The stunning evolution of Weston McKennie
Weston McKennie, the American international midfielder, played his first minutes for Schalke in the Bundesliga at age 18. As if that statement weren't remarkable enough, the multitalented McKennie has since shifted to an entirely different position, one in which he's thriving like never before. Will he soon take over as the USMNT's midfield anchor?
McKennie started out as a combative CM who was good in the air but didn't offer much going forward. That may not have been too surprising for a teenager gifted with height (1.85m) and athleticism, but it was actually a denigration of McKennie's true talents. That became clear once he started getting regular minutes in 2017-18. Although McKennie seemed to have most of the skills necessary to play box-to-box, in our metrics he looked like a DM being forced to play further forward. The youthful head coach Domenico Tedesco usually played three at the back with a high line of five ahead of them, allowing Benjamin Stambouli, nominally a CB but more naturally a DM, to step up when necessary. And it was often necessary, since Max Meyer – more often thought of as an attacking player – didn't exactly excel in his defensive responsibilities in the middle of the five.
Still, somehow this unusual formula, with only 53 goals scored, was good enough for second place in the Bundesliga. (Sometimes when you score is as important as how many, as Alan Pardew can attest!) Tedesco stayed on for 2018-19, but the wheels finally came off and Schalke finished 14th.
Enter David Wagner. The Frankfurt-born American coach apparently saw what we saw after returning to Germany from his eventful stint at Huddersfield. He initially stuck with three at the back for the last two months of the 2018-19 season, but then switched to a back four for 2019-20. This allowed McKennie to play in a more orthodox two or three in midfield, and the club started the season with only three losses in 15 matches, all but two of which featured McKennie.
So how different was it? Just have a look at McKennie's smartermaps at CM in 2017-18 and DM in 2019-20:
At both positions, McKennie had a tendency to get forward on the right, providing short passes in the channel and occasionally entering the box to shoot. But as a DM, he takes most of his touches behind midfield, often looking for longer passes but also dribbling up the right flank from deep. The change is evident in his playing style, too, relative to other players at DM and CM in the Bundesliga:
At DM, McKennie looks like a triple threat – pass, dribble, or shoot – who can storm into the box but still fulfills his defensive responsibilities. He's still well above average in every kind of duel, too. By comparison, at CM he appeared relatively ineffective on the ball in attack and a hugely aggressive defensive specialist.
And it gets better. McKennie's ball retention is actually rated much higher at DM, which has a more challenging standard than at CM, showing just how much his game has matured. There can often be a tradeoff between ball retention and attacking output for young players; they either play too safely or fast and loose. But McKennie is generating excellent attacking output for a deep-lying midfielder even as his ability to maintain possession has improved.
In our view, the change in style has changed McKennie's career prospects as well. These are the CMs from Europe's top five leagues who managed 950' or more (the equivalent of ten full matches) playing a similar style to McKennie's at CM in 2017-18:
It's not quite a list of names to set the heart aflutter. Sure, McKennie was very young at the time, but he wasn't projecting as a Champions-League-level star. Now check out the DMs with similar styles to McKennie's in 2019-20:
Fabian Ruiz, the outstanding Spanish international, appears three times at two different clubs. And there's also some late-period Luiz Gustavo, a player whose name is used enough in recruitment meetings to merit the title of cult hero. Let's see how the new model McKennie stacks up to those two midfield monsters:
McKennie is a more aggressive defender than either of the other two. While his ball retention still has a way to go in order to match them, his attacking output is already on par – and the trend in his development is certainly encouraging for his ball retention as well. He can't yet finish like Ruiz, but, then again, Ruiz is launching the sort of long-range strikes that only an ICBM designer can truly appreciate.
So the future is bright for McKennie, brighter than ever before, providing he can avoid injury. He also needs to stay in Wagner's plans despite Schalke's recent poor run of form. Not a few American fans will hope that McKennie is holding down a similar spot in midfield during the 2022 and 2026 World Cups... perhaps even with Wagner as the coach!
P.S. Did we mention that McKennie is also a righteous dude?
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[Photo: Антон Зайцев]
