U.S. keeper Juergen Sommer will tie the knot this summer and, perhaps, cut the ties to his current club.
Like many of his U.S. teammates, goalkeeper Juergen Sommer is going to be busy this summer — but not because of playing soccer.
Instead, Sommer will marry fiancee Susan Prall next month, and take a brief honeymoon while he decides if his future lies with Luton Town of the English First Division.
“I’ve done well at Luton, and I just need to look toward the future and try to get to a bigger club,” says Sommer. “It’s easier to do that when I’m out of contract. Luton was a good initial club to start out with, get my foot in the door, but I really want to push myself, get around better players and a bigger club.
“I’ve notified a few clubs of my intentions, so I hope to see what kind of response I get by the end of this month. If I can’t go where I want to go, I can always go back to Luton.”
Sommer had held the starting job for almost two years, but a long-running contract dispute and a couple of shaky performances — including a 6-0 shelling by Southampton in an FA Cup replay — left him on the bench for most of the last six weeks of the season.
“It wasn’t a case where those games were my fault,” says Sommer. “The club wasn’t playing well, and then I left to play for the national team. When I came back, he kept me on the bench.”
Teenager Kelvin Davis tended goal during that phase, which Sommer says was a power move by team manager David Pleat imposed after he left Luton to play for the U.S. in a 2-2 tie with Uruguay March 25. In that game, Sommer fumbled a cross that allowed Uruguay to score an easy goal, tying the game on what proved to be the last kick of the game.
That same weekend, Davis saved a penalty and turned in a superb performance in a 1-1 tie with Watford. He kept the starting job for the rest of the season as Pleat increased the pressure on Sommer to sign a three-year contract.
Sommer, whose contract expires at the end of the season, says he turned down Luton’s original offer in February, and rejected a follow-up offer in early May. The next step is for the club to offer Sommer a “final offer of re-engagement.” If Sommer declines it, he must notify the club and the league in writing, at which time he can began discussions with other clubs.
If he and a club agree on salary, then Luton and his new club must agree on a transfer fee, which Sommer says Luton has put at 1 million pounds ($1.5 million). In the case of the clubs not being able to agree on a fee, it will be settled by an independent tribunal.
Luton reached the FA Cup semifinals last year, but were knocked out in the fourth round this season by Southampton as it struggled in the middle of the First Division standings. Sommer doesn’t foresee the club, which is trying to build a new stadium but seldom draws attendances of more than 10,000, earning promotion to the lucrative Premier League. It finished 16th in its 24-team division this past season.
“We just don’t have that bite to our team, that real determination and real motivation,” he says. “There’s not a lot of professionalism there, and they just ran out of steam in the second half of the season. They did it the year before, too, outside of the FA Cup. We weren’t far off the relegation [places].”
Because he holds a German passport, agent Michael Becker — who has represented Eric Wynalda, Mike Lapper, Tom Dooley and Chris Henderson in dealings with German clubs — has expressed an interest in finding Sommer a spot in Germany, though Sommer says nothing substantial has been produced yet.
Sommer, who played his college soccer at Indiana, and Prall will be married June 17 in Indianapolis. They will take their honeymoon in the Bahamas, and by then Sommer hopes to know where he’ll be reporting for preseason training. If he returns to Luton, he might be available for the Copa America.
by Soccer America Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney