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Transfers, Potential MLS Lockout Add Wrinkles for Players Ahead of USMNT Friendly

With the transfer window in Europe's top leagues after a friendly vs. Trinidad & Tobago and MLS facing labor strife, U.S. players have their club futures to consider, too.

Most elite athletes will tell you that day-to-day (or even minute-by-minute) focus is key to success. Don’t look ahead, or give in to daydreams or distractions. Take every training session and every exercise as it comes—stay in the moment—and you’re more likely to get the most out of it. Only by committing to “win the day,” as U.S. national team coach Gregg Berhalter tells his players, can you position yourself for ultimate victory.

That focus is especially important, and perhaps elusive, during January camp, which is the only time the U.S. national team is together for up to three weeks without a game. It’s practice after practice, day after day, all leading up to a friendly that’ll finally finish off the month. That match—this time it’s against Trinidad & Tobago on Sunday evening in Orlando—represents a chance to set the tone for the year ahead and state a case for inclusion on future rosters. But you don’t make it to that match without three consistently good weeks of training.

“What we always stress is intensity—being intense from the start,” goalkeeper Matt Turner said this week from Florida. “You can’t do anything unless you’re playing with intensity. So the way we want to play is intense, and I think [it’s about] wrapping your head around that and bringing that every single day into training.”

This year’s January campers have had to bring that intensity to training amid numerous potential distractions. The very nature of this camp, which comprises a handful of MLS-based senior players and a bunch of U-23 hopefuls looking toward the March Olympic qualifiers, was unprecedented. A lot of introductions were required, and a lot of vital chemistry had to be built from scratch. Training sessions and team events were split sometimes and combined at others.

Meanwhile, the near-term club future of almost every player, and the long-term future of a few, has been up in the air. Several have been linked to moves abroad. Two key players, Jordan Morris (loaned to Swansea City) and Bryan Reynolds (reportedly on his way to AS Roma), departed camp early for that reason. Meanwhile, with MLS and the MLSPA locked in another round of contentious labor negotiations, a deadline and a potential lockout have cast a shadow. One of the key drivers of January camp has been keeping domestic players fit over the long MLS offseason. Now there’s a chance that the Trinidad game could be these players’ last action for a while.

“It’s obviously an intense time for all of us players in the league,” Nashville SC center back Walker Zimmerman said from camp.

That’s not the type of intensity Turner was talking about.

USMNT and Nashville SC center back Walker Zimmerman

On Friday morning, hours after the first negotiating deadline passed, MLS announced a new deadline of Feb. 4 and a potential lockout of its players if a deal isn’t reached. The league’s owners want $100 million-$110 million in concessions from the MLSPA to offset pandemic-related losses expected this year. If the players are locked out, they’ll lose their paychecks and access to team facilities, and the Feb. 22 start of training camps will be in jeopardy. That’s something that would have to have entered many players’ minds over the past three weeks.

“There have obviously been a couple of calls, some that I’m able to be on, some that I’m not due to training or responsibilities here, but it's a well-connected network of players,” said Zimmerman, who’s active in the union. “Our [executive] board has been phenomenal in terms of keeping everyone up to date, and so we’ll do big player calls. We’ll do small group calls. And so for the most part, the guys that are here that are also reps or involved with the [MLSPA] have been able to stay in touch and are aware of everything that’s going on.

“We give our input as best we can and make sure we’re up to date, but obviously it’s an interesting time for both the league and the PA, and we’ll see how things shake out in the next couple of days,” he concluded.

For those with national team aspirations, extended time away from the field is especially problematic. There are friendlies in late March—Berhalter said he’s hoping to take the team to Europe—and then the Concacaf Nations League finals in June. A lockout is going to make it a whole lot harder to win the day.

“It’s uncertain to know what’s going to happen, but as a player all you want to do is play,” Seattle Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan said. “And so if we’re in a lockout, if we’re not playing, yeah, there is potential that we can always find a team where I’m able to play, I’m able to stay fit. It’s a big year for U.S. Soccer, so being available, being 90 minutes fit, is extremely important.”

USMNT's Cristian Roldan and Aaron Long

Whatever sort of loan might be possible during a lockout would end once the labor impasse is resolved. Roldan would return to the Sounders. But there are two senior players with a good chance to start against Trinidad, forward Paul Arriola and center back Aaron Long, whose futures have been even more uncertain. Like Morris, Arriola has been linked this month with a loan or transfer to Swansea. He’s been at D.C. United since 2017. And Long, a New York Red Bulls stalwart who’s been eyeing a move to Europe for a while, has been connected to Premier League champion Liverpool (according to ESPN), Championship club Reading (according to The Washington Post) and other teams in England and France (according to MLSSoccer.com and SBI). The life-changing move he's thought about since since his MLS Defender of the Year season in 2018 could be on the verge of happening.

It’s a lot to keep track of. But if any of this is a distraction, it’s the sort of distraction that may help the national team in the long run, Roldan suggested. Players just want to play.

“We as players have to look out for ourselves and find the best fit for us so that we can stay fit and move forward with our career, so that we’re playing at the highest level possible and we’re able to be selected for the national team,” he said.