By Jason Davis - WASHINGTON, DC (Dec 15, 2011) US Soccer Players -- For the foreseeable future -meaning for as long as Jurgen Klinsmann is in charge of the US National Team - American internationals playing in MLS won’t be getting much of an off-season. The number of players spending time training with teams in Europe is staggering, especially considering how few did so prior to Klinsmann taking the job.
Message clearly sent and received. The new boss believes the Major League Soccer season is too short, players are not staying sharp during their down time, and it just won’t do for National Team purposes. If players want to get into the good graces of the man in charge, it behooves them to train abroad.
On the surface, and most fundamentally, these training stints are about staying conditioned and challenged throughout the MLS winter. But as we’ve seen with the recent experiences of Red Bulls defender Tim Ream, training stints are never just about training. Guest players might not be obviously transfer targets when they arrive, but if they show they can play, it’s inevitable that the host team might like to see about maybe acquiring the player. How could they not?
Ream, who also trained with Arsenal prior to his most recent stint at West Bromwich Albion, clearly impressed WBA manager Roy Hodgson (who has some experience with Americans, having coached at Fulham). Hodgson said as much, and expressed interest in bringing in the young American center back on loan in January. It's the same move Landon Donovan made to Everton, a loan that worked out so well for all parties that Donovan’s name has come up every winter since, and one that could both benefit a young player in Ream and reinforce West Brom’s roster in the middle of the long English Premier League season.
With MLS players, we have to consider the finances especially with a loan deal. West Brom doesn’t need to commit millions of dollars to buying Ream from MLS in order to benefit from his talents. Like with Donovan’s Everton move, an English team with limited resources wants to bring in an American player they rate highly to help the cause while not breaking the bank. It's also an opportunity for the player, both in fulfilling Klinsmann's desire for meaningful games when MLS is idle as well as the potential for a permanent move.
New York says they’d rather not loan out their young stars. That’s understandable. They’d probably rather not put one of their better players in harms way across the pond, where any number of calamities could affect his ability to contribute for New York next year. Ream doesn’t seem to be getting the same considerations from his MLS club that Landon Donovan received, for whatever reason. If one of Klinsmann’s motives in pushing for MLS-based American internationals to train in Europe was to facilitate their landing in a top league like the EPL or Bundesliga, it hasn’t worked in Ream’s case.
Whether or not it works in general is a different question. It might not be the singular drive behind Klinsmann’s off-season machinations, but he would hardly be the first to argue that a change of league from MLS to Europe is in the best interest of the elite player. MLS talks of being among the elite in ten years time, 50 Landon Donovan-caliber players, and so on, but right now that's not the case.
There’s little Klinsmann can do about so many of his player pool plying their trade in the US, with Major League Soccer’s alternate calendar, shorter season and travel strains, but he is in the position to put those same players on display abroad. Not only will they stay on the schedule Klinsmann prefers, they might catch the eye of a coach in England or Germany and garner transfer interest. That doesn’t mean that Klinsmann doesn’t value MLS as a place for Americans to play, but it’s hard to fault him if he wished some of the Americans in the MLS who he’s looking towards as National Team contributors faced a tougher club calendar. It just so happens that Klinsmann has connections in a few countries that have leagues that fit that bill. Not an ulterior motive then, but a possible added benefit.
David Beckham’s winter adventures in Italy and Landon Donovan’s time on Merseyside have done just as much to open Major League Soccer as a potential shop window for European clubs. In addition to West Brom’s interest in Ream, Everton manager David Moyes reportedly asked Thierry Henry about coming over for a stint to help the cash-strapped Toffees. Those are just two in a maelstrom of rumored and potential loans swirling about this winter.
A rise in loan chatter during the MLS offseason has become the norm, adding a new wrinkle to the off-season personnel decisions MLS teams face. Combined with Klinsmann’s desire to see Americans continue working when the MLS season is complete, the presumed availability of US-based players means clubs will continue to ask. At the moment, it appears all they get is rejection.
MLS players, particularly Americans, are now more visible than ever before. The new National Team coach, a world famous player in his own right with big time jobs on his managerial resume, made his preference clear on how those players should spend their Decembers. With the means to land training stints in some of the world’s biggest leagues, the still-fresh example of Landon Donovan’s success and the money crunch affecting all but the biggest clubs in Europe, the ingredients are there for a number of off-season loans.
Who that serves in practice isn't easy to answer. New York has already expressed their preference, letting the European clubs know they're not interested in loans. If that becomes the norm, one wonders how open those European clubs will be to thinking of the upside to these training stints in terms of transfer fees rather than loan deals.
Jason Davis is the founder of MatchFitUSA.com. Contact him: matchfitusa@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davisjsn.
More From Jason Davis:
