Brenden Aaronson: My game in my words

New York Times

19 hours ago

This article is part of our My Game In My Words 2025 series, an exclusive set of interviews with USMNT players where they talk us through how they do what they do on a soccer pitch.
Brenden Aaronson has a secret which may take admirers of his all-action, lung-busting style by surprise.
The Leeds United midfielder doesn't like running.
He might lead the press for Daniel Farke's 2024-25 Championship title winners, and routinely cover most of the pitch in his efforts, but the 24-year-old has long been wary of being miscast.
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It is his creative side that flourished during Leeds' triumphant campaign in English football's second tier and, as he gears up for their return to the Premier League next season, he talked The Athletic through his game and how he wants to improve as a provider even further next term.
'I hate running,' Aaronson says. 'I know it seems like I don't, but I just want to get the ball. That's the No 1 thing for me. I'll never do it (run) in the summertime without a ball. I never have enjoyed it but I'm just good at it.'
So running may be a necessary evil, but it is part of what makes the USMNT star a physical outlier for his club.
Last season, he logged more than 3,500 minutes of game time for Leeds (third-highest of their outfield players) across the 46 Championship matches, and his energy has helped lead the way. That is comfortably the biggest workload of his senior career — he appeared in all 46 games, and started 43 — so how has he stayed so fresh?
'It's knowing your body,' he says. 'I know what I need and the muscles I need to focus on. I run a lot, so calves and hips are always a big thing — keeping on top of the things that get tight. This is the most I've been in the gym for a whole season. It's not easy to keep the weight when you run as much as I do, and as much as a Leeds player does, but I've been working on strength and flexibility.'
Not for the first time in our conversation, Aaronson references the 2024-25 Premier League's title-winning top goalscorer as a source of inspiration.
'I read about (Liverpool forward) Mohamed Salah being consistently in the gym,' he says. 'He has an unbelievable build and stature and that constant work on the little things adds up and has made him what he is. It has helped me too. For the hips, it's yoga and massage, because when you're just using foam-rolling it's not always easy to get the spot you need. So deep-tissue massage helps me a lot — the top of the glutes and hips.
'The Leeds physios have been great. Sometimes the pain still gets me but we have a good laugh in the physio room and we haven't had many injuries this season, so credit to those guys behind the scenes. They do a great job.'
Aaronson's physical robustness last season is also linked to his mental well-being.
'I put it down to simple things; the support system I have with my fiancee being out here,' he adds. 'A lot of football has to do with those outside things, staying happy. There are so many games and ups and downs, so I always have my fiancee, I have had my friends come to visit and it keeps you going.'
Aaronson is typical of many modern attackers in his multi-positional capacity. He has played as a No 10 for Leeds, as a central midfielder and also on the left. Though he primarily played No 10 last season, he would often pull into those half-spaces on either side of midfield too, as shown by his heatmap below.
But what does he feel is his best position?
'It's tough to say because I have played so many — mostly at the 10 — but I see myself as a box-to-box midfielder,' he says. 'I defend and I attack. One of the underrated things is when I can pick the ball up in the midfield and drive the team forward. For me, it's also having the freedom in the midfield to go and get the ball, play, turn and have that freedom in between the lines.
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'So I'd say, ideally, I'd be an eight and a half.
'This formation this season has been a dream position because it's a 4-3-3 in the way the left winger comes into the pocket, I'm in the right pocket, sometimes the eight, who is Joe Rothewell or Illia Gruev, comes into the left pocket. I would compare it to a Liverpool eight, also rotating into the No 10 areas in between the lines and combining with Joel (Piroe, Leeds' striker) too.
'So for me it's a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, and either the 10 or the eight.'
Aaronson also believes the approach USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino wants to see from his players mirrors the style of football he himself prefers.
'The shape and the way he wants to play with the ball, combining, pressing and being attacking is the way I want to play,' he says. 'But I've played winger for the attacking team a lot and that's great too, because the winger comes inside a lot as a No 10. Ideally, it'd be as an eight or 10 but if I have to be the winger coming in, that's fine.
'You don't see many wingers staying out wide much but you do with Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona — wide, wide wingers creating space for the others centrally. It's a mixture.'
Aaronson picked a good time to deliver his career-best goal haul. His nine for Leeds in 2024-25 was a personal high for a single season, and saw him capitalise on Farke's attacking formation. It was also a case of the old phrase: the harder he worked, the luckier he got.
He cites the clinical first-time strike in a 2-1 win over Watford at Elland Road last October, below, as an example.
'This is staying alive to the play always,' he says of how he times his run into the area, latches onto the ball after Wilfried Gnonto's cross is palmed away by goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann and sweeps it first time into the net.
'I'm arriving late in the box. This season, I've had goals from being centrally in the box and that's something I've learnt from the coach: staying centrally in that area,' he says.
'It's smelling it and being in the right place at the right time for where the ball might go. I would say there's a little bit of luck but also sniffing out these opportunities to get on the ball at the top of the box.
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'I had one (in April's 4-0 home win against Bristol City) when everyone was looking at the ball, but I seized on it and got my shot in, although I put it over the bar. If you watch it, three or four players are watching the ball and I know there's a chance it will come back across, so I got there.'
Along with Farke's advice, he also puts his improved goal tally down to putting in extra effort on the training ground.
'Ed Wootten, the goalkeeper coach here, CJ (analysis lead Christopher John) and Eddie (assistant manager Edmund Riemer) have been great,' Aaronson says. 'They let me stay out there and do repetitions and it works for this type of goal. Other clubs will look at the numbers from the weekend and say, 'You ran a certain amount so you can't do this or that during the week (to rest)'. Repetition is huge.'
Aaronson models his practice on the near-obsessional attitudes of Premier League icons from the past, and he values Leeds' trust in him to balance that extra training with the necessary recovery time.
'Going back to when Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney were at Man United, do you think they told them to stay off the pitch?' he says. 'They were always doing extra stuff in the Prem back in that era. The clubs never said no. But clubs are saying no a bit now.
'I'd never push myself too much because I want to be playing every game and if I'm injured, I can't.'
It has certainly worked.
In December, he applied another fine finish to what was a goal-of-the-season contender against Derby County, later called a 'perfect team move' by Farke.
'This is a typical goal from us,' Aaronson says. 'The movement has been so fluid. A lot of teams have sat back and (then) it's difficult to create opportunities but the way we've been structured and our movements were hard to pick up.
'This is a great example, the passes were intricate and very difficult to pick up. It's hard for teams to do much about it. I know Joel Piroe is a striker who wants to combine, and I can run off him. This is a false-nine type of thing. I feel like I'm pretty good at running off him and playing these one-twos.
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'For me, it's one of the goals of the season. We do a lot of small-sided games and 11 v 11 in really tight areas (in training), so when we're playing on a bigger pitch, it pays off.'
Another goal, on the opening weekend of the season in a 3-3 draw with visitors Portsmouth, was a result of Aaronson studying some of the game's best finishers. 'Sometimes I don't shoot enough because I want to give the final pass. But in the summer, I worked a lot on trying to get off my shot,' he says.
Three Portsmouth players are between him and the goal as he moves into the penalty area and shapes to shoot after receiving Piroe's pass. 'There are defenders in front here but it goes through their legs,' he adds.
'A little bit of hesitation can throw a defender off and (help you) find a gap.
'It's just shifting to find the angle, and knowing that when you shift the ball, defenders always open their legs. I don't know why — they tell them not to these days, but they always do it. Salah does it all the time. He goes left and then back the way he came, because he knows the defender is going to open his legs.
'The goalie can't see the ball until late either, because it goes through a player's legs. It's not a powerful shot by any means, but it catches him off-guard.'
Farke has spoken about calming Aaronson down in crucial moments to ensure he is making the right decisions, and the 47-time U.S. international does feel he is more composed now.
'He (Farke) has spoken to me about it in finishing situations,' he says. 'When I was younger, even though I haven't been a crazy goalscorer, I would always get chances. Even in the Prem season two years ago, I had a lot of chances, but I hit the woodwork a lot. But at the top level, you will only get a couple of chances a game.
'Back in the Premier League I might get one or two chances, max, a game and that's when you have to calm down.'
His rapport on and off the field with Dutchman Piroe, the Championship's 19-goal top scorer last season, has helped. 'I have learned from him,' Aaronson says. 'We are always doing finishing together Thursdays and Fridays after training.'
The drills are simple but effective: 'I try to keep up with him, because if I play him one v one he's always winning,' he says. 'Maybe once or twice out of 100, I come out first.
'The way he strikes the ball, I always try to learn from.'
Aside from his improving attacking output, Farke has valued Aaronson's energy and pressing. He is often the player charged with leading Leeds' pressing game and his influence is especially notable in this next example from that April match against Bristol City.
In this passage of play, he and Gnonto get close to two City players near the touchline in opposition territory, and when the visitors' Ross McCrorie makes a short pass to midfield colleague Jason Knight, it is the American's cue to start the press.
Knight turns and plays a forward pass through midfield towards team-mate George Earthy. Seeing the opposing winger has space to run into, Aaronson eats up the yards as he sprints to get back:
His presence seems to prompt Earthy to turn away from the Leeds goal and play the ball back to his centre-half Haydon Roberts. The defender quickly returns it to Earthy in a one-two but Aaronson is now all over them and closing the space.
His example is taken up by Leeds' right-back Jayden Bogle, who gets tight on Earthy and challenges, as Gnonto also zooms back.
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In the end, Earthy is forced to play back towards his own goal again and the ball, deflected off the incoming Gnonto, travels into City's half and goes out for a throw.
A potentially dangerous situation has been snuffed out.
Aaronson will frequently continue to press as far as the opposing goalkeeper and force him to go long. He is also often tasked with man-marking the opposition's No 10.
He explains he is not always the designated pressing lead.
'It's off a feeling,' he says. 'Me and Illia, or whoever the other eight is, presses with the two sixes.
'We also have pressing triggers. It can also be the winger or the striker who starts the press if they're higher in their half. If they (the opposition) come into our half, we morph into more of a 4-4-2 and I can jump from the eight to the centre-back, and that pushes everyone up.'
Does he look before starting the press to ensure his effort is being backed up?
'I do — especially when you're playing teams that have double sixes who are always on the ball,' he says. 'It's tough to really jump in when guys are going off your back shoulder.
'Middlesbrough are very good at this with (fellow USMNT midfielder) Aiden Morris and Hayden Hackney; they're good at knowing I'm going to go and they can just bounce it out. So we have to be more careful. But it's a good trigger for us because when everyone goes, we know we have a good chance of winning the ball.'
As with that hard-running effort against Bristol City, does he have to strike the right balance between leading the way physically and preserving energy to get on the ball and then make things happen offensively for Leeds?
'Sometimes I need to control it a bit more. If I am more rested, I can do even more with the ball,' Aaronson says. 'But sometimes you want to help the team and get the crowd going.
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'That's in games, though. If I have to run in pre-season, I'll always try to find a way to still get the ball out there rather than running.'
Aaronson's occasional frustration at his 'runner' reputation often leads to less attention to his creative prowess. Last season, he should have had more than those two assists, when looking at his expected assists figure (5.7). In open play, his 1.7 chances created per 90 minutes was the best in the Leeds squad (among those to play 900+ minutes).
'I'm a perfectionist and after a game, if I haven't created much, I am hard on myself,' Aaronson says.
Does he study the numbers that highlight his creative potential? 'I've looked, trust me,' he says. 'People say stats ruin the game and in one way I kind of agree because you can partly judge a player on how many assists or goals, but you also have to look at the pre-assists or what they do throughout the game to influence it.'
There is flair to his game, too. We discuss the no-look backheel away to Watford in February, below, which teed up team-mate Daniel James for a shot at goal. James, who played the ball to Aaronson in the first place and ran onto his cute backheel, narrowly missed with the attempt.
'This game was super-open,' Aaronson recalls. 'I had a lot of time between the lines. I'm not going out to just assist and score, it's about the wider game. I knew that behind Joel on the right pocket, I had a ton of space. I've always liked to combine and play one-twos with team-mates. I like the close-quarter play, and it's about expressing yourself and having fun with the game.
'I trust DJ (James) will always be there, with his pace, and if I'm just flicking it or backheeling it, then he gets to it.'
Aaronson is aware Leeds might not always be able to attack with such abandon next season when they are back in the Premier League. 'It's a mentality shift,' he says. 'When we go to Anfield (to face champions Liverpool), maybe we have to be smart and organised and wait for our chance to counter-attack.'
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It will be a busy summer for the New Jersey native, who was included on the USMNT training-camp roster ahead of friendlies against Turkey on Saturday and Switzerland three days later, and may also play in the Concacaf Gold Cup when that starts on June 14.
A good job, then, that energy isn't a problem and neither, increasingly, is self-belief for a player who had his doubters after he was loaned out by Leeds to Germany's Union Berlin following their 2023 relegation. He made 36 appearances, including 28 starts, for Leeds the last time they were in the English top flight, and insists he will return to the division as a rejuvenated performer.
'It'll be a different challenge because we won't be the best team in the league,' he says. 'The goal is to stay up.
'I'm mentally prepared for it and have grown so much since the last time. My game has gone a level higher and I'm more confident.'
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(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Tim Vizer / AFP,)