Medford’s Brenden Aaronson is enjoying his new home with Union Berlin

A new chapter in Brenden Aaronson’s European soccer journey started Sunday when his new club, Germany’s Union Berlin, kicked off its Bundesliga season against Mainz.

Aaronson started and played well in the Union Berlin 4-1 win, helping set up the opening goal with a nifty backheel pass.

The Medford native moved to Berlin from England’s Leeds United last month on a season-long loan, a financial and sporting consequence of Leeds’ relegation from the English Premier League. But while the Premier League is the world’s most prestigious domestic league, Aaronson isn’t making that much of a trade-off on the whole.

Union Berlin will play in the UEFA Champions League this season for the first time in its history, qualifying directly for the group stage after finishing fourth in the Bundesliga last season. Off the field, Aaronson gets to live in Germany’s largest city, and be part of a club renowned for its family atmosphere and tight-knit fan base.

“The things that they were talking about, the plan of the club and things like this, and playing in [the] Champions League and in the league, it was easy,” Aaronson, 22, told a small gathering of media including The Inquirer via Zoom last week.

“I think they made it a really good layout for us, and a good layout for myself,” he said, “and what they wanted me to come and do here, and the player that they want me to be. It just really opened my eyes, and I felt like it was a great place to come, and it would get the best out of me as a footballer.”

» READ MORE: Brenden Aaronson joins Union Berlin on loan from Leeds United

Aaronson will play in a different tactical setup with Union Berlin than the U.S. national team’s usual 4-3-3, and the 4-4-2 he saw often with past clubs. Manager Urs Fischer prefers a 5-3-2 setup with Aaronson in a box-to-box role. That’s deeper than Aaronson has been used to, but he said he likes it.

“We get into a shape and we’re very structured and we’re hard to break down,” Aaronson said, “but then attacking, he tells me to be free, go one-v-one and play my creative self like I like to be in games. … Honestly, it’s going really well, I feel very confident in the system now, I feel like it’s going to benefit me a lot as a player. I’m going to learn a lot this season.”

There’s a long, proud history of Americans in the Bundesliga, including a current U.S. national team colleague at Union Berlin: striker Jordan Pefok. Aaronson was happy to see a familiar face when he arrived, though Pefok might not be staying there. He has fallen down the team’s depth chart, and soon after Aaronson spoke for this story, a report emerged in Germany that Pefok might go on loan to Borussia Mönchengladbach.

“He’s been like an older brother, I guess you can say, coming in here,” Aaronson said. “It’s just a good feeling having someone to go to at first, because things can be a little awkward sometimes. At first I’m a little shy, but then when I get up to guys and I get to know the group, it goes really well.”

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Speaking of brothers, Aaronson’s actual brother — his younger brother Paxten — is set to begin his second campaign with Germany’s Eintracht Frankfurt.

Because Paxten turned pro in MLS with the Union after Brenden left, it’s the first time in the brothers’ careers that they have played professionally in the same league. They could face each other twice in the Bundesliga this season, Nov. 4 in Berlin and March 30 in Frankfurt.

“It’s going to be amazing — I can’t wait to see my brother,” Brenden said. “I’m already trying to plan a trip to, like, if I have two days off or something, go and see him in Frankfurt. He’s there alone right now because his girlfriend just went back to the States, and I know what it’s like being alone in a foreign country. It’s tough.”

The elder Aaronson has quite a bit of experience with that now. It’s been more than 2½ years since he left the Union to move to Europe, first to Red Bull Salzburg, then Leeds, and now Berlin. Last season was especially difficult for him, because his first World Cup — the pinnacle of his career to date — was jammed into the European club season.

» READ MORE: Ernst Tanner reveals details of Paxten Aaronson’s move from the Union to Eintracht Frankfurt

While many fans don’t like it when players complain about playing too much, in the soccer world they’ve gotten a fair hearing. The 2022-23 European season was exhausting, and the World Cup made it end later than usual, which cut into increasingly rare time off to relax.

Aaronson noted that in the short span between when the World Cup ended in December and the Premier League season resumed just over a week later, he flew home to New Jersey for a few days, then flew back to Leeds. Only in late June, after the English season and the U.S. national team’s Concacaf Nations League title win were finished, was he finally able to just go sit on the beach for a while.

“Everybody knows that it was a tough year; it wasn’t the way things wanted to go,” Aaronson said of Leeds’ relegation. “I think the beginning of the year, it went really well, we were playing good football, and then, you know — I mean, I’ll say it — [expletive] happens in football. It’s tough, and that’s the way it goes, but I think that to be able to disconnect from the season, go home, be around family, just get away from it, play a little golf with some friends, just relax, go to the beach — it was something I really needed.”

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He emphasized, though, that “there’s no excuses” for his subpar stats down the stretch of the season, which earned him a lot of scorn from Leeds fans.

“I think I could have played better for a portion of that season,” he said. “I’m OK with it now, and I’ve forgotten about it, so yeah, I feel good.”

Aaronson hasn’t forgotten about his old team back home, though. He noted that when he woke up the morning after the Union’s 4-1 blowout loss to Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami (which took place in the middle of the night in Germany), he checked his phone and was surprised by the score.

“I saw a 30-yard goal from Messi, and I was like, oh my God, he scored on Andre Blake from 30 yards?” Aaronson said. “It’s crazy.”

Spoken like the Union fan he still is, now having a second Union to call home.

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