Leicester City's Fuchs wants MLS move in his future

The Austrian defender has a year left on his Leicester City contract, and is hoping to make a move to MLS to be closer to his family

Christian Fuchs is just two years removed from celebrating an unlikely English Premier League title, and believes he's several years away from the end of his career, but the defender is eager to spend the final years of his playing career on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean.

The 32-year-old Austrian defender is coming off another solid season with the Foxes, and has one more year left on his Leicester City contract. When that season concludes, Fuchs has every intention of setting up shop in Major League Soccer, a move that would bring him closer to his wife and three children, who live in Manhattan.

"I have one more year now in and I’ve always said very openly that I want to move over here (to the United States)," Fuchs told Goal in an exclusive interview. "I want to be part of the community. I want to play football over here. I’m not coming over as an old player looking for his last contract. I want to come over here and play as long as possible.

"I’m 32 now. I don’t want to come here when I’m 36 or 37."

The veteran left-back, who was the social media star of Leicester City's title-winning team in 2016, has spent the past few years splitting time between his home in England and his family's home in New York City. His current commute sees him travel from London to Leicester. He will be hoping to exchange that for a U.S. commute that allows him to spend more time with his family.

American soccer fans will remember Fuchs as the smiling jokester who chronicled Leicester City's title-winning campaign on Twitter and Instagram. His Twitter video of the moment Leicester City's players reacted to winning the Premier League title was viewed more than 10 million times.

Fuchs struck a much lower profile after that title triumph. He cut back significantly on his social media presence, owing the change to burnout.

"I got tired of it. It took over my life," Fuchs said. "I didn’t enjoy it after a certain point. It helped me a lot because I got to know how it all worked, but at some point it bothered me more than I enjoyed doing it. In the title-winning season I was always on top of it, but the season after I couldn’t be bothered to do it. It was no fun for me, and when I do something I want to have fun doing, not just for the sake of doing it."

"I’m getting back into it," Fuchs said. "I’ve overcome the social media burnout a little bit. I’m not putting pressure on myself to post all the time. When I post I have fun with it, I show people that I’m not just a football player."

Though his interest go well beyond soccer, Fuchs is quick to point out that his playing career remains the priority, and plotting a move to the United States is at the top of his list.

"My goal now is to make the right step and come to ," Fuchs said. "I’m trying to figure out what options are out there. I’d love to come to New York, but I don’t want to limit myself. The only limit for me is I’d prefer to be on the East Coast, because when you talk about the West Coast I’d rather stay in England since it’s the same distance as England."

The market for a fullback of Fuchs' quality should be a healthy one in MLS, but chances are he will have to look beyond New York. and the both have strong left-back options, though both the and could make sense as future destinations for Fuchs.

A move to MLS this summer is highly unlikely considering Fuchs currently earns more than three times as much as the highest-paid defender in the league. A move for the 2019 MLS season, either in the January window, or in the summer of 2019, seems more likely. Fuchs will turn 33 early in the 2019 season, but he insists he is still playing at a high level and has several more years to play.

"I feel really good," Fuchs said. "I've got a lot of years of playing left and when the time is right I'm ready to come play here (in the United States)."