American Invasion: An Insight Into International Transfers

When we look at international club transfers it is apparent that there are some consistent trends; Brazilians moving to Shakhtar Donetsk, Portuguese players moving to Wolves, Uruguayans to Cagliari. These transfers are rarely random, but are often down to a variety of different influences or preferences for the clubs. For example, Wolverhampton Wanderers have strong links to super agent Jorge Mendes, which allows the club to be able to have access to a large majority of the top Portuguese footballing talent. Why would a player join a team from the West Midlands if, say, a team such as Arsenal are interested? Well, for a foreign player joining a club which is also home to a few fellow countrymen then it is clear why it would be appealing- in theory this would allow that particular player to settle in much more quickly and easily to the club and league. Also by having Mendes as a middleman, as he has such a good standing in Portuguese football gives that player the impression that they have the right guy to get them the best possible move. A constant pattern of such transfers demonstrates that a network has been formed between the Portuguese clubs and Wolves, with Mendes positioned in the middle.

That is one example of why a partnership forms.The story that I will like to address does not contain Brazilians, or Portuguese but American players. Over the last decade, or thereabouts, more and more young Americans have been arriving on people’s radars. This is down to a few reasons but the main one is the fact that the quantity of US players based in European leagues has increased significantly. Yes, there have been examples of Americans playing in European leagues before this period, however, not with the same degree of impact. We’ve seen the likes of Weston Mckennie play for Schalke and Juventus, Christian Pulisic at Dortmund and then Chelsea and Zak Steffan at Manchester City. In fact, currently 14 out of the 28 man USMT squad ply their trade outside of their country’s borders, in Europe. 

To allow these players the opportunity to express themselves on European shores, our attention has to turn to where it all began - Germany. Did you know, that it is estimated that 1/3 of Americans have German ancestry? Coupled by the fact that, the US has a large military presence in the country which has been the case since the end of World War II. This existence of Americans in Germany has led to the rise of first and second generation players who have decided to set their allegiances to the the Star-Spangled Banner. 

The likes of Jermaine Jones who moved from playing European football back to MLS at the age of 32. He made three international caps for Germany two years before switching his allegiance to The United States. This was permitted due to the games being international friendlies. He went to to feature 69 times for the United States. Fabian Johnson, is another good example, is a left sided player capable of playing any position on that flank. He played for Germany’s youth side from U17 to U21 level, even winning the European Under-21 championship with them. More importantly he has played his entire career up to today (he is now a free agent) in the German Bundesliga’s 1 and 2. He was called up, unlike Jones, at a younger age of 23. This was, however, over 4 years since he last played for the German U21 side so it's probably likely that he realised that a full cap would not be on its way anytime soon. He went on to play 57 games for the United States. There are countless example of this type of recruitment been the two nations: John Brooks, Timothy Chandler, Alfredo Morales. All German born but played national football for the United States. The US targeted these first and second generation players and asked them to play for the US. I don’t believe that this would take much convincing- any International football is better than none. So this is one aspect to this interesting relationship.

The German Bundesliga has been for some time, been a fantastic place for a younger player to learn and develop his game.The league contains the youngest average squad age, at just 25.3 years, out of all the top leagues. The high octane, attractive football on show in the Bundesliga is often more suited to a younger and more athletic style of player. English players, Sancho and Bellingham, both started their professional careers in the Bundesliga as teenagers. Fundamentally, what allows this be possible is that in Germany it is a lot easier to get a work permit for a player than it would be in other European countries. This along side German clubs becoming a lot more receptive to the idea of signing Americans, has created another avenue for the US to develop its own players. Tyler Adams, Giovanni Reyna and Ricardo Pepi are US players who are now based in the Bundesliga. The clubs also see American players as an attractive commodity as with their collective rise in success comes an increase in value. Therefore allowing the clubs to potentially make a significant profit on player investments.This has created an economy, whereby, US players move over to Germany at younger ages in order for them to develop and later be either sold for a profit, or to be utilised by that team. The influx of these types of moves is only going to increase in the near future.

So there we have it, a small insight in an International footballing relationship. There are a few more reasons why this is such a consistent partnership, but I wanted to highlighted what I thought were the main points. I will have a new blog out next week so keep an eye out for that!