USMNT Players Abroad Learn That Club Success at Highest Level Isn’t Linear

Last season featured a seemingly endless array of trophies won by a group enjoying simultaneous triumphs. This one has proven more trying for the U.S.’s nucleus.

Considering his effervescent personality and obvious on-field impact, not to mention the prominence of his name, it’s easy to forget that 12 months ago, Tim Weah was an almost totally unproven senior international. Untimely injuries had limited his time with the U.S. men to about 40 minutes across the preceding two-and-a-half years.

What he was at that point, however, was a newly crowned French champion. While waiting to reestablish himself with the national team, Weah helped lift Lille to an unexpected 2020–21 Ligue 1 title, appearing in 28 of 38 league games and scoring three goals (he added another pair in the Europa League). That success seemed to lift him in turn. 

“I feel much more confident now going into a game than I’ve ever felt before,” he told ESPN around this time last year. “I just feel like I’m important to the club now and important to the national team. So you know, it’s a good feeling.”

He looked lively and engaged during the last June’s Concacaf Nations League final, a wild 3–2 extra time win over Mexico, and went on to play a pivotal role in the Americans’ successful World Cup qualifying campaign. After some misfortune and delay, Weah had found and followed the ideal blueprint: make your way to a European club that competes in a top league or contends for trophies (preferably both), and then reap the benefits of that rigorous but virtuous circle. It was a blueprint that was altering the face and trajectory of a reinvigorated U.S. national team.

“I can’t say enough about it, how proud we are of our players. No matter what competition they’re in, they’re in teams that are competing to win titles,” U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter said last year. “That’s exciting because what it does is it carries over a culture of winning. … That’s what we’re looking for.”

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Weah was joined last summer by an unprecedented multitude of compatriots celebrating European titles. It was a historic spring for Americans abroad. Christian Pulisic won the Champions League with Chelsea, appearing in all seven knockout matches and scoring a vital goal in the semifinal triumph over Real Madrid. Zack Steffen (Manchester City), Brenden Aaronson (RB Salzburg), Jordan Pefok (Young Boys) and Ethan Horvath (Club Brugge) all claimed league championships while Sergiño Dest (Barcelona), Weston McKennie (Juventus), Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund) and Mark McKenzie (Genk) won their respective domestic cup tournaments.

When Pulisic’s Chelsea and Steffen’s City faced off in the 2021 UEFA Champions League final, it felt like a watershed moment even though Steffen, who’d backstopped City to the EFL Cup crown, didn’t play.

And it was. But then came the inevitable regression. That virtuous circle is anything but flat. There are peaks and valleys in abundance.

Lille is in 10th place heading into the final weekend of the 2021–22 Ligue 1 campaign. Weah re-established himself as a regular starter only last month, and his full-season offensive production fell from five goals to one. He finally scored on Saturday in stoppage time of Lille’s 3–1 win over Nice. But that decline is hardly a sign that Weah, now 22, is backsliding somehow, nor is it cause for criticism. He remains a vital player to the U.S. and just as likely to contribute.

It’s a testament to how extraordinarily demanding and difficult soccer is at its highest level and how fickle and fine the margins really are. The number of small things that can influence a given game or season on that lofty stage are so numerous that it leaves predictable progress, or even a steady trajectory, almost impossible to maintain. The demands on both the mind and body are exacting and persistent.

The 2020–21 season for Americans in Europe represented what’s possible. But it’s unfair, at this point, to expect that to become the norm. It wasn’t an end point or some kind of graduation. It was but one step in a generational journey.

Berhalter and the U.S. will begin training later this month in Cincinnati in preparation for two friendlies and two Concacaf Nations League games that’ll comprise a significant portion of their pre-World Cup schedule. Kickoff in Qatar is in six months. Any international window represents just a snapshot of that generational journey, a brief and random pause in the much longer story—or roller coaster ride—of each player’s individual career. The June window comes at the close of a challenging season.

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Reyna’s year in Dortmund was wrecked by injuries, and he’s expected to miss the May-June camp. He made only 13 appearances for BVB compared to 46 in 2020–21, when he scored seven times and won the DFB-Pokal. McKennie’s season with Juventus was cut short by a broken foot suffered in February (he’s training again), and his games and goals fell as the Bianconeri failed to lift a trophy for the first time in 11 years. 

Tyler Adams’s Bundesliga starts dropped by more than 40% as Leipzig slipped from second place in ’20–21 to fourth this season. He remained on the bench during the club’s DFB-Pokal quarterfinal and semifinal wins but will hope to end his challenging year on a high note when Leipzig plays Freiburg in Saturday’s decider. Dest’s year with Barcelona was volatile, as coach Ronald Koeman was fired in October, Xavi Hernández took over and the defender’s form and health fluctuated wildly. Dest has started just twice since the beginning of March, while FCB has endured a second trophyless campaign in three years.

Elsewhere in Spain, Yunus Musah started fewer La Liga games for Valencia and suffered the agony of missing his penalty in the shootout that capped the Copa del Rey final won by Real Betis. Back in England, Steffen played only nine times for Man City and made headlines for an error in an FA Cup semifinal loss to Liverpool. 

Center back Chris Richards has been out with an injured thigh for most of the past three months at TSG Hoffenheim. Right back Shaq Moore’s minutes fell sharply in Tenerife. Gianluca Busio started strong but faded at Venezia, which will be relegated from Serie A, and midfielder Luca de la Torre faces a relegation playoff in the Netherlands with Heracles, which finished a respectable ninth in 2020–21.  

Simply finding a stable situation in Europe is difficult, as evidenced by Ricardo Pepi’s goalless start at Augsburg and the challenges faced by Josh Sargent (Norwich City), Matthew Hoppe (Mallorca), Daryl Dike (West Bromwich Albion) and others who’ve made recent moves. There’s risk and uncertainty around every corner.

If this European gauntlet has a face, of course, it’s Pulisic’s. He’s the avatar and icon of this talented and ambitious generation of American men, and his 2021–22 season at Chelsea has demonstrated just how difficult and taxing life at that level can be. A player who clearly pours himself into his craft, Pulisic has been through the wringer this season. Every win and loss has such significant stakes attached, and every decision Blues manager Thomas Tuchel makes about whether to start or sit Pulisic is discussed and dissected. It’s simply an enormous amount to take in and endure—enough to make an impression on anyone’s mood, outlook or form.

“I would say there's two sides of me, you know, especially when people ask you how you are sometimes, There's the soccer side, and then there's the person side,” Pulisic said in January. “So the person side is even more important for me, and I'm doing all right on that sense. But yeah, it's a lot sometimes. It's always when I come to the national team, it's, ‘How are things at Chelsea? What's this? What's that?’ And yeah, things are—it’s tough. It's tough. It's definitely played a lot on me and mentally, it's been difficult at times.”

He helped Chelsea win the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup and featured significantly in both finals. He also started the FA Cup and EFL Cup finals—becoming only the second American to do so in the same season after John Harkes in 1993—losing both on penalties to Liverpool. In between, an ankle injury derailed the early portion of Pulisic’s season, and the pursuit of regular minutes and Tuchel’s favor highlighted the rest. Pulisic is tied for fourth on Chelsea’s Premier League scoring chart with six goals, but he’s started only 12 league matches heading into Thursday’s penultimate game against Leicester City. The lingering frustration finally appeared to be vented a couple of weeks ago by Pulisic’s father, Mark, who wrote and then deleted a tweet saying, in part, “The sad thing is he loves this club, teammates, and London. … puts his heart and soul into being a pro.”

Although there’s nothing scandalous about a parent advocating for their child, the tweet did offer some insight into how onerous the season has been. Living soccer at that level, especially for young men breaking through barriers far from home, is relentless and unforgiving. Everything hits hard. Success and failure are in the eye of the beholder, nuanced and ephemeral.

Berhalter has stressed frequently that the environment within the national team matters. It should be a place that offers support and connection, bolsters confidence and offers players a platform to succeed. That atmosphere should be welcomed by the team’s European cohort, many of whom will appreciate some refreshment.

“Getting these guys in camp should be like a treat for them—to be together, and just to enjoy it and get to play our games,” Berhalter said last year. "And we’re looking forward to creating that environment for sure.

“I remember when I played for the national team and coming back and joining up with the team and seeing all your buddies again, and then getting out on the field and begin able to compete with them, that was the best part of it.”

Pulisic said in January, “I’m always very excited to come back with the national team and sort of step away and get to enjoy playing with these guys, and get to just enjoying football in general.”

Despite the aforementioned trials, the European season has been far from a total loss. It’s never that black or white. Aaronson won another Austrian double with Salzburg and has been linked with a move to the Premier League and Leeds United (if Jesse Marsch’s team stays up). Defenders Antonee Robinson and Tim Ream definitely are Premier League–bound after a brilliant season at Fulham, which clinched the Championship crown. Jordan Pefok won’t win a second straight title with Young Boys, but he currently leads the Swiss Super League’s golden boot race and is the national team’s most in-form European striker by far. 

Center back Cameron Carter-Vickers is set to earn a U.S. recall after winning the Scottish Premiership with Celtic, as is forward Haji Wright after a scoring spell with Turkey’s Antalyaspor. And on Wednesday, there will be an American on either side of the Europa League final. Rangers’ James Sands, an MLS Cup winner with New York City FC, has made four appearances in the tournament this spring. And 2014 World Cup veteran Timmy Chandler remains in the mix at Eintracht Frankfurt.

While some European fortunes rise, others fall, and the only certainty is that those circumstances will change. Very little remains stable for long in an environment that intense, or at clubs with almost limitless options. The upcoming U.S. camp comes at a trying time for several American players. The team that plays next month will represent a snapshot of a moment in time, a freeze frame of men in motion. Their health, outlook, situation and form probably will look different in August when the new seasons kick off, and then different again when the Qatar World Cup begins in November. That uncertainty is part of the European experience and a tax that was always going to be levied on the generation taking this unprecedented step.