Darren Eales should just apply for American citizenship already.
The Tottenham Hotspur Director of Football Administration-turned-President of the Atlanta MLS expansion team was a born in Chelmsford, England, but he played forward for the Brown University "Brown Bears" (their actual nickname) in college. In 1994, he was the Ivy League Player of the Year and a First-Team All-American.
He played professionally for the Hampton Roads Warriors in Virginia, and the Hershey Wildcats in Pennsylvania (both since folded) before returning to England. And now he’s coming back.
Eales brings Premiership experience (before Tottenham, Eales worked at West Bromwich Albion as a lawyer) to a club — and a league — that will surely benefit from it. Eales’ duties at Tottenham included player acquisitions, player development and performance analysis.
Granted, Tottenham isn’t the best club in the premiership, or the most well-managed, or the most famous, but they could still wipe the floor with any American side (the National Team notwithstanding).
Eales has worked with some of the top players in the game, and should be able to lure some top-flight talent (at least for the MLS) to the ATL. He might even convince some of his Tottenham buddies to make the jump over the pond, although that’s unlikely.
The Atlanta expansion team has already set records for fan participation and season sales, all for a team with no players that won’t even take the field until 2017.
Roster building is scheduled to begin in 2015, so all we can do is speculate as to how effective Eales will be, but it’s clear the ownership group really wanted Eales to be the man in charge of said roster building — they picked him as team president before they even picked a name.
