Sports
Travis Hunter effect is alive in the 2025 college football season
Utah‘s mission to reboot its offense started with adding a quarterback-coordinator combination from New Mexico, as Devon Dampier and Jason Beck made their way to Salt Lake City.
But the Utes also needed playmakers to surround Dampier. Their search led them to the transfer portal, naturally, but also to their own roster and, ultimately, to the other side of the ball.
Smith Snowden, who started at nickel in 2024 and had 10 passes defended, and linebacker Lander Barton, the team’s tackles leader in fall 2024 who had six passes defended, were the top options.
“Obviously Travis Hunter last year, the success he had, winning the Heisman [Trophy], that struck a chord with a lot of coaches, taking them through their roster: Who do we have that can contribute both ways?” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham told ESPN. “The bottom line is: What’s going to help you win games? It’s not the novelty of having a two-way guy. Who’s going to give us the best chance to win?”
Hunter’s surge to the 2024 Heisman at Colorado, while playing full time on both offense and defense, might have nudged coaches to expand their view of what was possible for the right players. Although Hunter did things not thought possible in the modern era of college football — he played 2,625 snaps in two seasons at Colorado, leading the FBS in both 2023 and 2024 — his success is already increasing opportunities for others.
Utah opened the season with a 43-10 win at UCLA, in which Snowden led the team in receiving and added a rushing touchdown while Barton caught a touchdown pass from Dampier. Safety Jackson Bennee also had a 17-yard reception. In Week 2, Snowden had two rushes, three catches and two tackles.
Your eyes do not deceive you… that is, in fact, CORNERBACK Smith Snowden scoring a rushing touchdown for @Utah_Football 👀#Big12FB | 📺 @CFBONFOX pic.twitter.com/Ih38m3CHze
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) August 31, 2025
“Travis Hunter really set the standard for it,” Snowden said. “He opened a lot of doors for younger athletes that can’t decide if they want to play offense or defense.”
Maybe they don’t have to anymore.
The Utes’ crew is among a small but growing group of players with the license to play both ways. Minnesota sophomore Koi Perich, a first-team All-Big Ten defensive back in 2024 who also stood out on returns, is carving out a bigger role with the Gophers offense. Vanderbilt defensive back Martel Hight, an All-SEC return specialist this past season, is on a similar path as a wide receiver.
They’re all occupying expanded roles, at least in part, because of the Travis Hunter effect.
“It’s starting to open up,” Hight told ESPN. “I’m pretty sure the coaches, they see guys doing it and it probably opens their eyes.”
DURING VANDERBILT’S WINTER conditioning session, Hight was running gassers — sprints across the width of the field — when Jerry Kill, a senior offensive advisor and chief consultant to coach Clark Lea, walked over.
“[Kill] grabbed me and said, ‘Hey, you’re going to be a starting receiver for me,'” Hight said.
Hight came to Vanderbilt as an ESPN 300 recruit and the nation’s No. 33 cornerback out of Rome, Georgia. Like many high school standouts, he played both defense and offense and even faced Travis Hunter when their Georgia high schools played.
“I scored on him, ran him over, he caught a pass on me my junior year, and it was a pretty good catch,” Hight said. “We’ve always kind of had this little back and forth. It was never any trash-talking or anything. We just kept it cordial.”
Hight, however, arrived at Vanderbilt with a clear role on defense. In 2023, he became the first freshman in team history to record a pick-six. He continued to display good ball skills on defense last year, while becoming a bigger factor on punt returns, averaging 14.7 yards with a touchdown, and earning second-team All-SEC honors. After the offseason interaction with Kill, Hight emphasized his desire to play offense to the coaches, and then began running routes with starting quarterback Diego Pavia in spring practice.
“I don’t know that we had quite the idea of how dynamic he could be for us at receiver until we started playing him there and realized that he’s really natural as a pass catcher and a route runner,” Lea said. “As we got out of spring, it was, ‘Hey, let’s see how we can take this a little further.'”
Lea reached out to new Jacksonville Jaguars coach Liam Coen, who selected Hunter at No. 2 in April’s NFL draft, about how they intended to use Hunter at the pro level. Kill, who led programs at New Mexico State, Minnesota, Northern Illinois and elsewhere during a 40-year career in college football, contacted Colorado coach Deion Sanders.
“We had a basis of understanding of what he did in college, what Jacksonville’s plan was for him in training camp,” Lea said. “But everybody’s different. We’ve got to look at Martel and think about where we think he can net out here.”
Other coaches made a similar point when asked about the effect Hunter will continue to have on college football. Hunter showed what is possible when given the chance to do it all, but very few can handle anywhere near the play load he took on at Colorado. Hunter famously logged 144 snaps in his Colorado debut at TCU, and eclipsed 120 the following week against Nebraska.
“He’s an anomaly, and you’ve got to understand that that’s not doable for 99.99% of the players,” Whittingham said of Hunter. “So going both ways is a relative statement, because if you go both ways but only play a total of 65 snaps a game, then that’s a normal workload.”
The challenge, then, is figuring out what each player can handle. Snowden played 22 snaps on both defense and offense in the opener at UCLA, as well as three on special teams.
If Utah had been in a closer game, he might have been out there more. Snowden said this past season, he averaged 55-60 snaps per game, almost all on defense.
“I could get to 70 [snaps],” he told ESPN last week. “It will vary game to game. I’m a defense specialist when it comes down to it, so defense is my position, and whatever the team needs on offense, I’m down.”
THOSE ATTEMPTING TO follow Hunter’s path this season have similar profiles.
“They’re primarily defensive guys, and they play some offense,” Whittingham explained. “It’s not very common to have it go the other way.”
Hunter came into college football as ESPN’s No. 2 recruit, and the top cornerback in the 2022 class. Although he broke the Georgia high school record for receiving touchdowns with 48 and had nearly 4,000 receiving yards, he projected as a top defensive back. Despite only 18 receptions his first college season at Jackson State, Hunter saw his receiving production spike at Colorado, and won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top wide receiver this past season. As a high school senior, Minnesota’s Perich accounted for 27 touchdowns in 10 games — five on defense, four on returns and 16 on offense. He was rated as the top prospect from Minnesota and signed with the Gophers as the nation’s No. 172 recruit and No. 14 safety.
Perich made an immediate impact in 2024, becoming the first freshman in the FBS since at least 1976 to record five interceptions, at least 100 kickoff return yards and at least 100 punt return yards in a season. His 565 all-purpose yards, from returns and interceptions, ranked fourth on the team. As soon as the season finished, Minnesota’s coaching staff began carving out a role for Perich on offense.
Perich spent the spring working with both units, spending 70-75% of his time with the defense, but still attending some meetings with offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh Jr. and co-coordinator Matt Simon. Through two games, Perich has two catches, five punt returns and five tackles.
“You can throw somebody out there and just throw him a deep ball and gimmick him, but is that really playing offense?” Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck told ESPN. “There’ll be certain [individual practice] periods dedicated to safety, certain periods where you come over and play wideout. He’s going to show me ultimately how much he can handle.”
Although Hunter’s talent set him apart, he also embraced the mental toil of toggling between position groups and learning as much as he could on both sides of the ball.
“There’s a burden in this with the player,” Lea said. “There’s a willingness that you don’t have any downtime in the building. You have to go all the time. He’s got to buy into that. Martel is so bright and confident on both sides, we’ve been able to really not hold back on anything.”
Syracuse coach Fran Brown recognizes the mental challenge as well, saying two-way hopefuls must learn an entire playbook and at least a few chapters of another. While other teams are exploring the option with more experienced players, Syracuse is assessing what it has with true freshman Demetres Samuel Jr., who is only 17 and was just 16 when he enrolled this winter.
An ESPN 300 recruit, Samuel has started Syracuse’s first two games and had eight tackles Aug. 30 against UConn. He hasn’t recorded a catch at wide receiver but is expected to have a role there.
“You can’t get down and frustrated when you don’t do well at first, you’re taking two tests, and we’re asking you to learn two things,” Brown told ESPN. “I tell him, ‘You’ve got to run. I don’t care that you just got out of that side, you’ve got to run. Up and down.’ He’s got a lot better at it lately. It takes time.”
As Minnesota and other programs decide how to divide the time for their two-way players, they must weigh what they’re gaining on offense with what they could lose on defense.
“You don’t want to do anything that starts the law of diminishing returns,” Fleck said.
Snowden and Barton were two of Utah’s most productive defenders in 2024. Barton led the Utes in tackles with 72, while Snowden had a team-high eight pass breakups. They were two of three Utah players with multiple interceptions, and each recorded a forced fumble.
Late in the season, Barton provided one of Utah’s top defensive highlights against Iowa State, catching a deflected pass, wriggling free of quarterback Rocco Becht‘s tackle attempt and then sprinting down the sideline for an 87-yard scoring return.
“My theory has always been, you master one position before you even think about playing both ways,” Whittingham said. “It’s not fair to play a guy two ways unless he has a substantial grasp of one side of the ball first. Those guys are experts at defensive play and their assignments. So really, the learning curve is on the other side.”
Minnesota’s coaches organized Perich’s schedule with efficiency in mind. Defensive coordinator Danny Collins said that Perich might get the ball thrown to him on the first play of a practice period on offense and then spend the rest of the time on defense. Or he’ll alternate between offense and defense, much like Hunter did at Colorado.
The Gophers’ depth in the secondary made the plan a bit easier to sell to Collins.
“At first, it was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s hold on: This is an All-Big Ten safety,'” Collins said. “But at the same time, he’s a tremendous athlete. When the ball is in his hands, special things are going to happen, whether he’s picking it off, whether it’s a punt return. And then you think about, ‘OK, we can put him on offense and get the ball in his hands, now that’s going to help the whole team.'”
WHEN MAPPING OUT the plan for Perich at Minnesota, Fleck watched a lot of Colorado film. His goal wasn’t necessarily to identify a direct comparison, but rather to assess how the Buffs used a distinct talent like Hunter.
“In the new world, that’s the only one you get to look at,” Fleck said of Hunter. “Like, what athlete did it besides Travis Hunter? I don’t see it being trendy, because it’s too hard to be trendy. It takes a really special athlete in a really unique situation that fits. That’s what we have in Koi.”
In his NFL debut, Hunter became the second NFL player in the past 10 years to play at least 30 offensive snaps and five defensive snaps in the same game. Whether he sparks a true trend of two-way players remains to be seen. What’s clear is he has at least cracked open the door for others to try.
Like Kill at Vanderbilt, Brown also contacted Sanders about Hunter’s workload and how he approached such an added workload.
“It’s really hard,” Brown said. “People will try to go down that road. But Coach Prime is a special guy. It takes somebody special like Travis to truly, truly do it. I think Demetres has that chance.”
Hight doesn’t need much prodding about the chance to play more on offense. When he arrived at Vanderbilt, former defensive backs coach Dan Jackson floated the possibility of him taking some snaps with the offense.
After two seasons, though, he didn’t think it was going to happen, which has made this fall even sweeter.
“Honestly, I can play all day,” he said. “I’m like an energetic ball on the field. I’m having so much fun being there with the guys. I don’t really have a number [of snaps]. I’ll go until my heart stops.”
Hight thinks the more players who show they can be reliable options on both sides of the ball will reduce teams’ reliance on the transfer portal to address specific needs, like at wide receiver. But will there be a limit on how many teams explore the two-way track?
“It’s always going to be rough because you’re playing two years of football in one,” said an assistant coach from a top 10 team. “If you’re on a team that’s actually really good, it’s hard to see a guy doing part time at a position and then be better than a guy who’s doing full time.”
Lea has often thought about Hunter since exploring a two-way role for Hight, and how much the Colorado star truly influenced Vanderbilt’s decision. Ultimately, Lea kept coming back to an enduring truth about personnel.
“We can’t afford to not have our best 11 out on the field,” he said.
Bowl games, once considered rewards, are no longer worth the time for not only individual players but also full teams.
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The 38-year-old superstar touched down in the eastern state of West Bengal early Saturday
Fans threw chairs onto the track of a stadium in Kolkata following an appearance of football star Lionel Messi. Photo: AFP
KOLKATA:
Angry spectators broke down barricades and stormed the pitch at a stadium in India after football star Lionel Messi, who is on a three-day tour of the country, abruptly left the arena.
As a part of a so-called GOAT Tour, the 38-year-old Argentina and Inter Miami superstar touched down in the eastern state of West Bengal early Saturday, greeted by a chorus of exuberant fans chanting his name.
Hours later, thousands of fans wearing Messi jerseys and waving the Argentine flag packed into Salt Lake stadium in the state capital Kolkata, but heavy security around the footballer left fans struggling to catch a glimpse of him.
Messi walked around the pitch waving to fans and left the stadium earlier than expected.Frustrated fans, many having paid more than $100 for tickets, ripped out stadium seats and hurled water bottles onto the track.
Many others stormed the pitch and vandalised banners and tents.
“For me, to watch Messi is a pleasure, a dream. But I have missed the chance to have a glimpse because of the mismanagement in the stadium,” businessman Nabin Chatterjee, 37, told AFP.
Before the chaos erupted, Messi unveiled a 21-metre (70-foot) statue which shows him holding aloft the World Cup.
He was also expected to play a short exhibition game at the stadium.
Another angry fan told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that people had spent “a month’s salary” to see Messi.
“I paid Rs 5,000 ($55) for the ticket and came with my son to watch Messi, not politicians. The police and military personnel were taking selfies, and the management is to blame,” Ajay Shah, told PTI.
State chief minister Mamata Banerjee said she was “disturbed” and “shocked” at the mismanagement.
“I sincerely apologise to Lionel Messi, as well as to all sports lovers and his fans, for the unfortunate incident,” she said in a post on X, adding that she had ordered a probe into the incident.
Messi will now head to Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi as part of the four-city tour.
His time in India also includes a possible meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The U.S. men’s national team, it seems, is back to a good place.
The Nations League and Gold Cup eliminations for the U.S. have faded into the past. There’s no more feuding between the team’s best players and the manager. The Americans are undefeated in five matches, all against World Cup-qualified opposition. They’ve outscored those opponents 12-4, and there finally seems to be a plan: either a clear back three or a back four that morphs into a back three because one of the fullbacks is more of a center back. It’s similar to what Mauricio Pochettino did in his one year at Chelsea, and it has coincided in an uptick in both performances and results for the World Cup co-hosts.
But what about the broader player pool? Pochettino has done a fantastic job of expanding it — there’s a much bigger collection of players who seem capable of contributing than there was a year ago. But a national team manager can only have a minor impact on the true quality of the players at his disposal. We learn a lot more about them when they’re at their day jobs: playing for club teams.
So with the European season fast approaching its midway point and MLS just recently wrapped, it’s time for one last edition of the USMNT Player Performance Index before the end of 2025.
What is the USMNT PPI and how does this ranking work?
For the unfamiliar or forgetful, this is our way of trying to rank the performance of every American professional soccer player in the world. I use the word “trying” because it’s not perfect — ranking soccer players, especially across multiple competitive contexts, is impossible — but it’s useful.
To come up with the rankings, we use a combination of talent, playing time, team quality and … that’s it. Simple, but effective.
For talent: The metric is Transfermarkt’s estimated market value for every player. This isn’t a one-to-one match for talent, but it’s close enough, and having it as part of the input ensures that the rankings don’t stray too far from what the world thinks of a given player.
For playing time: We simply take the percentage of available minutes each player has played for his team in their domestic league.
For team quality: We use Opta’s power rankings, which rate every professional club team in the world. These ratings aren’t perfect either — MLS teams are ranked a little too highly, for one — but they offer a uniform way of assessing the quality of the teams every American plays for.
And so, the rankings work off a simple premise: if you’re playing a lot of minutes and your team has a high rating, then you’re likely contributing valuable performance to your team.
For the current edition, the market value makes up 15% of the rating, minutes played makes up 20%, and team quality makes up the remaining 65%. I’ve also added a 10%-of-minutes threshold, and that means Cole Campbell (1.8% of minutes for Borussia Dortmund) and Antonee Robinson (4.5% of minutes for Fulham) both miss out.
Some other notable absences: Norwich City’s Josh Sargent, Orlando City’s Alex Freeman, and Real Salt Lake’s Diego Luna didn’t make the top 50. Were I doing this more subjectively, Luna still wouldn’t be in the top 50, I don’t think — he’s been way better for the USMNT than in MLS over the past year. Freeman, however, would easily be top 50 because he was probably the best fullback in MLS. And Sargent also would be somewhere on the list. But none of their club teams were good enough for them to make the cut in this edition of the USMNT PPI.
Now, to the list …
– O’Hanlon: Why Christian Pulisic is having his best season ever
– Predicting the USMNT’s starting lineup at the World Cup
– How Roldan went from USMNT afterthought to Pochettino fave
1. Chris Richards, center back, Crystal Palace
Ten years ago, Richards would’ve been playing for a Champions League team in Italy, Spain or Germany. Instead, he’s playing 99.5% of the minutes for, well, the fourth-place team in England.
Even if you don’t think Crystal Palace will be there come season’s end, the team is currently rated as the 12th best in the world by Opta. Such is the financial might of the Premier League that Palace, according to these ratings, would be the second-best team in France, Italy, and Germany, while they’d be behind only Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain.
More simply, Palace is the best team any American is currently playing for, and Richards is playing every minute of every game.
2. Malik Tillman, attacking midfielder, Bayer Leverkusen
After a nightmare start that got Erik ten Hag fired as manager before the transfer window had even closed, Leverkusen has stabilized. After Bayern Munich, Leverkusen is battling it out with RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund to be the second-best team in Germany. And outside of his injuries, Tillman has been close to an automatic first-choice starter under both of his managers.
There’s not really much in the way of notable statistical production on the ball — he’s making a lot of defensive plays, playing a lot of passes, completing a lot of passes, and not doing much else. But he moved for a major transfer fee over the summer, and he’s starting for a Champions League-quality side. That’s enough to get him to No. 2.
Unfortunately, Pulisic no longer qualifies for FBref’s leaderboards after dipping slightly below the one-third-of-the-minutes threshold. But after his two goals earlier this week, he’s now averaging 1.82 non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes. That’s almost half a goal/assist more than Harry Kane, who leads Europe’s Big Five top leagues (among qualified players) with 1.36 per 90.
4. Tyler Adams, defensive midfielder, AFC Bournemouth
He’s sort of the “is the dress blue or gold?” of U.S. fandom.
If I told you that Adams had played nearly 90% of the minutes for a good Premier League team so far this season, you probably would have one of two reactions: (1) Wow, that’s such good news for the World Cup! Or (2) Oh my god, no, he’s going to get hurt before the World Cup.
He’s first in progressive passes and second in progressive carries for a team that has beaten the defending English and Italian champs by a combined 10-3. Given Antonee Robinson’s injury problems and Weston McKennie’s inconsistent call-ups, it seems as if there’s now a core four of close-to-irreplaceable players for the USMNT ahead of next summer: Richards, Pulisic, Adams and Dest.
6. Johnny Cardoso, central midfielder, Atletico Madrid
It started off well — kind of. He played a lot for Atletico at the beginning of the season, but Atletico was bad to start the season. Then he stopped playing, and now Atletico is pretty much as good as it always is, again.
Since the end of August, Cardoso has played only 71 minutes for Atletico across all competitions. If you thought this move seemed like too big of a jump for a player with a solid season and a half in Spain, then nothing about the first few months of this season will have convinced you otherwise.
7. Weston McKennie, central midfielder, Juventus
It happened again. McKennie wasn’t playing for Juventus to start the season and everyone freaked out. And then his new manager eventually realized his team is better when McKennie is on the field. Despite the slow start, McKennie has played nearly two-thirds of the Serie A minutes for Igor Tudor. And as always, he’s just doing a little bit of everything, everywhere:
Juventus is in seventh in Serie A — that’s why he’s not higher here — but the team’s expected-goal differential is second-best in Italy after Inter Milan. I’d expect Juventus to gradually rise up the table over the next few months, and the same thing should happen to McKennie the next time we do these rankings.
8. Timothy Weah, winger, Olympique Marseille
What Weah is getting on loan at Marseille: more minutes than he got at Juventus.
What Weah is not getting on loan at Marseille: any minutes at his preferred position of wing.
Marseille could give Paris Saint-Germain a genuine title challenge this season — its expected-goal differential is not far behind the European champs — and that’s happening mostly with a lineup in which Weah plays either as a fullback or a wingback. But that might not be as big of a problem for the U.S. as it once seemed.
No one in Europe thinks Weah is a top-class winger even though he mostly has been one of the starting wingers for the U.S. over the past half-decade. But with this new system, Pochettino has leaned more toward inside-forward types rather than pure wingers as the two players next to his striker. That doesn’t suit Weah at all, so his path to a starting spot with the U.S. might be as a wingback after all.
He’s no longer putting up Messi-like per-minute numbers for PSV anymore — and that’s a good thing. Why? Because it means he’s no longer just coming in during garbage time and pummeling Eredivisie clubs that are way worse than PSV.
Pepi still isn’t first choice at PSV, but he already has 515 minutes in the league this season. Last season, he finished just south of 700.
10. Tanner Tessmann, defensive midfield, Olympique Lyonnais
I don’t think Tessmann is a future star or anything — he’s already 24 — but he is a solid starting midfielder for a fringe Champions League team in France. Here’s how he fares compared to his peers in Ligue 1, per the various grades from Gradient Sports:
With that level of play, he should be in the mix for the starting spot in the midfield next to Adams next summer.
11. Yunus Musah, central midfielder, Atalanta
It has been a terrible season for the two young American midfielders on Champions League clubs and Pochettino doesn’t seem to like them. Musah even made this list only because he’d played 90 minutes in a match for Milan before moving to Atalanta. With his new club, he has played 60 total minutes and hasn’t appeared in a league match since before Halloween.
0:38
Folarin Balogun scores in 3rd straight UCL game
Jeff Carlisle recaps Folarin Balogun’s big night for Monaco in the Champions League.
13. Brenden Aaronson, attacking midfielder, Leeds United
14. Mark McKenzie, center back, Toulouse
15. Haji Wright, forward, Coventry City
16. Joe Scally, fullback, Borussia Monchengladbach
17. Cristian Roldan, central midfielder, Seattle Sounders
I like how such a simple rating system can discover the same thing Pochettino has found out over the past couple of months: Roldan is very good at soccer.
18. Mark Delgado, central midfield, LAFC
19. Sebastian Berhalter, central midfield, Vancouver Whitecaps
22. Jesús Ferreira, forward, Seattle Sounders
23. Justin Haak, center back, New York City FC
Delgado, a midfielder, and Haak, a midfielder-turned-defender, haven’t been called up by Pochettino and probably won’t be any time soon, but they’ve both played a ton of minutes for two of the better teams in MLS. In the past, they’d probably be in the mix for one of the final few roster spots, but now this pool has guys who play for Champions League clubs such as Atletico Madrid and Atalanta and probably won’t even make next summer’s roster, either.
25. Tristan Blackmon, center back, Vancouver Whitecaps
26. Paul Rothrock, winger, Seattle Sounders
28. Jackson Ragen, center back, Seattle Sounders
29. Matt Freese, goalkeeper, New York City FC
30. Emmanuel Sabbi, winger, Vancouver Whitecaps
31. Tate Johnson, fullback, Vancouver Whitecaps
33. Brian White, forward, Vancouver Whitecaps
It’s funny that perhaps one of the best MLS teams of all time that relied heavily on Americans is also the one that plays its home games in Canada. White, Sabbi, Berhalter and Blackmon combined to play all but one minute of the 3-1 MLS Cup loss to Inter Miami.
34. Max Arfsten, wingback, Columbus Crew
37. Noahkai Banks, center back, Augsburg
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but Banks was 18 at the beginning of the season, and he’s now just a full-time starter for a team in the Bundesliga at a position that peaks later than average and typically favors older players. The main problem is that Augsburg isn’t very good. In fact, the team is very bad: a minus-9.2 expected goal differential, worst in the Bundesliga. But Augsburg has been a lot better — a roughly average side — in the minutes when Banks has played.
It’s all really promising, and if you were going to pick one out-of-nowhere player to not only make the World Cup roster, but start next summer, then Banks would be your guy. As long as he keeps playing, I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t get a call-up to the next full camp.
38. Roman Celentano, goalkeeper, FC Cincinnati
39. Aidan Morris, central midfield, Middlesbrough
40. Sean Zawadzki, central midfield, Columbus Crew
41. Luca Bombino, fullback, San Diego FC
42. Patrick Schulte, goalkeeper, Columbus Crew
43. Danny Musovski, forward, Seattle Sounders
44. Luca de la Torre, central midfield, San Diego FC
It feels as if he moved to Manchester City just last year, but he’s somehow already 28 years old.
Palmer-Brown never lived up to the hype after he debuted for Sporting Kansas City as a teen, starred at the 2017 under-20 World Cup, and signed with the best club team in the world. But now he’s quietly just a starter for one of the biggest clubs in Greece, where he’s managed by … (cleans off glasses in a theatrical fashion that suggests I am familiar with the meme of Tobey Maguire in “Spider-Man”) … Rafa Benitez.
46. Miles Robinson, center back, FC Cincinnati
47. Aziel Jackson, attacking midfield, Jagiellonia Bialystok
48. Lennard Maloney, defensive midfield, Mainz
49. James Sands, defensive midfielder, St. Pauli
A quick shoutout to Sands, who recovered from a gruesome ankle break earlier in February to become one of St. Pauli’s most reliable ball-winners this season.
50. Giovanni Reyna, attacking midfielder, Borussia Monchengladbach
Though he hasn’t played particularly well, at least he’s playing — sometimes. Reyna has zero goals or assists through 255 league minutes for Gladbach, but he’s already fewer than 100 minutes shy of his entire minutes haul with Dortmund last season.
The question for the rest of this season: Can he start playing more often? And a not-unrelated question to that: Can he start having more of an impact when he gets out there?
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