Striker Roy Wegerle, discarded by U.S. national team coach Bora Milutinovic after the World Cup and plagued by a knee injury during the second half of the English season, is hoping to bounce back.
And the platform, he reckons, could be Major League Soccer — as well as a return to the U.S. national team.
The Coventry City forward, currently sidelined with a reoccurrence of his knee ligament problems, says he wants to finish his career in the United States after nine years in England at six different clubs.
Just when he will make the move hinges on contract offers that may come his way in England, but the 31-year-old South African native says he’s just about had his full of the unpleasant European winters.
“I gotta go back to the sun,” said Wegerle, who spent three years in Tampa, two at the University of South Florida and one with the NASL Rowdies.
“My contract ends this summer,” he adds, “so I’ll be out of a contract at the end of the season. I guess I’ll be having contract talks with the manager [Ron Atkinson] in the next month or so, but I don’t really know whether I want to stick around or go back to the U.S. where the league is slated to kick off next year.”
Wegerle says he met recently with MLS chairman Alan Rothenberg in Los Angeles and he is considering “very strongly” signing with MLS.
“That is unless somewhere here [in England] offers me a contract that I really can’t refuse,” Wegerle explains. “If they [MLS] do it the right way, then I think it will be a league worth playing in and I would like to be a part of it.”
During his stay in Los Angeles, Wegerle had lunch with Milutinovic, the first time the two spoke since the end of the World Cup finals.
“I pretty much had a bust-up with the coach at the end of the World Cup,” Wegerle says,” because I was disappointed I didn’t get to play as much as I believed I could have.
“So we had out differences, but I had a meeting to patch things up with him. Now, we’ll just have to wait and see if he calls me up for the U.S. Cup.”
A move back to the United States could effectively kill off Wegerle’s long-standing dream of playing on the European continent.
“I guess I’ve pretty much missed the boat on that one,” he says. “I know that Sampdoria were looking at me before the World Cup finals, but then I got injured. And then this season before I got injured, Anderlecht were looking at me. It seems every time a decent club comes calling, I get injured!”
Wegerle has resumed light training after injuring his knee again in a FA Cup match against Norwich in January. Since the injury, Atkinson took over as Coventry manager, and the club has made remarkable progress, moving from the relegation zone to the top half of the standings.
“The team’s had a good run,” Wegerle says, “and I’m just going to have to bide my time if I want to get back in the side. I don’t believe they should be changing a winning team.”
by Soccer America correspondent Mark Gleeson