AUSTIN, Texas — It was hot and getting hotter, as it does here even in October, and Brenden Aaronson was in an unenviable place.
Like many soccer teams, the U.S. men like to start their practices with a drill called a rondo. Split the squad up in groups of seven or so, form a small circle, and stick two players in the middle. Their job is to intercept the ball, and everyone else’s job is to pass it around them.
Pick the ball off, and you get out of the middle, and whoever you intercepted goes in. Complete a pass, and the assistant coach next to you counts aloud how many you’ve done in a row. (All the better if the first group to a certain number “wins,” with each chorus claiming victory.)
Everyone inevitably ends up in the middle for a while — even Christian Pulisic took a turn in one of the groups on Wednesday morning. But Aaronson, unfortunately for him, was one of the first tossed there.
Then again, this has often been his lot in life. Whether at Leeds United in England’s Premier League or with the national team, he has long been valued for his hustle plays: pressing opponents, covering lots of ground, moving the ball upfield with a run or a pass.
The Medford native has also long been valued for his versatility: He can play a winger, a central attacking midfielder, or in a deeper central role. And given how well the U.S. played in an experimental 3-4-2-1 formation last month, it’s easy to see how Aaronson fits there or in the 4-3-3 the team played before.
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What he is and isn’t
Aaronson’s critics — and there are many these days on each side of the Atlantic — lament the things he doesn’t do. In Leeds, they complain that he doesn’t score. Over here, it’s that he isn’t Pulisic, Gio Reyna, or Malik Tillman.
All of these things are as true as the claim that Jalen Hurts doesn’t throw to A.J. Brown enough for an Eagles team that’s a few plays from being 5-0. (They have sports talk radio in England too, rest assured.)
But if it was actually that simple, U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino could have chosen to not invite Aaronson to workouts this month after he didn’t play much in the summer and wasn’t called up in September. The U.S. team plays Ecuador on Friday in Austin.
What, then, to do with a player who works as much as Aaronson does, and is one of only four Americans playing regularly in the Premier League?
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Just being at that level is usually enough for many U.S. fans to want to see them with the national team. And the other three players are slam-dunk locks: left back Antonee Robinson (Fulham), centerback Chris Richards (Crystal Palace), and midfielder Tyler Adams (Bournemouth), who is away this time as his wife is about to give birth.
Aaronson knows the critics are out there, but his belief in himself never wavered.
“I know that I can play on this team and be a big part and show [it],” he told The Inquirer. “I always had a feeling that I would get back at some point. I mean, listen, I didn’t know, with this season in the Premier League, if I [was] going to be playing, or what role I’d have, stuff like that.”
Two telling statistics
In fact, he’s playing a lot: nine games for Leeds this season, with starts in the last four contests of the club’s first season back in the Premier League after two years in the second tier. Playing mainly as a right winger, Aaronson ranks fourth on the squad in chances created, and fourth in tackles per 90 minutes.
He said manager Daniel Farke “just wants to see me do my game, like how I played last year: Be creative, be creating from the right wing position — if it’s creating chances on the dribble, finding people with through balls, playing close to Dominic Calvert-Lewin at the striker. … I’ve been given time to kind of understand the position a little bit more, and grow used to it.”
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And for all the critics, there are also people who appreciate his contributions. The Yorkshire Evening Post, Leeds’ main newspaper, gave Aaronson a 7-of-10 rating for Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur and an 8 for the previous weekend’s 2-2 tie with Bournemouth. (Both times, he wasn’t on the field when Leeds conceded late goals.)
“It’s always a dream come true playing in the Premier League, and being able to play week in, week out right now is a dream,” Aaronson said. “Of course it would be nice to score, but in the Premier League you get very few chances. It’s not going to be like last season in the [second-tier] Championship, where I [was] getting a bunch of chances, playing [as] the best team in the league.”
Coming back to the national team, Aaronson reflected on how his skill set differs from those of Pulisic, Reyna, Tillman, and another bright creator in Alejandro Zendejas. But on a 26-player World Cup squad, there might be room for all four of them.
“Of course I play different than Gio and Malik, and Malik plays different than Gio, Gio plays different than us two,” Aaronson said. “You have players that play differently all the time, and I think that just gives you a depth option. And I think that’s always good.”
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World Cup feels ‘extremely close’
But one of the contenders not here is Aaronson’s brother, Paxten. The younger sibling chose a different club route this summer, leaving Germany’s Eintracht Frankfurt to return to MLS and sign a big-money deal with the Colorado Rapids.
Paxten Aaronson took some heat from U.S. fans and media for that, which didn’t surprise him or Brenden. But the older sibling respects the younger one’s move.
“I think everybody can look at it like, ‘Oh, Brenden took this path, Paxten took this path,’” Brenden said. “I’m happy for how things went, and happy for him, because he’s extremely happy being back over here and playing football at the highest level. And that’s what you want.”
Paxten made the move for the same reason Brenden treasures his playing time at Leeds. Everything is about trying to make the U.S. World Cup team, with time running out fast.
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“It feels extremely close,” Brenden said. “It’s right around the corner, and I’ve just got to try to keep putting myself in the best position to put myself on the team.”
If he makes a good impression this month, he could go a long way toward making that happen.