It seems as if it has been a successful summer for the U.S. men's national team.
Well, not on the field and definitely not off the field either, but what I mean is this: Two of the biggest questions hanging over the team for the past two seasons were: Will Gio Reyna ever play professional soccer again? And will Matt Turner ever play professional soccer again?
At long last, the USMNT's presumptive starting goalkeeper and theoretical starting attacking midfielder have clear paths toward playing time after both players finally and permanently switched clubs this summer. While we probably do read a little too much into how club situations impact national team performance, these were the two moves most directly connected with the state of the USMNT. Such is the talent of both players that they really just needed to play -- somewhere -- to reassert their status within the national team.
At least, that's what we thought. After the announcement of coach Mauricio Pochettino's latest roster, which contains a nearly even split between MLS- and Europe-based players, it's difficult to understand what actually raises your profile in the eyes of the former Tottenham manager. Less than a year out from the World Cup, only a handful of players seem to be locks -- not just to start next summer, but to even make the roster.
Rather than putting a bowl of lemons on my desk and trying to put myself in Pochettino's head, though, I'm going to try to assess the state of transfer movement among the USMNT in the same way I did last summer: by grading all of the major moves based on two factors -- what they mean for a given player's professional career and what they mean for the future of the USMNT.
(Players are listed in order of their estimated transfer values on the site Transfermarkt. All transfer data is also via Transfermarkt.)
- Transfer window winners and losers: Which clubs improved?
- Men's transfer grades: What moves mean across Europe
- NWSL transfer grades: USWNT moves and a record fee
Johnny Cardoso, 23, midfielder
Real Betis to Atletico Madrid, 24 million
Grade: A
What it means for the player: It's really kind of amazing that this move happened, and no one really seems to care all that much. Atletico Madrid are one of the best teams in the world. They lost to Real Madrid on penalties in the Champions League last season. Their coach is Diego Simeone, one of the best managers on the planet. The team hasn't finished outside of the top four in LaLiga since 2012, and it has won two league titles over that stretch.
Outside of Christian Pulisic's move to Chelsea and maybe Weston McKennie's transfer to Juventus, this is the biggest move ever made by an American soccer player. Atletico Madrid pay competitive wages with just about any other club in the world, and is competitive in one of the two most competitive leagues in the world, year after year. And the team signed Cardoso to be one of its starting midfielders at only 23 years old.
Atletico have been bad to start this season, but Cardoso has started all three matches. We'll see if he's actually capable of playing for a team with Atletico's ambitions over the long run -- he has been steady, not spectacular, so far in his career -- but he's presumably getting paid a lot of money and he's pushing his athletic ability as far as he can. Those two things are the whole point of playing professional soccer.
What it means for the USMNT: It might not ... mean anything? Despite being on the Gold Cup roster, Cardoso barely played. Some of that was injury, but a bigger part of it was poor play in the friendlies leading up to the tournament. And if Cardoso couldn't get on the field for what seemed like it was the USMNT's B-minus or C team this past summer, then why would he stand a chance when the player pool is at full strength?
At the same time, can Pochettino really ignore Cardoso if he's playing for Atletico every week? I know he hasn't played all that well in friendlies, but this doesn't seem like the kind of player you write off after a couple of exhibition matches. When a guy is playing for Atletico Madrid every week and he's also behind multiple MLS players on the USMNT depth chart, someone is making a massive player-identification error.
Malik Tillman, 23, attacking midfielder
PSV to Bayer Leverkusen, 35 million
Grade: B
What it means for the player: This just feels right. Although he never played a huge minutes load in either of his two seasons with PSV, Tillman was incredibly productive whenever he did play during the club's back-to-back title runs.
The question for any attack-minded player in the Eredivisie is: Can he do it once the space disappears and the defenders actually start defending? And it's especially true for a player in Tillman's position. He's not a winger, but he's also not a true attacking midfielder, or a true central midfielder: He's a floating, off-ball-running 8.5 or something. These are the kinds of roles that can exist on a dominant team in the Dutch league, but there tend to be more demanding constraints once you move to one of Europe's Big Five leagues.
But the Bundesliga is the most similar of the Big Five to the Netherlands, so it makes sense from a stylistic progression. Leverkusen has been a top-10-to-15 team in the world over the past two seasons, and Tillman is essentially replacing Florian Wirtz, who moved to Liverpool for 125 million over the summer.
That said, the club just fired manager Erik ten Hag after three matches. There's suddenly a lot more uncertainty around this move than there was a couple of weeks ago.
What it means for the USMNT: Unlike at PSV, there's now a world where Tillman falls out of favor and doesn't get on the field all that much this season. That was true before Ten Hag was sacked, and it's even more true with whoever replaces him. But still, he was the team's most expensive transfer ever, so he should get quite a long leash. If he doesn't play after the club invested so much into his arrival, that'll say more about Tillman's actual quality as a player than anything.
Yunus Musah, 22, midfielder
Milan to Atalanta, 4 million (loan)
Grade: B-
What it means for the player: He'd arrived in Milan when Billy Beane & Co. were calling the shots, but they're not there anymore, and the club is all over the place. Milan are signing undervalued young players, overvalued old players, and everyone in between. They're also on their third coach since the start of last season, and the uber-conservative Max Allegri doesn't seem like a great fit for a player such as Musah, who's at his best when he's able to take risks in the midfield. Getting out of Milan is probably a good thing.
The Atalanta situation is a little murkier than it has been in the past; Gian Piero Gasperini left for Roma in the offseason after nine years in charge. He has been replaced by Ivan Juric, who was fired by Roma less than one season into the job and then took over midway through Southampton's doomed last-place Premier League campaign. Atalanta hired him, presumably, because he used to be one of Gasperini's assistants.
The club is, at least, one of the more experimental and forward-thinking groups in Italy; Musah should have plenty of opportunities to play. And given that there's a make-it-permanent option in the deal, Atalanta are not incentivized to play someone else on a long-term deal ahead of him, either.
What it means for the USMNT: Some of the consternation about Musah's career has been overblown. He's only 22, and he has started more than 30 games for a club that was in the Champions League in each of the previous two seasons. But the situation in Milan was completely unstable, and there's no reason to think that Atalanta should be any worse. If he's going to have a breakout season, it's more likely to happen in Bergamo.
Timothy Weah, 25, winger
Juventus to Marseille, loan, 1 million
Grade: C
What it means for the player: He's taking a step down in team and league quality, but presumably he's going to play more often -- and do so in his preferred position. At least, that's what I initially thought.
At Juventus, he was a spot starter at wing back. He played along the back line in his first match with Marseille, then he started the second match at left wing, only to be bumped back to left back in their most recent game.
Juventus always did seem a step too far for Weah -- at least if he wanted to be a consistent starter in attack. Marseille should give him a chance to show that he's able to be a solid starter in a major European league. He has never played 2,000 minutes in a domestic league season, but he at least has a chance to do that under Roberto De Zerbi.
The bigger issue with a temporary move to Marseille is that the culture at the club seems as if it might be toxic. Players are fighting with one another and the club is releasing videos where De Zerbi embarrasses another player in the middle of practice and tells him to "call his agent" because it's time for him to find a new club. The club thought choosing to share this publicly made them look good.
In a World Cup year, Weah's playing time could rely on Marseille being something they haven't been in a while: stable.
What it means for the USMNT: It was always a little strange that one of the USMNT's starting wingers wasn't even playing as a winger for his club team. For all the risks with the state of things at Marseille, that's probably outweighed by Weah getting plenty of potential minutes -- and some of them on the wing -- at a Champions League club.
Paxten Aaronson, 21, attacking midfielder
Eintracht Frankfurt to Colorado Rapids, 7 million
Grade: C
What it means for the player: He'll get to play more, and he'll probably get a decent little raise going from Frankfurt to a designated player in MLS. But ultimately, I'm not sure it really matters that much? If he lights it up in MLS, teams in Europe will still want him since he's still a few years away from his prime. And if he doesn't light it up in MLS, then guess what? He wasn't going to make it in Europe anyway.
What it means for the USMNT: I guess I could see people getting upset about this if Aaronson was the only young American currently playing in Europe, but like we just talked about: There's literally a player starting for Atletico Madrid who probably wouldn't make the World Cup roster if the tournament started next week.
In their statement about the move, Frankfurt said that Aaronson wanted the transfer, in part, because this was a World Cup year. And while Pochettino's most recent roster certainly suggests that playing well in MLS is viewed in equal or better light to playing well in Europe, I'm not sure this one moves the needle much in either direction.
Giovanni Reyna, 22, attacking midfielder
Borussia Dortmund to Borussia Monchengladbach, 4 million
Grade: B-
What it means for the player: If we grade this on a broader scale, that letter would be close to an "F". There was a time where Reyna wasn't just the most exciting USMNT prospect; no, he was genuinely one of the most exciting prospects in world soccer. He was supposed to be the next dude at Dortmund. After Erling Haaland and Jadon Sancho, it was going to be Reyna and Jude Bellingham. Now, one of them stars for Real Madrid, and the other one is moving teams for less than the Rapids paid to sign Brenden Aaronson's brother.
After starting 23 league matches as a 17-year-old in 2020-21, Reyna has started 16 games in the four combined seasons since. So, he just needed to go anywhere remotely competitive where he might be able to get some consistent minutes. And Gladbach fit the bill. They're not going to be in a relegation fight, they're not going to be in a title race, and they're in the one league that Reyna knows. It's as good of a spot as any for him to try to revive his career.
What it means for the USMNT: It's hard to see this as anything but a positive. How much of Reyna's issues at Dortmund were his own issues, and how much of it came down to a club that has lost its way over the past couple of years? We should find out pretty quickly. If he plays this season, he's on the roster and probably starting next summer. If not, then who knows when we might see him in a U.S. shirt again.
Patrick Agyemang, 24, forward
Charlotte FC to Derby County, 6.9 million
Grade: B-
What it means for the player: He'll get a chance to fight it out in a Championship relegation battle -- at some point. Agyemang is out for the start of the season after undergoing hernia surgery.
Presumably he's getting a nice raise at Derby, and he'll get to test himself at a higher level. Now, I wouldn't call Derby the most stable environment. They had two managers last season, when they avoided relegation by three points, and it wasn't that long ago that they were employing Wayne Rooney as a player-manager.
Agyemang, in other words, could be playing in League One in less than a year. But just seven years ago, the guy was playing Division III NCAA soccer for the Eastern Connecticut Warriors. If Derby was his best option among European suitors, then I can't begrudge him wanting to challenge himself.
What it means for the USMNT: The injury makes this more of a TBD, but I'm not convinced that Pochettino doesn't view Agyemang as the USMNT's current starting striker. So, there's suddenly a great deal of uncertainty there. Had he stayed in MLS, Agyemang would've received plenty of game time and been given every chance to make the World Cup roster. The move to Derby, combined with his injury, at least opens up the possibility that Agyemang doesn't get on the field much this season.
Matt Turner, 31, goalkeeper
Lyon to New England Revolution, loan
Grade: C+
What it means for the player: Presumably, that brings an end to Turner's European career. After establishing himself as the best goalkeeper in MLS history, Turner ended up starting only 17 total matches over his three seasons in England.
During those 17 starts with Nottingham Forest in the 2023-24 season, he conceded six more goals than expected from the shots he faced, per Stats Perform's post-shot expected goals model. For comparison, he conceded 28 goals fewer than expected in his five previous seasons with the Revolution. In England, pretty much every reasonably difficult shot he faced turned into a goal:
Yes, Turner is technically on loan from Lyon, who technically paid an 8 million fee to Nottingham Forest to acquire him this summer, but that's a player being used for financial engineering. You don't sign a 31-year-old for that much money and then immediately loan him out if you actually expect him to ever play for your team.
What it means for the USMNT: They'll get to see if Turner actually still is the best American goalkeeper. Presumably, he is, but there's really no way to know when that player barely ever plays over a three-season stretch. And well, he already has started four league games for the Revolution -- four more than he played over the past year and a half.
Damion Downs, 21, forward
FC Koln to Southampton, 8 million
Grade: B
What it means for the player: While Downs is trading a first division for a second division, he's likely getting a pay raise at Southampton. He's joining a club that gives tons of playing time to young players. He's playing for a coach, Will Still, who guided another young American striker, Folarin Balogun, to his own breakout season in France. Plus, Koln and Southampton -- a newly promoted Bundesliga side and a newly relegated Championship club -- are probably at about the same level.
At Southampton, he'll still get to play in a competitive league and for a team that's likely to be competing for automatic promotion. It has been only limited bench appearances so far, but he has been dangerous in the 90-something minutes he has been given.
What it means for the USMNT: There's not much of a difference between the two club situations. Pochettino likes him somewhat; Downs made the most recent roster. He's unlikely to be a significant contributor next summer, but Southampton is a decent spot for his longer-term development.
