Coming Home with Caden Clark
Caden Clark's journey has taken him across America and to Europe pursuing his professional dreams. Now back home in Minnesota, he offers perspectives players and fans alike can learn from.
In an age full of wunderkinds and preteen professionals, it’s easy to forget just how remarkable Caden Clark’s journey has been. His whirlwind of a start has gone from scoring his MLS debut with the New York Red Bulls at age 17 (the same day the club officially acquired his MLS rights), to signing a deal with German powerhouse Red Bull Leipzig only 7 months later, a club he would never make an appearance for after spending time on loan back in New York and in Denmark. Now, just over 3 years later, he’s back stateside at the mere age of 20, when many of the friends he played with growing up are beginning college. After some technical difficulties, small talk leads me to mention that I’m in my second year, and as he asks me where I go he speaks not with the aura of a guy who’s traveled the world and achieved more than most of his age would ever dream of, but just a guy who could be in my calculus class. There’s an awkward moment as I answer with the school I go to, and he tells me about how his ex-girlfriend goes there too, and I’m not quite sure how to respond. But in a way, the hiccup takes away the tension, and sets up a strangely personal, and human, conversation.
Born in the small suburban town of Medina, Minnesota, Clark was aware of the implications of his soccer prodigy from younger than most would expect. After a trial, a 13-year-old Clark was offered a spot at the prestigious Barcelona Residency Academy nearly 1,700 miles away from home, and given a week to decide whether or not to take it, a week to decide just how committed he was to the dream. It’s not rare that elite players have to make these kinds of decisions, but as I press Clark on the emotions of going through such an experience, he brushes aside the professional aspect of the decision, seeing it as a necessary step towards planned stardom, but talks for a fair bit about the personal aspect. Being a preteen that far away from home is rough, but he describes coming home and feeling that cliques have formed in his absence as rougher. In a way his hometown was barely his, when he visited Medina for summer and winter breaks, friends were distant, and social life was minimal. But Clark maintains that the support of his parents made things easier, and one can assume the sporting success that followed also helped. At age 16, he went on trial with German club Wolfsburg, and although his lack of a European passport prevented him from making an overseas move for two more years, he was also approached by fellow German organization Red Bull Leipzig. The global conglomerate made him a unique offer: sign a contract with the New York affiliate club, and make the move to Germany after his 18th birthday. The Clarks accepted, and so the journey began.
Clark got off to a memorable start in New York, after spending some time with the second team he made his aforementioned MLS debut at age 17, scoring a lovely volley against Atlanta United to win the game. Media went into a frenzy, declaring him New York’s hottest prospect, and a welcome addition to a roster that had struggled for a creative presence for quite some time. He finished out the 2020 MLS season strong, eventually falling in the first round of the playoffs to the Columbus Crew, but things were looking bright for the young man. Clark started the 2021 season right where he left off, scoring 4 times in his opening 8 MLS matches and assisting once, but the teenager was hit with his first bout of bad luck: an untimely appendectomy that ruled him out in June. The surgery was poorly timed in two ways, not only halting a good run of form that the still young professional desperately needed, but occurring right as his pre-planned transfer to Red Bull Leipzig finally came through. The move was officially announced on June 24th, 2021, the same day that New York played the New England Revolution, which would just happen to be the first match after Clark had been initially ruled out. He spoke rather vaguely about how “certain people” in New York’s management were ill-pleased with the timing of the announcement, feeling that it was an unnecessary distraction for both player and club. Clark acknowledged the misfortune, but also insisted that there was nothing that could be done, seeing as the move had been in the works for years. Nonetheless, this began a friction with the New York management whom Clark now only played for on loan, and a friction that would be hard to shake off for the rest of his New York career.
The effects of the appendectomy were well-referenced by fans and media, as after the month-long recovery period, Clark never looked the same. His playing time diminished greatly as then-coach Gerhard Struber felt others were more suited to the lineup, and Clark spent most of the tail end of the season on the bench for the struggling Red Bulls. Rumors were eventually confirmed and Clark was again loaned back to New York for the 2022 MLS season. This return was well received by fans, but “certain people” once again took issue with the Minnesota native, as Clark spoke of behind-the-scenes issues and real doubts that New York management particularly wanted him at the club after 2021’s debacle. The result was a campaign to forget, making a measly 3 starts the entire year, and missing a whopping 18 games due to combinations of recurring injuries and being simply left off the squad. Fans were rightfully confused as there was little explanation as to what exactly was going on with the starboy that vanished from their sight. Behind the scenes, Clark found comfort in the fact that Leipzig knew him, knew how he played, and trusted that everything was fine with their player despite local trouble. In this sense, the multi-club model did its job, as Clark trusted the system and the people who had trusted him for so long, but there was always the underlying concern that enough would be enough, and the German team would take his stateside struggles into account. Nonetheless, these fears were assuaged after the nightmare 2022 campaign came to a close, and Clark packed his bags to Germany.
It’s a funny consequence of the rising obsessive fandom that the United States Men’s national team has garnered domestically, that fans now feel called to manage player’s careers from their couches. Endless amounts of discourse is devoted towards rating players in terms of their national team viability, reducing players to assets and taking a very narrow view of the optimal career. “Playing time” is an endless buzzword, with the assumption that more minutes equals a better situation for the player. This is true on a basic level, but for players, it is much, much more complicated than that. As Clark entered a Leipzig squad that boasted world-class players at every position, he didn’t particularly expect to walk into the eleven. In fact, he spoke of his competition, Dominik Szoboszlai and Christopher Nkunku in particular, with a sort of awe. The now-Premier League duo earned quite a bit more money than him, he lightheartedly noted, but were players he learned from and absorbed from daily in training. These types of interactions are impossible to quantify, just how much experience is worth to a player is hard to see as an outside fan, and as a result of this the public tends to minimize their value. For a player in situations like these, there’s absolutely no shame in not playing, however Clark touched on the obvious difficulties that come with not playing. Despite the deeper value of spending time around players like Szoboszlai and Nkunku, on a basic level one wants to be on the field, confident that one can still execute what one is being paid to do. Playing time was nonexistent in Leipzig, out of the 28 games Clark was eligible for after joining halfway through the European season, he didn’t touch the pitch for a minute. Psychologically this placed Clark in a strange space, with the move to Europe being something he had looked forward to and prepared for his entire life, just how different the reality of it was was shocking. Nine months later, Clark felt ready to move on, signing a contract with Minnesota United in September 2023 to start playing at the beginning of 2024.
The fact that he’d be playing in his home state for the first time since middle school was not lost on Clark, his words on why he felt Minnesota was the right choice for him felt the most genuine part of the conversation. He used the word “value” a lot, describing feeling lost in the shuffle of a massive club like Red Bull Leipzig. After going through so much struggle in his still brief career, finding his feet in a familiar environment was of the utmost importance. Clark had been thinking about the future since he was 13, always planning with an eye on the future, taking a step looking at the next. This is of course valuable, but to Clark, returning to Minnesota represents focusing on the present. He knows he has a lot of career ahead of him, and taking a “step back” is important both personally and professionally.
Major League Soccer as a step back has been the topic of a lot of online discourse recently, the aforementioned couch-based career analysts often lament Major League Soccer as a black hole for emerging stars. We spoke about many cases similar to his across the league, talking at length about Miles Robinson’s move from Atlanta United to FC Cincinnati. The move was ridiculed online, seen as a potential finisher to the center-back’s national team prospects, but Clark noted that a lot more goes into a move than fans see. As was pointed out by media and some debate-savvy fans, financially speaking, few European teams could offer Robinson the type of wages and security he can receive stateside as one of the best defenders in the league. There’s also family to consider, Robinson and many other players have personal commitments that make staying close to home more palatable than many unaware of the specifics would think.
There’s a maturity aspect to decisions like these, with all the outside pressures and worries seeming to push players towards making the revered move to the European promised land sooner rather than later. Even Clark himself admitted that promising players should aim to be there by 24, and with much of the public consideration that a generous overestimation too many players have fallen into the trap of moving “too early”, getting lost in the shuffle and never really getting their careers back on track. But one can’t chalk it down to mere naivety, because there exists the very reasonable worry that opportunities may not come again. Nothing is assured in sports, turning down a big move risks getting injured and never getting another offer, and to some degree, this has to be on players’ minds. Clark mentioned a conversation with fellow New York-bred prospect Daniel Edelman, who recently signed a new contract with the New York Red Bulls ahead of the 2024 season, despite calls to follow in the steps of fellow local defensive mid Tyler Adams and make the switch to European plains. Edelman told Clark about the importance of establishing himself in New York, a place where he was known and valued, but still a place that challenged him. The similarities to Clark’s words were not lost, as he especially wanted to drive home the complexities of a professional life.
It’s a needed perspective that hasn’t really been talked about in the past, with older generations guarding their privacy and rarely talking about the difficulties of playing the world’s game. But as fans feel they have some sort of stake in players’ lives, and sometimes downright abuse them for not making the choice the uninformed masses dictate, perhaps stories like Clark’s are what’s needed to remind the public that players are people too. Many players are making similar decisions, with Sam Vines, Zack Steffen, and Djordje Mihailovic all making the move from Europe to the Colorado Rapids in anticipation of the 2024 season, and players will continue to do it. Drowning out the outside noise and focusing on what's best for oneself is good advice in any walk of life, and professional sports is no different despite fans feeling they have a say. Staying healthy and performing well in Minnesota is good for Clark no matter how long he stays home, and it’s something he’s excited to get started on. As we closed, he spoke about the feeling of arriving in Minnesota after preseason training in Arizona wrapped up. It was eerie, he said, arriving at the airport and knowing that this wasn’t a temporary visit, but where he was going to be. But it’s an opportunity in and of itself, a chance to show out in front of the people he cares about, and people who may have forgotten what he can do. Caden Clark has a lot left to do, and 2024 is in no way a step back.