RB Salzburg deal is best for Aaronson and club
As the tide of interest in Brenden Aaronson rose after this summer’s MLS Is Back tournament, Ernst Tanner faced objectives on multiple fronts.
He sought a deal that was best for the club’s big-picture outlook. He wanted one that wouldn’t dampen the club’s momentum in 2020. And he had the best interests of the player at heart, knowing the first major European sale would be one that they had to get right.
Friday, after consummating a deal to transfer Aaronson to Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg, Tanner could celebrate success on all three counts.
“I can say that we have only pros,” Tanner was saying Friday via Zoom. “There are no cons within that transfer. That’s not always the case as you know from previous transfers. We are certainly in a professional environment, but if you look at where he is going, and I can certainly prove that as I have worked for that organization for six years, he’s in a good environment, he has a good coach, the playing style is very, very similar to what we are doing here and I know they are doing a great job integrating in particular young players from throughout the world.”
In every dimension, the Union did what was necessary in sending Aaronson to greener European pastures. For their first player sale to Europe, the Union got things right.
For the long-term, Aaronson will be the most visible symbol of the Union’s developmental, youth-focused philosophy. As Jim Curtin put it Friday, Red Bull Salzburg has walked the walk that the Union and other clubs talk about growing into. Their track record with players like Liverpool’s Sadio Mane and Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland speaks for itself, as Tanner knows from running their academy. The RB Salzburg ideology is built around identifying promising talents and turning them into bankable stars to be flipped to larger leagues.
Their identification of Aaronson says a lot.
It also says plenty about the Union’s project. It offers more proof as they tout their worldclass academy to prospective players. And the reported $6 million transfer fee plus bonuses and a sell-on percentage will go a long way for a club that has done a lot with a modest budget. The Union also get bragging rights as the most expensive transfer of a Homegrown player, surpassing New York Red Bulls’ $5 million sale of Matt Miazga to Chelsea in 2016.
“It’s a big step forward for the club,” Curtin said. “I can’t stress enough how hard Brenden has worked to get here. A lot of people were involved in his development.”
Interest from RB Salzburg started more than a year ago and peaked in September, by which point the Union were one of the East’s top teams and time to acquire a replacement has elapsed. Attractive as that first European sale was, so was not disturbing what Curtin has going on the field.
The deal did that, with
Aaronson staying in Chester through the end of the season, with five games left in the regular season plus playoffs. It’s a chance for Aaronson to chase a trophy, one lifelong goal he hopes to achieve before realizing the European one. And it allows Tanner not to blunt the momentum of one of the league’s front-runners, for which Curtin is surely grateful.
“It is important for us that we can rely on Brenden,” Tanner said. “We as a team have our goals and we are playing a fantastic season so far, so I didn’t want to endanger this by transferring out players within the season. And that was also one important piece.”
Last but, in the Union’s reckoning, most important is the player. Aaronson won’t grow into the face of the franchise, but he becomes a shorthand for the Academy’s proficiency, in whatever he’ll go on to achieve in Europe and with the national team. The Union wanted to make sure the player would be taken care of, that someone who will turn 20 next week will still get the time and opportunity to grow.
Salzburg is the perfect place. There is builtin trust, thanks to Tanner’s connections and an American manager, Jesse Marsch. There’s consistency in a playing style that suits Aaronson, who is, by global standards, a slightly unconventional 10 with a unique ratio of technical skill to outright determination. And there’s a devotion to trusting young players, so advantageous to Aaronson in MLS and rare in the high-stakes European game.
Miazga’s case is instructive. His acquisition surely looks better in a PowerPoint presentation — Chelsea! Premier League! European trophies! — but it’s translated into a journeyman career for the 25-yearold, with more loan stints (four) than league games at Stamford Bridge (two). Chelsea has either little interest or little aptitude in developing young players, having whiffed on some of the world’s best.
The Union could’ve waited for a flashier club to be interested, for a higher-profile league or for a richer return. But weighed against what Aaronson would lose on the field, any monetary gain wasn’t worth it.
“It matters who you do business with. It certainly does,” Curtin said. “Because they (Salzburg) have what’s best for Brenden in mind. Could we have maybe gotten a couple more dollars here or there at another club that maybe wouldn’t care about him as much and just treat him like a piece of meat and he might get sectioned to a part of the locker room or get loaned out? Yeah, that probably could’ve happened. But we believe in the holistic approach and also seeing a little bit more than just the short-term. This deal is the perfect club at the perfect time.”
Tanner felt that way. The player and his family felt that way. That made the match worth it all around.