The 25-year-old becomes the first America to ever play for the French club
Mark McKenzie has joined Ligue 1 side Toulouse on a transfer from Genk, the clubs announced on Friday.
McKenzie, 25, spent four seasons in Belgium with Genk, making 128 appearances.
The U.S. men’s national team defender told his new club’s website that he was ready to make the next step in his career.
“I am 25 years old, I have been playing in Belgium for several seasons now and I simply wanted to move up a level in my career,” the defender said.
“I think it was the right time. Above all, I wanted to make the right choice by joining a team with a real playing identity, a project that fits with my ambitions and a way of playing that matches my profile.”
L’international américain Marc McKenzie est toulousain ✍️ Le défenseur central – qui arrive en provenance du KRC Genk en Belgique – est la 3ème recrue de notre Mercato !
The defender had been recently linked with a move to Germany, but will instead continue his career in the French top flight.
McKenzie will become the first American to ever play for Toulouse, which has finished mid-table in Ligue 1 the past two seasons.
“It’s always special to be the first to do something, no matter what it is,” he said. “It’s an honor to represent the United States so far. It adds a little pressure, yes, but I have to raise my own standards, lead the way and maybe inspire some in America.”
McKenzie has earned 13 caps for the USMNT. He was on the team’s roster for this summer’s Copa América but did not make an appearance at the tournament.
Both Americans in Spain stayed up, but it mattered a lot more to one of them
Entering the final day of the season, La Liga’s relegation battle was … (gets out Spanish dictionary) … loco.
The bottom two, Espanyol and Elche, entered the last day already relegated. Ahead of them, no less than six teams were fighting to avoid being the final team to drop down to the Segunda División.
Of those six, two featured Americans. But Celta Vigo’s Luca de la Torre and Valencia’s Yunus Musah had vastly different outlooks if their teams were to be relegated. De la Torre needed to stay up much more, and it showed.
In the end, both Valencia and Celta Vigo retained their La Liga status, with Real Valladolid the unlucky team headed down.
The Americans Abroad Five signs off for the season this week with a look at a dramatic final day in Spain, and an even wilder last day in Belgium.
The defender just missed the cut for the USMNT’s Nations League roster
Mark McKenzie responded to his U.S. national team snub with one of the oldest memes in the book.
Despite a standout campaign in Belgium with Genk, McKenzie was not on the 24-player squad for the USMNT’s CONCACAF Nations League matches later this month.
Interim USMNT coach B.J. Callaghan selected Chris Richards, Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman and Auston Trusty as his four center backs, with McKenzie barely missing the cut.
In response to missing the roster, McKenzie posted an image on his Instagram stories that any terminally online person would recognize. We’ll call it the “bemused guy surrounded by question marks.”
Callaghan: McKenzie was not happy
Callaghan, who coached McKenzie during his time with the Philadelphia Union, said he called the defender personally to deliver the news.
“This is a guy that I’ve known since he was 12 years old,” Callaghan said on a conference call with reporters. “So it’s a hard, hard conversation to have with him. I explained the reasons. I can tell you that he was understanding, he was professional but at the same time, what I would expect is that he wasn’t happy.”
“I reassured him that I think there’s a pathway for him to continue with the men’s national team,” Callaghan continued. “This is in no way a door shut for him. And I outlined some different ideas and options for him. I know he’s coming off an unbelievable club season that he had with Genk, and he’s going to have way more men’s national team opportunities.”
Balogun scored his 20th Ligue 1 goal of the season for Reims, a milestone that no American man in a top-five European league had ever reached. The previous high-water mark was the 17 goals Clint Dempsey scored with Fulham in 2011-12.
Not only is Balogun a clear upgrade on any American striker right now, he has reached a level this season that very few forwards across Europe’s top leagues have been able to match.
Did we mention he is still just 21?
Let’s kick off this week’s Five with a look at the now-confirmed USMNT forward.
Christian Pulisic has hit the nadir of his club career.
Injuries have impacted the U.S. national team star far too often in recent seasons but when healthy, he’s pretty much always played.
Not anymore.
The culprit has ironically been Frank Lampard, the manager under whom Pulisic has had he most success during his time at Chelsea. This time around as caretaker manager, Lampard has played Pulisic in just two of his seven games in charge.
Like it’s been for so much of the season, Fulham’s Americans had a good day and those at Leeds did not
The preponderance of Americans in the Premier League this season meant games like Saturday would always be on the horizon.
Fulhamerica versus Leeds United States of America. The Yankee Doodle Derby. The game that we here at the Five had been salivating over for weeks.
Four Americans started, two on either side. Two more could’ve been involved were it not for injury (Tyler Adams) or getting sacked (sorry, Jesse Marsch).
In the end, like it’s been for so much of the season, Fulham’s Americans had a very good day and those at Leeds did not.
The marquee matchup for fervent Americans Abroad trackers like ourselves leads off this week’s Five.
Just knowing the scoreline, even a person that didn’t see the game could probably divine some of the ratings here. Christian Pulisic was dominant from kickoff, Weston McKennie conjured up two goals, and Alex Zendejas marked his becoming cap-tied to the team with a goal. If you’re a USMNT fan, it was a fun Friday night.
With that in mind, our ratings for a game that was never particularly close:
The USMNT has to be feeling pretty good about its depth right now
The U.S. men’s national team has to feel pretty good about its depth right now.
All across Europe, a host of players who didn’t make the World Cup squad are showing they have what it takes to feature for the USMNT, which was again apparent this weekend.
The striker position, which has been a concern for years, has a (very theoretical!) savior possibly en route in the form of Folarin Balogun, but Daryl Dike and Ricardo Pepi keep showing this season they should be in the USMNT mix as well.
That duo, along with some other names who could be coming soon to a U.S. roster near you, features in this week’s Five, along with a coach who could someday be leading them.
While the most stunning news comes in goal, Berhalter left at least one strong candidate out in every position group. The USMNT boss had to deliver bad news to center backs, wingers, strikers, fullbacks, and attacking midfielders.
Some choices came down to injuries, while others may relate to tactical preferences. In at least one case, Berhalter openly stated that the choice boiled down to form.
Here are the six most notable snubs in the squad heading to Qatar.
Too many USMNT arrows are pointing down rather than up
The U.S. men’s national team came into September’s international window hoping to find clarity and belief, but after two dispiriting performances, they certainly didn’t get the answers they wanted.
If anything, more players saw their stock drop, and in many cases there’s no recourse beyond hoping they go back to their clubs and tear it up. Gregg Berhalter has plenty to chew on over the next several weeks, but he was probably hoping to have more “good problems” than what he’s looking at right now.
Who hurt their chances of playing a major role at the World Cup? And who seems more important today than they did a few weeks ago? Let’s check the markets and see where the individuals are trending.
Stock down: Aaron Long
We have to start with the fact that the USMNT, against two very different systems, struggled with progressing the ball from their back line into the midfield. There were multiple causes for that problem, but the one that stood out more than the rest was that the center backs were both inaccurate with their passes, and very predictable with their intentions.
Walker Zimmerman wasn’t at his best, but for Long, the possession side of things was a major source of concern. Injuries to Chris Richards and Cameron Carter-Vickers didn’t help, and Berhalter ended up subbing Long off in both games to get a look at Mark McKenzie.
The fact that Long started both games seems to indicate that Berhalter holds him in esteem, but it’s not like he lacks for competition. With Richards vying for time in the Bundesliga and all of McKenzie, Carter-Vickers, and Palmer-Brown all getting regular minutes at European clubs, Long’s form with the New York Red Bulls will need to be much sharper than what we saw in this window to ensure his place on the plane to Qatar.
Stock up: Matt Turner
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about whether Berhalter simply prefers Steffen to the extent that the starting goalkeeper job is a settled issue. That seems unlikely, but either way, Turner was the best USMNT player in this window, and there’s not much more someone can do than that.
The worry for Turner coming into this camp was that he’d played just one competitive match since moving to Arsenal this summer. Those fears of lost sharpness or confidence ended up being unfounded, as Turner was precise, fundamentally sharp, and kept Japan from walking away with a bigger margin of victory. He had less to do in the second friendly, but still responded well when called upon.
Based on recent play with the USMNT, it’s Turner that should have the edge to start against Wales on November 21. If Steffen is going to win that job, he’s going to have to impress with Middlesbrough in very short order.
(AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Stock down: Gio Reyna
Reyna’s place in the USMNT squad isn’t in question, and when healthy, he’s obviously one of the best players in the entire pool. Berhalter is frankly lucky to have Reyna and Tim Weah possibly vying for one spot (we hear you, play-Weah-centrally advocates, but it really doesn’t seem like Berhalter is interested).
But despite some initial success with Borussia Dortmund’s cautious approach to his season, Reyna was once again having to come out of the game due to what Berhalter said post-game was some muscle tightness.
Dortmund boss Edin Terzić has since announced that Reyna’s recovery time is less than two weeks, which is the good news. The bad news is that on a team with several other key players who aren’t exactly the most durable, it’s now worth wondering whether the USMNT can lean on Reyna as a starter in a World Cup match. At the very least, they need to enter each game with a very specific plan on how they’ll adapt if he pulls up.
Stock up: Joe Scally
It’s not that Scally was a revelation against Saudi Arabia. Rather, the fact that he managed to get high and wide in the attack on a regular basis meant that he had to be accounted for, which had a positive ripple effect for the USMNT going forward.
The USMNT doesn’t function well without a fullback taking care of this task, and with Antonee Robinson missing out due to injury, no other fullback in camp was able to reliably get to the right places at the right time. Berhalter gave this responsibility to Sam Vines against Japan, and then to DeAndre Yedlin on the other side against Saudi Arabia, before Scally’s movement allowed for some more familiar patterns of play to take hold.
It wasn’t a good camp for the USMNT fullback pool in general, so Scally — who has had something of a difficult time getting call-ups, despite being a reliable starter at Borussia Mönchengladbach — is benefitting from simply not doing too badly while others disappointed. But then, that’s kind of the story of this entire international window, and being a player who didn’t run into some kind of problem means Scally’s odds of being on the final 26-man roster should be better today than they were two weeks ago.
Stock down: Ricardo Pepi
Progress isn’t linear, and anyone hoping that Pepi finally breaking his long goal drought meant that he’d come roaring into this USMNT camp was disappointed by how he struggled to really get enough touches to be a factor against Saudi Arabia.
(AP Photo/Jose Breton)
Some of that was simply the entire team struggling to break into the attacking third with consistency, and there’s only so much Pepi can do to fix that. He’s not a channel-running No. 9, and he’s not going to drop off the front line as a false nine either. If the team can’t get out of their own end, he’s not going to be involved.
But the real reason Pepi’s stock fell a bit is that Jesús Ferreira came in, and the USMNT attack instantly started finding angles it hadn’t been seeing earlier. Ferreira has taken some flack for jumping too early for a header against Japan, and he didn’t bury any looks against Saudi Arabia, but the entire attack was more lively once he came on. Not to get too into the weeds on modern soccer thinking, but an attack that is creating chances is believed to be better for winning games than a team that can’t get out of second gear going forward.
With Ferreira seeming to be the best fit for the players around him, Jordan Pefok being the hot hand as a finisher, and both Pepi and Josh Sargent skewing towards being best as pressing forwards, it feels like Berhalter has to sort through some tough questions. There’s a really good case to be made for there only being one spot for Pepi and Sargent, given that they’re the two most similar players in this group.
For Pepi, the best cure would be to light it up over the next few weeks at Groningen. If his profile becomes pressing/target man who is also scoring regularly, the questions here are not nearly as pointed. It’s just that, like we said, progress isn’t linear, and one goal in nearly a year could be a blip rather than the start of things to come.
