Need some transfer rumors to keep the soccer part of your brain turning? Chelsea and Arsenal are interested in Chris Richards, allegedly.

Is this a reputable rumor in any way, shape, or form? Eh. The reports are coming from The Mirror and German outlet Bild, neither of which stoop quite to the depths of journalist malpractice as The Sun, but neither have spotless reputations, either. If anything, this is a very safe rumor to monger. The vast majority of the soccer world who has watched Chris Richards, has seen him play five or six games, tops, all at the youth level. He looked great at the youth level, too! A standout performer at the U-20 World Cup! But he’s also never played a professional minute in his life (UPDATE: as Kevdog2004 pointed out, Richards has played with Bayern II in the 3. Liga, which is a professional league for many teams, even if he’s playing with Bayern’s second team there. It’s not *really* pro experience for him, because he hasn’t made his first team debut for any club, but it’s something). Saying that two free-spending English clubs who have both immediate and long-term needs at center back are interested in a promising young center back on the books at Bayern is just easy clicks. Throw in an obsessive United States contingent and you’re basically printing money, virus be damned.

It could very well be a well-sourced rumor; it could be drivel. Either way, it seems Bayern want to keep Richards anyway and has him under contract through 2023, so unless a club comes through with an unruly amount of cash, he’ll still be in Germany.

I’ll tell you what isn’t just rumors and hype, however: Chris friggin’ Richards.

Look, everyone’s already almost exhausted there “Let’s Remember Some Guys” content, so I’ll feel free to wax poetic about the future for a little bit, if you don’t mind my doing so. If you want to pick one American player to get unhealthily invested in at the moment, it’s Chris Richards. Yes, Gio Reyna has the capability of scoring that goal against Bundesliga opposition. Yeah, Christian Pulisic caught fire for Chelsea before injuries and world stoppage caught up to him. Sure, Tim Weah still has the second-best USMNT-adjacent magazine feature of all time.

But Chris Richards is going to change the way the United States men play soccer.

If you’ve watched the last several USMNT matches, like I have, you’ve probably noticed that as Gregg Berhalter’s tactical systems warped and shifted from game to game, all of them really needed at least one thing in common: players in the back who are calm on the ball and possess the ability to break lines with a pass to start build-up play. You also may have noticed that the USMNT still does not possess many players that fit that bill. Zack Steffen’s best attribute is his penchant for shot-stopping heroics, and in front of him, there’s a cadre of central defenders who are pretty good in a challenge, but not many that have proven to consistently add an extra dimension to the U.S. game in possession. That might not be a problem if the U.S. deep-lying midfielder over the past two years could fulfill that role, but Wil Trapp has proven too risk-averse in his passing, and Michael Bradley has clearly lost a couple steps to his game. Jackson Yueill got some minutes at the end of 2019, Tyler Adams is playing again (albeit splitting time between the midfield and right back with Leipzig), etc. And then there’s John Brooks, who is probably the best US center back in possession, but he’s so frequently injured and streaky in his form that he’s become incredibly difficult to rely upon. At some point, “we’ll be fine when Brooks is healthy” becomes pointless if Brooks is basically never healthy, right?

If there is one word that can describe Chris Richards’ game, it is calm.

He rarely looks out of place on the field. He almost never seems confused or out of options. He’s good on the ball, he’s got good spatial awareness off of it, and he can make a good tackle when the time comes. They’re qualities not unlike the ones that have made Bayern stalwart Jerome Boateng so indispensable for so long, with his ability to read the game and his ridiculous vision and accuracy stepping up with the ball.

Boateng isn’t knocking on retirement’s door yet, but he’s reaching the stage in his career when you would expect to see his level begin to drop. If Bayern want to hold onto Richards, it’s a good bet that his number is the next one called in the first team.

Players like Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna (and more prospects to come after them!) raise the level of the United States Men’s National Team, because no one else on the team can do the things that they can do. Chris Richards has the ability to change the entire game for the the United States.

So go ahead, get excited for Richards to generate some alleged interest from Chelsea and Arsenal. Sure, it might be completely fake. But if you need to choose an American male to get irrationally, unhealthily excited about, he’s the one.

Trivia Time

We started American soccer, so we’ll finish American soccer: how many American players have played in a first team match for Fulham FC? Bonus points if you can name all of them while you’re at it. Don’t look up the answer, that’s no fun.

Yesterday’s Trivia: the Offside Rule as it is enforced today, i.e. that you must be even with the last defender, actually wasn’t in place until 1990, so if you guessed anywhere between 1985 and 1995, congrats!