From Leeds to Philadelphia, Brenden Aaronson’s first Premier League goal is big news

LEEDS, England — Brenden Aaronson decided, as he has done a few times in his career, to go pressure a goalkeeper who was taking his time on the ball.

So off he went, legs, arms, and hair flying like they did so often at Subaru Park when the Medford native was a teenage player with the Union.

But this time, Aaronson was doing it on one of the world’s biggest soccer stages.

The crowd at Elland Road, Aaronson’s new home with the English Premier League’s Leeds United, rose with anticipation. And Chelsea’s Édouard Mendy, one of the world’s elite goalkeepers, got caught.

Aaronson kept coming, right up to Mendy’s face. Mendy tried to dribble away, but Aaronson poked the ball free and charged after it. The net was open, and a breath later Aaronson had his first Premier League goal — capped off with a no-look tap-in over the line.

» READ MORE: Former Union star Brenden Aaronson scores first goal for Leeds United

Fans across the United States who spend weekend mornings watching Premier League action were no doubt thrilled. Especially the Union fans who have watched the “Medford Messi” since he was a precocious 17-year-old amateur in the Union’s youth academy.

It was special to watch from press row, too, surrounded by 36,372 fans jammed to the walls of a stadium that’s been around since 1919.

Elland Road has plenty of modern touches these days, but it still has the feel of a classic old English football ground: four sides of stands covered by a low, flat roof that traps and amplifies all the noise generated by one of the nation’s most vociferous fan bases.

The press seating is at the back of one side, with the view slightly obstructed by an overhang and big metal columns that support the roof structure. Across the field is the only stand that has a full-scale upper deck.

On that field, meanwhile, Aaronson wasn’t the only American. In fact, he was one of four, on perhaps the most star-studded day for the former English colony in Premier League history: Leeds teammate Tyler Adams (Wappingers Falls, N.Y.), their manager Jesse Marsch (Racine, Wis., and Princeton University), and Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic (Hershey, Pa.).

There was also an England-born honorary American, Leeds’ Jack Harrison, who went to college at Wake Forest and joined New York City FC out of Major League Soccer’s college draft in 2016. He scored the final goal of Leeds’ 3-0 win in the latest chapter of one of England’s most famous soccer rivalries.

It wasn’t the most American players to be part of a Premier League game — there were five once in 2008, for example. But there’d never been a day quite like this.

» READ MORE: Four Union alumni are making it big in England this season

And what a moment it was for the Philadelphia region. Before Pulisic joined Chelsea in 2019, Northeast Philly’s Bobby Convey was the only area native to play in the Premier League, in 2006-08. On Sunday there were two locals at once, from when Pulisic entered as a 64th-minute substitute to when Aaronson was subbed off in the 83rd, with fans chanting “U-S-A!” as he left the field.

After the final whistle, Pulisic, Aaronson, and Adams spent a moment chatting at the center circle and embracing. They will likely be together again in a month when the U.S. plays its last warmup games before this fall’s World Cup, and all three are locks to be stars in Qatar as long as they stay healthy until then.

Coincidentally, there are a fair number of similarities between Philadelphia and Leeds when it comes to sports fandom. Both like to portray themselves as working-class, even though they’re much more modern and diverse than they give themselves credit for.

Both venerate the same familiar clichés about players: He works hard, he runs a lot, he’s physical, he wears his heart on his sleeve. A player with lots of skill but not enough “toughness” will raise skeptical eyebrows until he proves himself. (And both locales use “he” in sports a lot.)

They have a team song at Leeds, “Marching On Together.” It’s more of a ballad than a fight song like “Fly Eagles Fly,” or anything from American colleges. But it‘s catchy, and when the crowd at Elland Road sings at full blast right before the teams take the field, even a soccer-hating Eagles fan might take the lyrics to heart:

We’ve been through it all together

And we’ve had our ups and downs

We’re gonna stay with you forever

At least until the world stops going ‘round!

» READ MORE: The dream has come true for Brenden Aaronson, with Leeds United and the U.S. men’s soccer team

When Adams charged into Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher at midfield in the third minute, the crowd loved it. As Aaronson pressed on defense and flew up the field on the ball with a few hip-shimmying dribble fakes, they roared just as much.

And when Aaronson made that steal, left Mendy helpless, and scored Leeds’ first goal against Chelsea at Elland Road in a decade …

If you’re one of the many Philadelphia sports fans who dislikes soccer or just doesn’t care for it, take your pick of an analogy for how loud it was.

A breakaway touchdown for Brian Westbrook against the Giants or Cowboys. A Phillies walk-off homer in a playoff race at a sold-out Citizens Bank Park. A game-winning basket in a Catholic League basketball title game at the Palestra.

The noise was that loud, that pure, that electric.

And it had a little extra edge because of who it came against.

Leeds-Chelsea has been one of England’s most venerable soccer clashes for decades: the working-class, one-club city against the rich, cosmopolitan bunch from booming London.

Their feud dates back to the 1960s, when famed Leeds manager Don Revie instilled a playing style that the rest of the country called “Dirty Leeds.” The 1970 Leeds-Chelsea FA Cup final remains one of the tournament’s most famous title games.

It continued down the years, between players on the field and fans in the stands during English soccer’s past era of hooliganism. Leeds has the upper hand historically, with 39 wins to Chelsea’s 37 and 30 ties between the clubs’ men’s teams.

The Blues have closed the gap since becoming a global superpower in recent times. But before then, Leeds won league titles in 1990 and ‘92. They reached Europe six times from 1995-2003, most famously reaching the Champions League semifinals in 2001.

At this point, analogies with Philadelphia fall apart. Financial mismanagement after that Champions League run led Leeds to disaster, relegation out of the Premier League in 2004 and to the third tier four years later. They would not return to the top flight until 2020, and last season escaped relegation only on the final day.

There’s still a long way to go before Leeds gets back to being a true power. But beating Chelsea for the first time in 20 years, and doing it so comprehensively, was a big step.

It sure will help the Americans in town, who still get peppered with jokes about “soccer” and “Ted Lasso” and various other clichés.

“There’s probably still a lot of doubts in me,” Marsch said in his postgame news conference. “It’s OK, it’s normal, that there’s going to be people that like me, there’s going to be people that hate me. I just want the team to play with love and passion and belief.”

And he added: “I’ve tried not to be pandering — I’ve tried to be appreciative of what the club is, I’ve tried to adapt to what the club is.”

» READ MORE: The Union earned $5 million when Leeds United signed Brenden Aaronson

Aaronson did the on-the-field postgame interview with England’s Sky Sports with Harrison next to him.

“We dreamed about it for a long time, and for me it’s a dream come true, and for this club it shows how much progress we’ve made,” Aaronson said.

Then he dropped a one-liner straight from that shared Philadelphia-Leeds playbook.

“It kind of just shows you who wants it more, you know, in the moment in time,” Aaronson said. “We had the drive, we were all pumped up, the crowd got us pumped up the whole time, and yeah, you could see it on the field.”

And it will help Leeds get more attention in a country where the team is starting to get a fair bit of it, especially in Aaronson’s hometown. Leeds’ tie-dye style, yellow-and-blue away jersey with his name and number 7 has already become a trendy fashion item at Union games, where the color scheme fits in well.

“It just goes to show people around the world that Americans can play football too,” Aaronson told NBC Sports’ TV broadcast after leaving the field. “I think it’s only up and coming, and there’s going to be more and more talent [in] the future making this trip over the pond.”