As American stars like Christian Pulisic and Tyler Adams continue to mature and up-and-comers emerge, we’ll soon wonder how their performances compare to Americans from the past.
To help you draw these comparisons, here are the five best campaigns from Americans in Europe.
The return of the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga was a triumph for football fans in Germany and around the world. One club that didn’t get to celebrate was Dynamo Dresden. The entire team was placed under quarantine after two players tested positive on May 9.
The German Bundesliga returned to action Saturday with a dozen teams taking the pitch for the first time in two months. Though there were no fans, there was plenty of the passion and excitement we love to see from one of the major European leagues.
For sports fans around the world, this was the first chance to watch elite football since the novel coronavirus pandemic shut down all sporting events.
It seems no one bothered to tell Fox.
We knew it would be weird. We knew it would be a new normal. We knew we didn’t care.
Major European football returned from a two-month hiatus as the Bundesliga kicked off with six matches on Saturday, none bigger than the Revierderby between Ruhr rivals Borussia Dortmund and Schalke.
Dortmund, without its menacing Yellow Wall behind it, throttled Schalke 4-0, instituting its own form of social distancing on the scoreboard.
When Lynden Gooch left the sleepy beaches of Santa Cruz for Sunderland at just 17, his aspirations were lofty.
He was joining a mid-table Premier League club. His first-team squadmates played internationally for nations like Belgium, Sweden and Ghana. And his first-team manager held previous stints at Celtic, Aston Villa and Leicester City.
Unfortunately, as Gooch began to rise, his club began to sink.
A quick guide to who's who in the Bundesliga as the season is set to resume this weekend (in order of league standings).
#1. BAYERN MUNICH
Manager: Hans-Dieter Flick
Player to watch: Robert Lewandowski
Seven years ago, the wildest sequence of events took place at Vicarage Road during the Championship playoff semifinal between Watford and Leicester City. Troy Deeney’s goal vs. Leicester is fondly remembered years later as one of the best last-second winners.
At the time, Watford had been out of the Premier League for six years, and this was the first time in five years that the Hornets had finished in the top six of the Championship and even qualified for the playoffs.
After months without it, it’s only natural to look at this weekend’s upcoming Bundesliga fixture list and lose your shit. The Revierderby between Schalke and Borussia Dortmund?! Cinderella side Union Berlin hosting mighty Bayern Munich?! It doesn’t get any better than this . . . until you remember it kind of does.
As the Bundesliga returns and other top leagues follow suit, we’re bound to have a number of exciting storylines develop. This might be coming from a biased, even desperate, place, but I think a number of young Americans will become part of the headlines that catch many by surprise.
Here are three American players abroad who already stand out at the youth levels of their clubs and are ready to take the next step once their leagues return to action.