After just moving to Europe from the Union on a record-breaking transfer, Brendan Aaronson is already receiving interest from the Premier League.

According to the Athletic, Leeds United sent an offer of around $20 million that was rejected by Red Bull Salzburg. The 21-year-old homegrown Union player is from New Jersey and played a key role in the clubs’ recent success before moving to Austria. 

Since joining Red Bull Salzburg, Aaronson has been a key contributor to the leading team in the Austrian Bundesliga. He has been in the starting lineup for a team that stands alone in first place with a 14 point lead on the table. 

Aaronson has already won the Bundesliga title and the Austria Cup. The way Salzburg is playing at the moment, it’s hard to imagine that they won’t bring home more hardware this season. The consistency of Aaronson’s play with Salzburg makes it very likely that bigger clubs will have their eyes on him. Salzburg will probably try to hold Aaronson to increase his transfer value. With the World Cup in November, he will have a great opportunity to shine on a national level for the U.S Men’s National Team.

No Champions League for Brendan Aaronson?

The one big negative of accepting the transfer offer to Leeds for Aaronson would be the inability to play in the Champions League. The Champions League is the biggest European club tournament that takes place every year. Salzburg finished second in the group stages and now are on to face Bayern Munich in the round of 16 next month. This will be a huge game for Aaronson and the club as Bayern are one of the most prestigious professional soccer teams in the world. They are the home to striker Robert Lewandowski who was most recently won the award for the “Best Men’s Player in the World”.

Brendan Aaronson representing the Union

It is very cool to see a Union homegrown player on the rise and playing with some elite competition. I’m sure that all Union fans will be keeping their eyes on Aaronson for the rest of his professional soccer career. He’s only 21 and has already achieved so much, who knows what he will do next? His younger brother Paxten is set to make a huge impact this year for the Union and follow in the same footsteps as his brother.

The Union start their preseason training this week and will be heading down to Clearwater soon to play in some preseason exhibition matches. The MLS regular season starts in about six weeks and the Union still have some uncertainty regarding some players in their starting lineup. It appears that Kai Wagner and Kacper Przybylko could be on their way out, but the Union did secure Jack Elliott on a contract extension. 

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