Dee Dee was the prospect. She'd get the ball and just go, so focused.

Christian?

"He would look at people on the sidelines and wave at them as the game went on around him," Mark says.

Rather than urge him to pay attention, Mark and Kelley merely cheered Christian on, told him to go "have fun out there." Even practices were kept light.

"You'd schedule them for an hour, but they'd maybe last 30 minutes because the kids just couldn't pay attention that long," Mark says. "And that was fine. All we cared about was that the kids were outside enjoying the game."

By the time Christian was six, still playing in small-field games in a Gunners FC league, he had found his focus. He was the kid who ran down every ball, up and down the field, who blew by others with his quickness and duped them with his footwork, who scored goal after goal. His change in demeanor was not the byproduct of anything his parents did, however.

Christian told B/R Mag that he always felt like his parents "supported him just the right amount" and that they prioritized "making sure I always enjoyed the game." In that pressure-free environment, his talent bloomed.

Steve Klein, director of coaching for the PA Classics, the U.S. Soccer Development Academy club that Christian played with from age 11 until he left for Borussia Dortmund at 16, believes there are two kinds of soccer parents: those who tell a player what he did wrong after a game and those who just take the kid to get ice cream. "Mark and Kelley are ice cream parents," he says.

...

The good news is that Mark believes there are many kids with Christian's athleticism who might also have the drive. A lack of talent or motivation is not the issue, he believes. "I have always looked at it like we didn't so much develop Christian as we just didn't ruin him," Mark says. "Too many talented players get ruined."

How did that not happen to Christian?

At the PA Classics, Christian was told to "go out there and express yourself." It meant he could take players on one-on-one or one-on-two again and again, and no one would yell at him to pass. Klein and the other PA Classics coaches allow their youngest kids to play all over the field, letting them find their best position intuitively. "You watch our games, and no one is constantly yelling instructions, no one is joysticking kids around the field or the other behavior you see from some coaches," Klein says.
There's a repeated emphasis on that theme, of avoiding helicopter parenting and just giving your kid the opportunity to have fun. The opportunities he had to grow his love for the game aren't necessarily easy to replicate, and his focus on self-improvement will only be present in just so many kids, of course, but maybe that - letting kids have fun as its own motivator - is the important lesson to take from his rise to stardom.
 

Spacemans Bong

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I should probably put this in the Bundesliga thread instead but Ajax's manager Peter Bosz has either (depending on who you ask) lost a power struggle/been tapped up and is now the new Borussia Dortmund manager. This is probably pretty good for Pulisic, Bosz is a Johan Cruijff acolyte and a big believer in youth. He plays attacking football and helped mold Ajax into European finalists with a team of kids.
 

DJnVa

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BleacherReport with some lengthy Pulisic sportswriting-porn - part biography, part diagnosis of the state of our top-level-talent funnel:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2713937-the-christian-pulisic-blueprint

Snippets:


There's a repeated emphasis on that theme, of avoiding helicopter parenting and just giving your kid the opportunity to have fun. The opportunities he had to grow his love for the game aren't necessarily easy to replicate, and his focus on self-improvement will only be present in just so many kids, of course, but maybe that - letting kids have fun as its own motivator - is the important lesson to take from his rise to stardom.
Cool article. Thanks for posting.

I've posted this before, but it's just fun to watch:

 

Titans Bastard

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I don't know how much Lopez will play, but this is a nice career capstone for him at the age of 30. He went pro with Chivas USA in 2005 as a 19 year old and then bounced around the USL, PDL, and lower divisions of Mexico before stabilizing his career as a top USL player for Sacramento Republic in 2014 and 2015. He spent the last 1.5 years in Ascenso MX with Celaya and now will get a shot at the top tier.
 

Titans Bastard

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EPB to PSG rumor:



A few other things:

  • 19 year old CB Danny Barbir has been released by West Bromwich Albion.
  • Tijuana's FW Amando Moreno and LB John Requejo are going on loan to Dorados de Sinaloa in Ascenso MX
  • Chivas's AM Alejandro Zendejas is going on loan to Zacatepec in Liga MX. Zendejas played for the US U17s and came through Dallas' academy, but has necessarily stopped all involvement with the USSF after he was sold to Chivas. I'm not sure how he's progressed and whether he would have been in the mix for the most recent U20 squad.
 

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Chivas's AM Alejandro Zendejas is going on loan to Zacatepec in Liga MX. Zendejas played for the US U17s and came through Dallas' academy, but has necessarily stopped all involvement with the USSF after he was sold to Chivas. I'm not sure how he's progressed and whether he would have been in the mix for the most recent U20 squad.
Don't call our name.

 

Titans Bastard

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Schalke U19's manager on McKennie:

“I compare Weston with his energy with Sead Kolasinac,” Elgert said. “Wes is a player who does well for each team. He missed time last season because of a serious foot injury. He is a player who can be a tower in battle. A high-powered player, I predict an interesting future in professional football. How fast this is, it’s difficult is to say. I do not want to put him under pressure.

“He will fight with the pros and will challenge some of them next year. He has an uncanny force and is incredibly strong in defense and in the attack.”
and on Wright:

“I always call Haji our dazzling beauty,” Elgert said. “He still does not have a proper consistency in his game. He has a very high speed with and without ball, can use both feet, has good dribbling and is very dangerous. But he must become even more physical, has to learn to push through. When he takes his chance, Haji can be a big surprise.

“He brings a lot of good for a really good striker. It is up to him, his willingness to assert himself, whether he becomes a professional. If he continues to work hard, strengthen his strengths and weaken his weaknesses, then he can become a really interesting player. He still has a lot of potential.”
http://sbisoccer.com/2017/06/schalke-academy-coach-full-of-praise-for-mckennie-wright
 

soxfan121

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Kolasinac started as a midfielder but has become a left back - correct?

An actual, non-fossilized left back who can both defend and attack would be a huge get for the NT.
 

Titans Bastard

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Kolasinac started as a midfielder but has become a left back - correct?

An actual, non-fossilized left back who can both defend and attack would be a huge get for the NT.
Indeed, although I don't think the coach was suggesting McKennie will be a LB. He's just comparing his workrate (if that's what he means by "energy") to Kolasinac.

McKennie is a box-to-box midfielder and there's not yet any reason to expect that will change.
 

Titans Bastard

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Freddy Adu on trial in the Swedish second division. I like it - he's already played in eight countries and Sweden isn't on that list. So close to ten, an epic journeyman achievement.

Freddy was last seen struggling to get off the bench for the Tampa Bay Rowdies. What a life.
 

Titans Bastard

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Sciaretta went on to report Ajax, PSV, PSG, Club Brugge, Genk, and Porto.

The PSG/Chelsea/Man City types sound like they could be agent talk, but I have no doubt there is legit interest from solid clubs. I would prefer that he not go to a superclub anyway, even if you make the leap that their interest is real.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Palmer-Brown's trajectory confuses me. Is it more common than I realize for an MLS homegrown to be so heavily scouted & rumored for a European transfer while not being able to regularly crack the MLS lineup, or is he an odd case?

It seems like an odd middle ground compared to say Miazga where the player establishes himself in the first team before leaving, or compared to the FC Dallas guys who've left as soon as they're able to.
 

Senator Donut

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Palmer-Brown's trajectory confuses me. Is it more common than I realize for an MLS homegrown to be so heavily scouted & rumored for a European transfer while not being able to regularly crack the MLS lineup, or is he an odd case?

It seems like an odd middle ground compared to say Miazga where the player establishes himself in the first team before leaving, or compared to the FC Dallas guys who've left as soon as they're able to.
I was actually talking to my friend about this during the Azteca match. Not only is he not yet an MLS regular, he can't even get into SKC's 18; they loaned him out to a USL side. By all accounts, he was stellar during his loan spell, but this continues to baffle me.
 

67YAZ

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Back in 2015, KC reportedly turned down a $1m bid from Juventus for EPB. He's been on European scout's radars for a while.

I think one of the rumored Dutch teams would make the best destination for him - English is widely spoken, youth set ups are excellent, willingness to let youth break into the first team. He could really develop there.
 

Quintanariffic

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Palmer-Brown's trajectory confuses me. Is it more common than I realize for an MLS homegrown to be so heavily scouted & rumored for a European transfer while not being able to regularly crack the MLS lineup, or is he an odd case?

It seems like an odd middle ground compared to say Miazga where the player establishes himself in the first team before leaving, or compared to the FC Dallas guys who've left as soon as they're able to.
I wondered this too, though I've read between the lines on soccer Twitter that Vermes is not a young player guy, so EPB is structurally disadvantaged in KC. May just be a unique situation.
 
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Titans Bastard

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I think EPB is absolutely good enough to be an above average starter in MLS right now. There are a few things going on:

1) He missed all of 2016 on loan, then missed preseason because of the u20s, came back with an injury, then had the u20 WC. Just not great timing this year especially.

2) Besler and Opara have played very well together, so there hasn't been a need to aggressively integrate a player into the lineup.

3) KC knows EPB will likely leave this summer or winter and I suspect they aren't as invested in his playing time as they might otherwise be.
 

soxfan121

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I think it is fair to ask questions about how SKC has handled him.
The club has two reliable, entrenched veterans and a desire to "win now", so they have short changed a promising young player, who responded by flirting with a move elsewhere, which prompted the club to bury him / loan him out / stall his development. For sure, this isn't how it's done everywhere but that it happened here is both an indictment of the MLS player development model in general and SKC specifically. And yeah, it happens this way at every club around the world, so... congrats on achieving equality, I guess?

But as an American (NT) fan with zero interest in a domestic league, this is the nightmare scenario. EPB could be a big piece of the future internationally, but he's basically wasted several years now because SKC decided that a few extra wins was worth stalling a potentially premier talent. And given their goals as a club in MLS, they have both the right, and obligation, to do that. Sucks for the NT, though.

Hopefully, he can find a good situation in the Eredivisie where he can make up for lost time.
 

Titans Bastard

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The club has two reliable, entrenched veterans and a desire to "win now", so they have short changed a promising young player, who responded by flirting with a move elsewhere, which prompted the club to bury him / loan him out / stall his development. For sure, this isn't how it's done everywhere but that it happened here is both an indictment of the MLS player development model in general and SKC specifically. And yeah, it happens this way at every club around the world, so... congrats on achieving equality, I guess?

But as an American (NT) fan with zero interest in a domestic league, this is the nightmare scenario. EPB could be a big piece of the future internationally, but he's basically wasted several years now because SKC decided that a few extra wins was worth stalling a potentially premier talent. And given their goals as a club in MLS, they have both the right, and obligation, to do that. Sucks for the NT, though.

Hopefully, he can find a good situation in the Eredivisie where he can make up for lost time.
It seems to me that SKC really dropped the ball when they failed to make a sale last winter. Now it's obvious he's leaving and nobody is going to pay much for a player who will be available on a pre-contract in two weeks.

It hasn't been a total disaster for EPB because he played and did well with Porto B for the entirety of the 2016 calendar year. And in 2017, he's been unavailable for SKC most of the time because he was with the U20s during preseason for qualifiers, got injured in the final vs. Mexico, then shortly after he returned to health left for the U20 WC.

It's bad business from SKC, but EPB has been getting games all throughout.
 

Titans Bastard

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Here's a random flyer: QPR signed Giles Phillips, a 19 year old defender who was a rising junior at Carthage College (NCAA D3), to a one year deal. I'd love to know the backstory on that one.
 

Titans Bastard

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There are many rumblings now that Danny Williams is heading to Huddersfield Town.
 

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19 year old winger McKinze Gaines has moved from Wolfsburg to Darmstadt, signing a three-year deal. After leaving Lonestar SC in Texas, he spent one season with Wolfsburg's U19s, scoring seven goals and assisting on nine more. Wolfsburg have retained a buyback clause, which makes this deal something like a supercharged loan. Darmstadt have skin in the game, so if Gaines is not an immediate contributor, he won't be quickly discarded as loanees in that situation can often be.
 

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A few youth updates:

  • De Anza Force (prominent Bay area youth club) goalkeeper Brady Scott is said to be joining FC Köln by a German blog. Supposedly he's pretty good, but I don't really know. Scott was the #3 keeper for the latest U20 World Cup team despite playing up a cycle. Based on that, he'll be the front-runner for the starting job heading into the 2019 U20 cycle.
  • Germerican right back Toni Suddoth signed a contract extension back in February, but a local paper says he's no longer in the club's plans. He'll be trialing elsewhere, but may return if nothing works out since he is under contract through 2019. Suddoth attended one U20 camp last cycle, but Ramos never called him back, so based on how things are going he seems like a middling prospect at best.
 

Titans Bastard

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Various Portuguese-language sources are reporting that Keaton Parks has joined Benfica.

http://www.record.pt/futebol/futebol-nacional/liga-nos/benfica/detalhe/talentos-para-evoluir.html
https://www.zerozero.pt/player_seasons.php?id=475518


Parks is a 19 year old central midfielder. He's an interesting case. He is from the Dallas area - hardly a youth soccer backwater in the US - but chose to play HS soccer instead of playing for a DA club, so he flew under the radar a bit. (Not totally under the radar, as SMU recruited him.) Through some sort of connection, he wound up at second-division Varzim two years ago.

Last fall he broke into the first team and did really well. By winter, he had transfer interest and Varzim sold him to Portimonense. However, Parks didn't come to terms with Portimonense because Benfica apparently had interest. When the Portimonense deal fell through, Varzim froze Parks out and he didn't play again.

Through legal channels, Parks was able to get out of his Varzim contract and is apparently now with Benfica B. From highlights, it looks like he has pretty solid technique for a big dude. Of course, the Portuguese second division isn't a very high standard, so it is difficult to really judge his talent. The road to Benfica's first team is very difficult, but their B team will be well-scouted so if he does decently well he'll find a good landing spot somewhere.

--

A few other things:
  • Forward Andrija Novakovich has re-signed with Reading and gone on loan to Telstar in the Dutch second division. I really expected him to leave Reading after getting so few chances in recent years.
  • 18 year old Cody Sundquist has moved from Fiorentina to Osnabrück. He didn't see the field much for Fiorentina's Primavera team; no doubt his new club's U19 team will be more manageable.
  • FC Dallas U18 forward Shaft Brewer is said to be heading to RB Leipzig, but he doesn't turn 18 until October and nothing will be official until then. Brewer joined Dallas' academy last summer from Sacramento Republic. At FCD, he is probably overshadowed by prospects like Bryan Reynolds and Brayan Padilla. However, he has a much better name.
 

Titans Bastard

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Danny Williams to Huddersfield is finally official. He signed a two year deal.
 

Titans Bastard

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Perry Kitchen moves from Hearts to Randers. His last season did not go particularly well, hence what is more or less a lateral move.

 

Titans Bastard

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CB/utility guy Shawn Barry has moved from FSV Frankfurt to Korona Kielce in Poland. FSV Frankfurt were just relegated for the second consecutive year and Barry was out of contract.

Some preseason youth news:
  • Weston McKennie started Schalke's first preseason game against fifth division opposition. Haji Wright subbed on at the half and scored four goals in a 9-1 win.
  • McKinze Gaines has been starting all of Darmstadt's preseason games and has been scoring/assisting quite a bit against mostly tiny clubs.
  • Luca de la Torre started and scored for Fulham in a preseason game in Poland
  • Bayern's Timothy Tillman (another Germerican) has been playing in some first team friendlies. He's not about to break into the first team, but he's supposedly a pretty good prospect who hasn't yet played in any official youth games for either country. The US is apparently taking a pass at him, so we'll see.
 

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Jonathan Klinsmann signs with Hertha. I'd imagine he'll start off with the reserve team.
 

Titans Bastard

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Here's a Weston McKennie highlight video from a recent friendly:


Thus far McKennie looks like the complete package - strong defensively, very good aerially, good passing technique and vision. He speaks good German already and Schalke thinks enough of his leadership that he was captaining their U19 team while he was on trial.

It's easy for me to envision him being The Man in the US midfield come 2022.
 

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20 minutes into Milan vs Dortmund (International Champions Cup on ESPN U) and Pulisic has an assist and drew the penalty that led to the other goal. He's still good.