During the first couple days of the most recent U.S. men’s national team camp, each player met for about 15–20 minutes with the media in Cincinnati, cycling through a hotel meeting room that was a short walk from Fountain Square. It would be the last chance for domestic writers and reporters (along with pretend journalist Weston McKennie, who crashed a couple sessions) to spend time with the World Cup qualifiers before everyone reconvened more than five months later in Qatar.
Every potential topic was on the table—World Cup expectations, World Cup memories, personal journeys and public gossip. And so it was toward the end of Tyler Adams’s session that a reporter asked for his thoughts on playing England in November given the rumors connecting him to Leeds United.
It was May 31. The summer transfer period wasn’t officially open.
