Matthew Hoppe’s late effort to get back into the U.S. men’s national team’s World Cup roster picture will take him to England.
Hoppe has left Mallorca for Middlesbrough in a permanent transfer worth a reported $3.6 million, and he has signed a four-year deal with his new club, where he’ll team up, at least for this season, with on-loan U.S. goalkeeper Zack Steffen.
Hoppe broke out at Schalke in the winter of 2021, when, at 19, he became the first American men’s player to register a Bundesliga hat trick. That also ended Schalke’s 30-match winless run in the German top flight and put him firmly on the radar as one to watch for the future. He scored two more goals in the weeks that followed and then another at the end of the season, but Schalke wound up relegated, and he sought a move away. Landing in La Liga—at a club with American ownership—appeared promising on the surface, but Hoppe only appeared in seven matches, playing 169 minutes total, without scoring a goal.
