Eric Wynalda had reached his breaking point.
The year was 1992, and “everybody” at then-Bundesliga side FC Saarbrucken, including Wynalda’s teammates, had regaled him with taunts of “scheiss Ami” or German for “s— American.” After six weeks of hearing this, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
“It resulted in me finally having enough and throwing one of my teammates to the ground and telling him that if he calls me that one more time, he’s going to the dentist,” Wynalda told ESPN. “And then everybody kind of backed off and said, ‘Right, let’s stop calling him that.'”
They quickly did, though what helped Wynalda’s cause even more was scoring both of Saarbrucken’s goals in a 2-0 win over local rivals Kaiserslautern.
Was the treatment Wynalda received simple banter, or did it speak to the stigma that American players have found themselves subjected to when they try to compete in the upper echelons of soccer abroad?
Ultimately, it’s probably a bit of both. Although Wynalda’s recollection falls at the extreme end of the spectrum, it wasn’t unusual for Americans making their initial forays into Europe to endure such treatment, be it from teammates, coaches, fans or media.
Former Hannover 96 and U.S. men’s national team defender Steve Cherundolo said once he arrived at the German club in 1999, he was treated equally by players and staff, but he noticed a difference in the media. This was particularly evident in the dreaded player ratings, especially if he was playing more defensively from his outside back position.
“I don’t think there was ever a period where I didn’t” feel that stigma, Cherundolo told ESPN. This from a man who was dubbed “The Mayor of Hannover” and made over 400 appearances for the club.
USMNT great Landon Donovan felt the same during his days at Bayer Leverkusen, which signed him in 1999.
“This was not a personal thing against me or anyone else, but in the early days, you didn’t have to be as good as the player you were competing with. You didn’t even have to be a little better. You had to be significantly better,” he said. “If you were competing with a Turkish guy or a Brazilian guy or a German guy, you just had to [be much better] because they just assumed that Americans didn’t know how to play soccer.”
Not everyone buys the stigma argument. Current Chicago Fire manager Gregg Berhalter, who managed the U.S. from 2018 to 2024, spent time as a player in Europe in the Netherlands, England and Germany. To him, it was less of a stigma than it was ignorance — there was just a lack of awareness that Americans even played soccer.
“We’d just come off the [1994] World Cup, so everyone recognized Alexi Lalas and Tony Meola,” Berhalter said. “But other than that, they had no idea that the U.S. was even playing soccer. So, it was like, this is just a total new frontier. But it wasn’t like fans or coaches really held it against you.”
In the past, there was some justification for the skepticism of American players. The sport in the U.S. has gone through some excruciatingly lean periods. For huge swaths of the 20th century, soccer barely existed at a semiprofessional level. The U.S. endured a 40-year period between appearances at the World Cup. Between 1985 and 1995, the U.S. was without what would be considered a topflight domestic league.
Even following the advent of MLS in 1996, although the U.S. men’s national team has won seven Concacaf Gold Cups and reached the final of the 2009 Confederations Cup, the U.S. has never come close to winning a World Cup. The quarterfinal run in 2002 remains the furthest the U.S. has progressed in that tournament during the modern era. As a result, it was down to the likes of Wynalda, Kasey Keller, Brian McBride and Clint Dempsey to break down the doors, perform on the field and gradually improve the reputation of American players.
Solid performances at World Cups — the U.S. reached at least in the second round in the 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2022 tournaments — have helped raise that perception further. But other players toiled in relative obscurity, their presence helping to make incremental — but still important — gains.
“People forget how good Tony Sanneh was. They just do,” said Wynalda about the former Nuremburg and Hertha Berlin defender. “So, I mean, I think all those guys, I salute all of them. It used to be the one thing that they could say about America, ‘You might be good at everything, but you’re not good at this game. This is our game.’ And we’ve finally proven that we deserve to be in that conversation.”
Thanks to the current group of American players performing overseas, the assessment of American players has never been higher. Players such as AC Milan attacker Christian Pulisic and Juventus midfielder Weston McKennie have proved themselves with big clubs in Europe. The Premier League is dotted with steady performers such as Crystal Palace defender Chris Richards, AFC Bournemouth midfielder Tyler Adams and Leeds United attacker Brenden Aaronson.
But the stigma has been difficult to shake. In talking to current players on the U.S. team, they believe there is still judgment and skepticism about American players although it’s less severe than it used to be. Nonetheless, the players aren’t playing the victim card and say they’re being judged fairly on their contributions. They carry with them a belief that their quality will see them rise to the top.
“Maybe I had some thoughts at the beginning that some teammates don’t view me the same because I’m American in the youth teams at Dortmund,” Pulisic told ESPN at a promotional event for Degree. “Maybe I had some of those thoughts, but I don’t know — I always believed and told myself that if you’re good enough, the coach is going to put the best players on the field. And I just always took that mentality.
“Is there a little bit of that stigma? Maybe there was. I think it’s definitely getting better with all the amazing talent that we’re producing now.”
For Toulouse FC defender Mark McKenzie, the stigma scale veers more toward banter, an arena in which he’s able to more than hold his own. Lately, the conversations have gone in some strange directions.
“With teammates, we go back and forth,” McKenzie told ESPN. “We poke and prod each other because it’s like, ‘Oh, America, you come over here, you talk about our food. Oh, you come over here, you talk about, Why don’t you do it this way? Or, Oh, facility’s not the way it would be back in the States.’ And for me, I try not to get into these debates. It’s subjective. It’s all about what you grew up in.
“Now the big thing is long throw-ins. Now I’ve destroyed the game with my American philosophy of using my hands and throwing the ball as far as possible. So, I got all my teammates talking about, ‘Oh, you destroyed the game now.’ Blah, blah, blah. So that’s the new dig.”
Former U.S. international and longtime Premier League goalkeeper Brad Friedel, who has also worked as a club executive with the likes of Besiktas in Turkey, believes that whatever stigma is attached to American players has become more subtle. For the bulk of American players, there isn’t a negative connotation — but they’re also not viewed as being capable of being the top player on a team.
“I think they look at American players [and decide] that, No. 1, the salaries are going to be a little lower at first, which is true,” Friedel said in reference to decision-makers at European clubs. “That their transfer fees could potentially be lower at first, which is true. And then they’re going to get a really honest, good professional that is going to possibly be able to start in the starting XI all the time but is not necessarily going to be the main reason they win every game.”
Pulisic is probably the lone exception to that statement, given he commanded a $73 million transfer fee when he moved to Chelsea in 2019. But until another player reaches those heights, that is one aspect of how American players are viewed that won’t change.
Even with all this progress, both on the field and with hearts and minds, there is still a way to go, with the stigma popping up in odd ways at strange moments. Current Charlotte FC defender Tim Ream spent over a decade in England with Bolton Wanderers and Fulham FC, and says he benefited from playing for two clubs that had previously had Americans on their books.
He says he never encountered a manager who held him in less regard because of where he was from. But at times, the perception of U.S. players among some teammates harked back to a previous era.
“Yeah, you would hear it. ‘Oh, really? You’re American. Do you actually know football?’ And you’re like, ‘Well, I’m playing in the same team that you are, so you tell me who knows and who doesn’t know, because we’re in the same boat here.’ So there was a little bit of that,” he said.
But nothing alters perceptions like a World Cup, especially if it involves iconic moments or an impressive performance against one of the presumed favorites. Ream found that to be the case after the U.S. tied England 0-0 at the 2022 World Cup, a match that on another day the Americans might have won. For some of his club teammates, it was almost like an epiphany.
“When we went back from that, guys were like, ‘Holy s—.’ They’re like, ‘You guys are a really good team, very good team,'” Ream said. “I think that’s when it clicked for a lot of people.”
The upcoming World Cup is another opportunity to alter perceptions and potentially inspire the next generation of players and the public at large. At present, the U.S. is viewed still as outsiders in soccer, but being one of the three host countries has upped the stakes of what can be achieved in both the near and long term.
“For me, it’s a lot bigger than just ourselves and our performance,” Adams said. “It’s about how can the next kid that’s looking up to us be inspired and want to play soccer instead of basketball, football, whatever it is. So for me, yeah, it’s a huge opportunity.”
Ream feels that any progress needs to be viewed with a longer time horizon. The quarterfinal run at the 2002 World Cup got people’s attention, but as Ream says the U.S. program has been on “a little bit of a slow burn” since that time.
The U.S. men’s national team is still waiting for its next breakthrough. There have been some humbling moments too, the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup among them. A deep run, building on the round of 16 performance in 2022, would project more consistency.
“If you can sustain a national team and the development and the players within that, and they’re playing at big clubs around the world, which a lot of our guys are, then you start to change that perception,” Ream said. “And now that the thought of, ‘OK, they do produce good players. They do produce players that can play with other top players that are from all over the world, that are from your traditional powerhouses, Brazil, your Frances, your Englands.’ But you have to sustain that. You can’t just be a flash in the pan.”
If the U.S. can find that big moment — and consistency — perceptions could rise, and the last vestiges of any stigma might finally start to subside.
