Aspiring football stars must emulate their heroes.
And when Christian Pulisic, 17, scored his first Bundesliga goal for Borussia Dortmund against Hamburg SV in April 2016, he replaced the benchmark for young Americans who aspire to succeed in football.
America’s top young and charming stars were no longer looking to follow in the footsteps of Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard and play in the English Premier League, or attempt to emulate Landon Donovan’s exploits in the MLS: they were looking to move to Germany.
Currently, no primary league in Europe has more Americans, nor USMNT internationals, than the Bundesliga, and several other stars have secured transfers from Germany to other elite European leagues in recent years.
Tyler Adams at RB Leipzig; Weston McKennie, who moved from Schalke to Juventus this summer; Josh Sargent of Werder Bremen; Chris Richards of Bayern Munich; John Brooks of Wolfsburg; and of course, Pulisic, the greatest American footballer of all time after his signing for Chelsea.
“I would say he paved the way for a lot of Americans to see, you know, how they set their goals and their way of thinking,” said Adams, a 21-year-old Leipzig midfielder who also plays for the U. S. national team Pulisic.
“Everyone will have their own path of development. For me, I was able to play at MLS at first and then move to Europe, where as [Christian’s] idea of getting to Europe right away is more beneficial, so I chose this path. “
“His experience and the way he has evolved are special, and he has paved the way for many Americans who are able to make this move,” continued Adams, who rose to fame when he scored a last-minute goal for Leipzig in a Champions League quarter-final last season.
After spending most of his young career betting on PA Classics, a club of the American Football Development Academy, in his hometown of Hershey, Pennsylvania, Pulisic refused to enroll in Barcelona in 2015.
According to the Bundesliga, this resolution was designed in component through his father, Mark Pulisic, who, with the assistance of London representative Rob Moore, put both sides in touch.
After moving to Ruhr, Pulisic temporarily established himself as one of the club’s young stars, scoring 10 and assisting 8 goals in just 15 games with Dortmund’s youth groups, which earned him a first-team retirement in less than a year after his departure. America.
He made his Bundesliga debut in January 2016 and over the next three seasons and a half scored 19 issues and helped 26 in just 127 first-team games before a $75 million move to Chelsea.
Since Pulisic moved to Dortmund as a teenager and broke into the Bundesliga, a total of 8 compatriots have moved to the German elite, all seeking to emulate Pulisic one way or another.
One of them is Chris Richards, 20, who has signed for Bayern Munich since FC Dallas in January 2019.
“Seeing Christian in Dortmund is definitely something in my team to come to the Bundesliga,” said Richards, who made his first-team debut for Bayern in June, to Insider.
“Christian is only two years older than me, and seeing him come to Germany and have an almost immediate effect made me very sure that this was the right league for me. “
An examination conducted through the CIES Football Observatory in 2019 found that the average age of the first 11 in the German elite is just over 26 years, the lowest of the five most productive European leagues.
Last season, Borussia Dortmund, who finished in the Bundesliga Bayern Munich, had an average age according to the team of just under 26.
Adams’ RB Leipzig, who finished third and qualified for the Champions League semi-finals, had an average of more than 24 years.
“The main explanation for why many young players have to come here is that you see that player after player has a chance to pass, whether they make a mistake in the first game or not, they are sure of themselves that they will spend there to improve with more minutes,” said Adams, who moved from the New York Red Bulls to Leipzig in 2019.
“For me, when I moved to Germany, it was one of the main reasons, it was a transparent progression plan for me about how I can continue as a player and as a person, and continue to grow.
“This is one of the main reasons I enjoy my time in Leipzig. “
When Christian Pulisic moved to Dortmund at the age of 15, the club took care of him as a user and as a player, according to Doug Harris, president of Pulisic’s training years club, PA Classics.
“The good thing, and I thank Dortmund, is that they understood that bringing a 15-year-old from the United States [a big step],” Harris told Insider when asked about his former American player’s move to Germany.
“They arranged for their father to come, and his father there.
Harris said Dortmund had given Pulisic’s father, a former futsal player, an assignment for the club’s youth programs.
“Christian and Mark lived in a component there for a few years, and it was all part of Dortmund’s plan to say, “Hey, we have a relative and we have a player, let’s expand them together. “
“It’s just a smart formula. It turned out to be a very clever formula. “
Adams, though older than Pulisic when he moved to Germany, says he won a similar remedy from Leipzig to help him settle down.
“Basically, what Leipzig is doing to help the players who come in is manage everything off the court so they can in what’s happening on the court,” he said.
“When I got here, I could already have an apartment installed and everything else, so I didn’t have to stay in a hotel when I arrived. People don’t realize how much the difference can make when you’re not trapped in a room, you know.
“That my parents can come from time to time and help me in this domain is also essential, because you don’t realize that when you live alone in the United States, you can move from home at any time. , However now that the distance is so great, it’s great to be able to see them when I can.
“Many American players are attracted to the Bundesliga for their taste for the game,” Richards told Insider.
“The Bundesliga is a very physical and technical league, and we like it more than any league. “
Adams agreed with his compatriot and told Insider that the taste for playing “is almost exactly the same” as in the New York Red Bulls.
“We literally play the same way: maximum pressure, wonderful energy, creating opportunities temporarily and keeping the opponent on guard during the game,” he said. “So when I got to Leipzig, it was simple to have compatibility on the system. “
Even Bayern Munich and Germany icon Lothar Matthaus, who won seven Bundesliga titles from 1984 to 2000, as well as the West German World Cup in 1990, warned that American taste for the game is perfectly suited to that of the Bundesliga.
“We are pleased to have these young Americans in the Bundesliga because they are wonderful players and have everything we like to see in Germany,” he told Bleacher Report.
“They are strong in defense, fast in attack and can score goals. We have a mentality. It’s not that complicated for American citizens to come to Germany. It’s much more complicated when they have to play in Spain, for example, or in Italy, another football, another mindset. “
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