Paxten Aaronson aims to make the most of his biggest shot yet with the U.S. team

CHICAGO — Since he hadn’t been named to the U.S. men’s soccer team’s initial roster for the summer, Paxten Aaronson was down the Shore with his family.

Last Saturday, his phone rang. Some other players withdrew because of injuries, so the door was open for him. Could he fly out the next day?

Of course.

“I had to race home that night,” Aaronson said. “I didn’t have anything — no boots, nothing. Had to pack.”

But he was there on time when the U.S. kicked off its training camp here this week, and he’ll be there through the summer.

In an interview with The Inquirer this week, Aaronson admitted to having “a wave of emotions” about it all, and being “disappointed” that he didn’t make the first cut.

“Then you try to think positive: OK, now I get a break after a long [season] to kind of recover my body,” he said. “And then, on the last day before the camp, you get the call that you’re coming. So then you have to flip the mindset again, to come and compete and show why I do deserve to be here.”

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On the outside, some thought the 21-year-old from Medford should have been there all along. Now the question is whether he can be there for even longer.

Aaronson just wrapped up a great season with the Netherlands’ FC Utrecht, on loan from Germany’s Eintracht Frankfurt. He had nine goals and six assists in 38 games, helping the team to a fourth-place finish — behind perennial powers Ajax, Feyenoord, and PSV Eindhoven.

The games-played total was as important as the other stats. Aaronson could have stayed with Frankfurt and ridden the bench in a season where the club finished third in the Bundesliga and reached the Europa League quarterfinals. But he and Eintracht’s coaches knew he’d be better off spending the year somewhere he’d play a lot more.

The Dutch league made perfect sense, with its reputation for free-flowing offense (and admittedly not a lot of defense). Aaronson had spent a few months in 2024 there, at Vitesse Arnhem, and Utrecht had a good squad led by veteran striker Sébastien Haller.

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Like everyone else, Aaronson watched the U.S. men’s team’s bad play at the Nations League Final Four from afar. He hopes to play his part in helping banish that to the past, whether in the upcoming friendlies against Turkey (Saturday, 3:30 p.m., TNT and Telemundo 62) and Switzerland (Tuesday, 8 p.m., TNT and Peacock). or the Gold Cup afterward.

“When you’re watching national teams from afar, you obviously want to be there,” he said. “Especially the kind of players that me and my brother both are, you know you’re going to get energy, you know you’re going to get aggressivity, and you know you’re going to get everything.”

The point has been made so much by now that some people might have grown tired of hearing it. But so much of national team soccer is about all those intangibles, not just pure talent and tactics. It’s why the chorus of critics hasn’t quieted down yet, and it’s why many — not just in their hometown — hope the Aaronsons will help fix the problem.

“I think they are doing a great job of implementing that, from the first day in this camp, and getting that togetherness and the aggressivity of the team,” Paxten Aaronson said. “In the March camp I think that’s what was missed most, and I think we’re going to key in on that on this one.”

» READ MORE: Back with the USMNT, Brenden Aaronson is ready to help the team return to winning

There’s more pressure than usual on the U.S. to win this Gold Cup. Not only does it come after the Nations League flop, but the games are the last ones in an official competition before next year’s World Cup.

“Obviously, there’s always pressure — rightly so, when you look at the team and us coming into the tournament,” Aaronson said. ”We’re definitely one of the favorites, and I think it does have to be the job to try to win the Gold Cup. But not only that, to also establish good performances along the way.”

That means, he said, “whether you’re playing against Mexico or you’re playing against Trinidad and Tobago, going into each game with the same mindset, the same discipline, the same tactics, exactly how you would approach the final game. I think if we do that, we should have no problem winning these games.”

What position Aaronson will play for Mauricio Pochettino is an interesting question. He’s listed as a forward, with the implication that he’ll be a winger. But he played as a real forward sometimes at last year’s Olympics. With Utrecht, he played as an attacking midfielder, and sometimes in a deeper central role.

“If you ask me that probably a year or two ago, I would probably say a winger or a number 10 [attacking midfielder],” Aaronson said. “Over the recent year, I found myself better as a deeper player, box-to-box, or even at times of the season I was playing the number six [defensive midfield]. And that’s where I feel most comfortable in this moment, because I came off of a great season playing those positions.”

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For now, it will be enough if his position is somewhere on the field in a game. But it will be special if he plays with his older brother Brenden, or his three former Union teammates who are also on this squad: Nathan Harriel, Quinn Sullivan, and Jack McGlynn.

“It’s really crazy — we spoke about it before coming to camp,” Aaronson said. “It’s kind of unheard of, but it’s also nice to come with a bunch of familiar faces that you’re so close with. It makes it easy to settle in.”

After the Gold Cup, the race to make the World Cup team will officially be on. It will be Aaronson’s first run at it, and he said he thinks it will be “probably entertaining, interesting, a little nerve-wracking.”

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He knows how important this summer will be, and especially how important the next European season will be.

“Of course, you want to establish a good baseline here now,” Aaronson said. “For me, it’s the first impression, so you want to do everything you can to leave that in the back of the coach’s mind when you leave and go back to the club. But I think also, for me, especially, it’s important to be in a good club situation, getting consistent minutes, and continuing to develop.”

He and Frankfurt haven’t yet decided whether he’ll go on another loan, but the club was very happy with how he played at Utrecht. For now, all that’s certain is he’ll stay with the club for its preseason, which includes a game against the Union at Subaru Park on Aug. 2.

“I’ve discussed with them that it needs to be a year for me where I don’t drop,” Aaronson said. “I had a good trajectory, so I think it’s important that I just keep that going. … They’ve always been open and honest with me, but for me and them, I think we both want to see what happens in preseason. They’re going to give me a fair chance, and yeah, we’ll see.”

» READ MORE: The Union will host Eintracht Frankfurt in an exhibition this summer