GOAL sat down with Aaronson to discuss Nations League omission, lessons learned at Leeds and the summer of opportunity
ARLINGTON, Texas – Call it a message, call it a warning shot… call it what you want. Mauricio Pochettino himself called it a numbers game at the time. Now, in the midst of the ongoing Gold Cup, Brenden Aaronson can look back it and call it something different: bittersweet.
Pochettino's decision to leave Aaronson off the U.S. men's national team's CONCACAF Nations League squad in March was considerably more bitter than sweet at the time, but hindsight paints a different picture. Pochettino didn't Aaronson the the chance he wanted in the spring, but he did, inadvertently, give Aaronson something that he didn't know he needed: a blessing in disguise.
"I had five days during that international window," Aaronson tells GOAL, "so I went home, and it was just the best five days. It was just so nice to be home, relax, see my family, because I hadn't been home all year. I just chilled at home, got to be in my old bed, got to see my sister, got to see my family. Stuff like that. Sometimes you just need it and, at that point, I needed to just be able to go home. I was homesick. It helped me so much to just get my head out of everything."
Yes, there was disappointment. But it was also a chance to step back, take a breath and recharge.
"On one side, of course you're p*ssed," Aaronson said. "You want to be a part of things. You want to be a part of your national team. You miss out on chance to win a trophy, and that's just so tough. Looking at it now, though, it really was a blessing in disguise for me."
Refreshed, Aaronson returned to Leeds a new player. He scored a goal in his first game back, sending his own sort of subliminal message back to Pochettino: things were different now. He went on to help Leeds win the Championship and promotion to the Premier League, celebrating on an open bus tour that will live long in the memory of one of soccer's most passionate cities. He was their ironman, never missing a moment of it all.
Ironically, it was that missed moment with the USMNT that really ignited Aaronson in ways he didn't expect.
He's on the squad now, featuring at the Gold Cup and continuing his attempts to prove his worth to the USMNT staff. His goal against Trinidad and Tobago will help. His assist against Haiti on Sunday night – helping the USMNT top their group and advance to next Sunday's Gold Cup quarterfinal against Costa Rica – will help, as well.The first came as a supersub, the latter as a starter. Whatever Pochettino has asked of Aaronson, he's been willing to do it, and it's resulted in goals for the USMNT this summer.
"I don't hold anything against anybody," the 24-year-old midfielder says. "When I don't get called in the camp, it's just part of football. You learn as you go. So, I think for me, it was just about me coming in here and doing the best that I can and just accepting whatever role that I have. Whatever I'm called upon, I'm going to do.
"Sometimes you get picked and sometimes you're not gonna. But all you can do is try your best and keep going. That's what I tried to do, and I think that's why I got the call back."
No hard feelings, he stresses. He gets it and, as hard as it was to sit at home and watch, there's some part of Aaronson that's thankful for it, too. It was exactly what he needed, even if it wasn't what he wanted at the time. Now, he wants this USMNT chance more than ever and – after seeing a spring chance pass him by – he's hoping that his performances this summer can ensure he's not bypassed again.
Getty ImagesBurning the candle at both ends
March's Nations League Finals marked Pochettino's fourth camp in charge of the national team. It was also his first with the full group since November. In between, Pochettino had discovered a new playmaker, Diego Luna, that he needed to see more from. Another, Gio Reyna, was fit for the first time since Pochettino's arrival and, ahead of the Club World Cup, the coach wanted to see him, too.
That left no room for Aaronson, a player that has been a mainstay in the team for much of the last two cycles.
"I think we have too many players for only one position and this was a possibility to provide balance," Pochettino said at the time. "…We talk about [Brenden], but we can talk about many other players and we are disappointed we cannot call all of them. In our mind, Brenden is still a player that we consider so highly, but he'll have to wait until the next one."
Shortly after the exclusion, Leeds boss Daniel Farke looked to the bright side. He had seen Aaronson slow down in the weeks leading up to the Nations League, and that dip in form had no doubt influenced Pochettino's chance to look elsewhere. If Aaronson had been scoring, as he was when he netted six goals between August in January, he would have been undeniable. Out of form at the time, Aaronson was easier to overlook.
"You can't burn the candle from both ends in 46 games," Farke said in March. "It was beneficial he was left out of the U.S. squad. It was good to let him recharge for a few days because although he has so much energy, even his tank was empty."
Aaronson agrees. That was his first season in the Championship and, in a word, he described it as "insane."
In October, Aaronson played 90 minutes in the USMNT's 3-0 loss to Mexico in Guadalajara. Three days later, he was back in the Leeds XI for a 2-0 win over Sheffield United. It was just one chaotic phase of a chaotic season. Aaronson was one of only three players to appear in all every match and, with 3,551 minutes in his legs with just Leeds this season, he played more minutes than any other non-defender at the club.
Throughout his career, Aaronson has been criticized for a perceived lack of physicality. He has, at times, been bumped off the ball and, in his lone season in the Premier League, he certainly struggled with the athleticism and power on display in that league. Aaronson says that's no longer the case.
He played an entire Championship season with no major injuries, and anyone who has watched him play knows that he went into every game prepared to run all over the field. He added goals, too, and, because of that, the season felt like a series of steps forward, even if there were a few back steps along the way.
"I had a really good start to the season and I just rode that wave all the way to January," Aaronson recalls. "I had a good run of 20-25 games at a high level. Then, your body starts to fatigue a little bit. In January, you play every three days. Your body slows down, you're not feeling as good and I probably had a little spell where I wasn't at my top level. I still felt like I was doing a good job dealing with it, helping the team do what we were supposed to do and then, at the end of the season, I came alive again, which was good.
"It's just learning to stay medium all year round. You have to stay right in the middle and go from there. You just have to go right through all of the highs and all of the lows. You just keep going."
Aaronson brought that mentality to USMNT camp, one that is certainly a special one for him. He's returned with a new lease on life, but he hasn't returned alone. He's got his brother with him, too.
AdvertisementPlaying with your brother
Throughout this summer run, various USMNT players have said how strange it's been having both Aaronsons in camp. Most are used to Brenden. Many are getting to know Paxten for the first time. They're eerily similar, many say.
"It's weird," defender Walker Zimmerman says. "The way they move, their mannerisms, the way they talk – yeah, they're two of the same. There's no question they're brothers."
While the rest of the team watches on as they, admittedly, leave a little extra on some challenges in training, both are largely enjoying the time together. They're enjoying the moments in the hotel and the Call of Duty runs in their downtime. Due to their own schedules, they haven't seen much of each other the last few years. Now, they're together for one of the most important summers of their careers.
"It feels like we've flip-flopped over the last two years," the Brenden said. "This has been the most time we've spent with each other since we were young, and that's just been really, really good for us."
The brothers were oh-so-close to a perfect moment in the USMNT's Gold Cup opener. Subbed on in the second half, Brenden broke through, cutting inside and banking a shot off the goalkeeper and in for the USMNT's fourth goal of the day. He immediately ran to celebrate with the substitutes warming up. There was one problem, though: Paxten wasn't there. He was over on the bench getting ready to come in.
"It was so weird," the Paxten says with a laugh. "It would have been much cooler if I was on the field. I couldn't celebrate with him because I couldn't leave the little area with the referees!"
The two did share the field in that game. This summer, they became the fourth set of brothers to start alongside one another for the USMNT. That's fun, sure. But both still have much to prove.
Getty ImagesFinding a USMNT role
On Sunday, Aaronson made his 51st senior appearance for the USMNT. Just 24, he's already at 60th on the all-time list of caps and climbing. Throughout those 51 appearances, Aaronson has played a variety of roles: winger, midfielder, supersub and just about everything in between.
Of those 51 USMNT caps, Aaronson has started less than half of the games. So while he has just nine goals in 51 appearances, it does come with a caveat. The most recent goal was a big one, and not because of the significance in competition, considering the U.S. were already leading T&T 3-0 at the time. It was big for Aaronson, though. It was his first USMNT goal in nearly two years.
"I've been coming off the bench a lot, so I haven't really had a lot of chances to score," Aaronson says. "I really wanted to make sure in that game that, if I had a chance, I'd take it. If I could get 1v1 with the keeper or get to the top of the box or be in the right place at the right time, I knew I really did have to take my chance, and I did. It was perfect. It shows that, even if I'm coming off the bench, I'm going to make the most of my 10-15 minutes. No matter how much time I get, I can get a goal."
Following Aaronson's assist against Haiti, a looped cross to the backpost headed in by Malik Tillman that opened the scoring, Pochettino was full of praise for the midfielder. It's not just his contributions on the field, but also Aaronson's ability to bounce back, put his head down and keep doing things the right way.
"Brenden is an experienced player who has already brought a lot to the national team," Pochettino said after the match. "He’s a player who has a total commitment to the national team. His character, whichever position he's in, he’s always helping, always being positive in all moments. He’s a very dynamic player. We're very familiar with his characteristics and he’s a player who brings a lot of positives to the group."
Those qualities haven't changed much. Energy, effort and enthusiasm have been Aaronson's calling cards since be broke through with the Philadelphia Union, although he does contest anyone who says that's all he brings. Over the last year or so, though, he's added two things to his game: goals, and an absolute refusal to lose.
Getty ImagesLessons from Leeds
Looking back, Aaronson can laugh about it. In the moment, though, he admits it: he felt the pressure.
With a two games left in the season, Leeds had earned promotion to the Premier League. That was the ambition all along, get back to the top flight, but it quickly became clear that it wasn't enough. Leeds expect more than that. They expect a trophy lift, too, and they ultimately got it as they took care of business over the final two weeks.
"We had some scares, man," Aaronson recalls. "Even right at the end of the season, we lost and tied a few we shouldn't have lost or tied. The tough part of the Championship was that you had four teams really going for it, until Sunderland started to drop out. And it felt like no one would ever lose. Every time you think, 'Oh, we'll pull away' someone closes the gap. It's just ongoing.
"It's a gigantic club, though, and it feels like we need to win the Championship. Even when we were promoted, people wanted the trophy. That's all the fans care about: winning the trophy. They were saying 200,000 people would be at the parade. It ended up being like 300,000. The whole city was there. It's people as far as eyes can see and you can just feel that love."
That love, though, has to be earned or, in Aaronson's case, re-earned. After spending last season on loan with Union Berlin, Aaronson returned to a chorus of boos from an Elland Road crowd this season that wasn't quite willing to forgive and forget. He earned their trust as the season went on, finishing with nine goals to start to change the narrative.
Aaronson says that the pressure impacted him. He stepped into a team knowing there were doubters. As the season wore on, he played a key role for a team that had the highest of expectations.
"I learned so much this year just in terms of being on the field just knowing that you have to win the game," he says. "There's so much pressure in moments like that, and you just learn how to go through it. You learn about how to deal with it and how to get better from it."
How much better, though? That's the big question Aaronson faces, for club and country.