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Brooks Lennon becomes latest USMNT prospect to move on loan, joining RSL from Liverpool
American prospect Brooks Lennon, who has been with Liverpool's reserves since 2015, is coming back to where he got his start.
The 19-year-old striker has joined Real Salt Lake on loan from Liverpool, the team announced Monday. The move will reunite Lennon with RSL, where he scored 31 goals for the U-18 academy during the 2014-15 season, before he signed with Liverpool.
Lennon sealed the move after weeks of training with RSL at their preseason camp in Arizona and the club hinted he will have a chance to play a role with the first team.
“Brooks is another in a long line of great stories from our academy. They don’t all follow the same path, but we are proud to play a part in their development and get them on the field with Real Salt Lake,” said Craig Waibel, RSL's general manager, in a statement. “We’ve been following his development closely and to bring him back gives him a great opportunity to play first-team soccer.”
The move should offer the youngster a chance to mature as a player at a club that could use him in the immediate future.
RSL's attack has been in a bit of flux since Javier Morales, Jamison Olave and Juan Manuel "Burrito" Martinez have all parted ways this offseason. They do still have Yura Movsisyan, who will be the starting target striker going forward, and Joao Plata, who can play anywhere across the front, but there is room for fresh talent, too.
RSL is skewing a bit younger this season with 21-year-old Jordan Allen figuring to be a starting winger and 20-year-old Bofo Saucedo looking like he could push for a spot. That may also be where Lennon can vie for a place since Lennon can play in wide roles and centrally. He will likely see time with the club's reserve team, Real Monarchs, but breaking through to the first team is certainly a possibility.
What's unclear is what this loan means in terms of Lennon's long-term future and whether he hopes to return to Europe or not.
If Lennon is loaned to RSL and then goes back to Liverpool or another major European club, that would make his loan a groundbreaking one, where an MLS team was asked by a high-profile English club to help further develop one of their prospects. Jurgen Klopp and the Liverpool brass haven't been shy about cutting players that don't have a future at the club, so a move back there at some point could be on the table for Lennon.
Or, this simply could be a homecoming for a longer-term move stateside. MLS clubs generally make sure they have an option to buy at the end of a loan and reports suggest RSL has been looking to bring Lennon back for a while. Time will tell.
But Lennon is still young and will likely have a lot of options ahead of him as long as he gets the regular playing time he needs to continue his development. It's a move similar to ones that other young Americans have in a bid to boost their game. Whether it's Emerson Hyndman's loan from Bournemouth to Rangers or Gedion Zelalem's loan from Arsenal to VVV-Venlo – both moves that happened last month – the challenge can be finding consistent playing time in games that matter.
Lennon has mostly been stuck with Liverpool's U-23s and never got a shot with the first team. Now at RSL, he should have much more opportunity ahead of him to make an impact than he did at Liverpool. For Brooks, who has represented the USMNT at the U-20 level, that is a good thing, even if it's unclear what comes after that.
