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

The idea, former United Soccer Coaches CEO Joe Cummings said Thursday afternoon, was to bring together a smart mind from a top MLS team at youth development and a smart mind from a top European team at youth development.

But by the time Cummings was joined on stage by Union sporting director Ernst Tanner and Eintracht Frankfurt’s Armin Kraaz, there was a little more to it than that.

Actually, there was about $4 million more to it, and a few years from now it could be a lot more.

Sure, it would be nice to talk about teaching young players skills, mental strength, and everything else they learn in high-level academies, and there was plenty such talk. Really, though, the crowd wanted to hear about Paxten Aaronson, from the dozens of coaches in the room to the Union staff and media alongside them.

The panel was happy to oblige, starting with Cummings’ first question of the day: Where do you get your youth players from?

Before Tanner started the serious part of his answer he turned to Kraaz, Eintracht’s head of sports projects for the Americas, and said: “Well, let’s be clear, you find players from us in Frankfurt as well.”

And when Kraaz finished his serious answer, he quipped: “And we sign one from Philadelphia as well, sometimes.”

» READ MORE: Paxten Aaronson joins Eintracht Frankfurt in the Union’s latest big-money deal

They knew the big question was still to come, though they had to wait until late in the program for Cummings to raise it.

“How is it that Paxten Aaronson came about?” he asked. “Do you call each other up and say, ‘Hey, how was Christmas, I want to talk to you about a player’? How does something like that happen?”

In fact, the deal was done long before Christmas. Tanner revealed that Eintracht scouted Aaronson for months before making a formal offer, helped by the fact that its head of first-team football, Timmo Hardung, and manager Oliver Glasner have known Tanner for over a decade.

Hardung was an assistant coach of the under-15s at Hoffenheim, another big German club, when Tanner worked there from 2009 to 2012, rising from youth academy director to CEO. Glasner was an assistant coach at Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg from 2012 to mid-2014, a time when Tanner ran the club’s youth setup.

(Future Union and Salzburg playmaker Brenden Aaronson was 13 years old back then, for the record, and his younger brother was 10.)

“It was a longer process, probably a year to finally get it done,” Tanner said. “There were discussions [about] how we’d do it, would we loan him back, etc.”

» READ MORE: Kai Wagner and Olivier Mbaizo are with the Union now, but might not be for long

There’s no doubt that the Union’s attempt to balance player development with winning trophies hasn’t delivered as many of the latter as they’d like, or certainly as their fans would like. But when it comes to youth development, that’s been an unquestionable success. Tanner said the Union have netted $21 million in transfer fee revenue over the last three years.

The math checks out: Salzburg’s $9 million for Brenden Aaronson, Belgian club Genk’s $6 million for Mark McKenzie, Eintracht’s $4 million for Paxten Aaronson, and smaller deals along the way.

In fact, Tanner might have undersold the total. You can get to $21 million without counting the Union’s $5 million cut of Leeds United’s $30 million purchase of Brenden Aaronson from Salzburg.

There’s a big sell-on fee in the Union’s deal with Eintracht for Paxten, too, above 20%; and there are incentive clauses that could bring the net gain to more than double the initial $4 million. It was so much money in all that the Union had to take it. Any MLS team would for a 19-year-old whose playing time was limited by MVP candidate Dániel Gazdag, even a prospect with Aaronson’s huge potential.

» READ MORE: Mark McKenzie’s transition from the Union to Europe has been quietly successful

“It’s just exciting to sign young players from abroad,” Kraaz said, and all the better when they come from the part of the world he focuses on. Eintracht Frankfurt has played at the prestigious Dallas Cup youth tournament every year since 2004, and Kraaz has often been there to watch.

“I really like the attitude of American players,” he said, but there was a caveat. “You always see so much talent there at young ages – 13, 14. And you see the same teams, the same players two or three years later, and you think they’re still on the same level or they didn’t improve that much.”

That is a coaching issue as much as anything, Kraaz said. And he and Tanner know that is starting to change, especially with how much money MLS teams have invested in their youth academies. Aaronson is the latest prominent example.

He hasn’t played yet for Frankfurt, and the odds are slim that he’ll get on the field this year. The Bundesliga is a physical league, Tanner pointed out, and any watcher knows Aaronson is as skinny as his brother was at the same age – maybe skinnier.

But Tanner had a prediction for Kraatz and the crowd.

“He will very likely surprise you,” Tanner said. “He will get there.”