5 players who fell off the footballing map after moving to the MLS
From Robbie Keane to Lionel Messi, lots of players enjoy a wonderful late-career period turning out for MLS clubs.
Increasingly nowadays you’re finding top European clubs scouting the nascent league, with top talents like Jhon Duran and Christian Pulisic making the switch direct from North America.
But making the Major League Soccer move isn’t always best for a footballer’s career. We’ve identified five players who we’ve totally forgotten about ever since they joined MLS clubs.
Xherdan Shaqiri
Even when he wasn’t getting regular starts at Liverpool, we appreciated Shaqiri’s presence in Jurgen Klopp’s squad as a cube-shaped vibesman.
It made sense for him to go and get more minutes at Lyon back in 2021, but the move didn’t work out and he only lasted six months at the Ligue 1 outfit before departing for Chicago Fire.
The Switzerland international became the MLS outfit’s all-time most expensive signing, but the move would go on to be dubbed “the worst-value signing in MLS history” in The Guardian.
After two and a half less-than-stellar years out in the windy city, Shaqiri returned to his boyhood club Basel – who aren’t even in the UEFA Conference League after finishing eighth in the Swiss Super League last season.
He briefly reminded us of his existence at Euro 2024, in which he scored against Scotland and featured in the closing stages of Switzerland’s penalty shootout defeat to England.
Luis Muriel
It feels like yesterday when Muriel was Europe’s most potent super-sub, boasting an outstanding goals-per-minute ratio by frequently coming off the bench to score for Gian Piero Gasperini’s all-action Atalanta.
As they always do, Atalanta have done brilliantly to rebuild and move on without the Colombia international, who left to become a designated player at Orlando City midway through last season.
One of those transfers you might have missed, Muriel did little to catch the eye in his debut season from anyone but seasoned MLS viewers.
He wasn’t a disaster by any means as Orlando City made it all the way to the Eastern Conference finals, but you imagine they’ll be hoping for more than five goals from their star addition in 2025.
Hector Herrera
The Mexican veteran was a regular in the Champions League for almost a decade, and won league titles with both Porto and Atletico Madrid during his peak years.
Herrera quietly left Diego Simeone’s Atleti at the end of the 2021-22 campaign to one of Houston Dynamo’s designated players.
During his time there he captained them to the 2023 U.S. Open Cup – beating Inter Miami (sans Lionel Messi) in the final – but his stint was marred by a three-match suspension for spitting at a referee.
Houston Dynamo opted against the midfielder’s contract extension option at the end of last season, and he’s since returned to Mexico with Toluca.
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Sam Surridge
You might argue that trading a so-so career in the English Football League to a so-so career in Major League Soccer is a bit of a sideways move (with nicer weather), and you wouldn’t be wrong.
After helping Nottingham Forest get promoted and scoring a grand total of one Premier League goal in their first season back up, Surridge made a relatively under-the-radar move to Nashville SC in the summer of 2023.
We doubt even Evangelos Marinakis could recall all their arrivals and departures back then, such was the extraordinary rate of arrivals and departures.
To be fair to the 26-year-old, he’s kicked on Stateside and in the 2024 MLS campaign hit double figures (12) for league goals for the first time in his career.
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Lorenzo Insigne
There must have been a bittersweet feeling for the proud Napolitano to watch his beloved club finally win the Scudetto back in 2022-23… 4000-odd miles away across the Atlantic in Toronto.
A proper hometown hero, Insigne scored over a hundred goals for Napoli across 10 seasons, winning two Coppa Italia and peaking towards the end with a career-best tally of 19 Serie A goals in 2020-21.
Given that pedigree from a top European league, and the fact that he signed somewhere near his pomp as a 31-year-old when he signed for Toronto FC, you might’ve expected him to tear up MLS more than he has.
Insigne has scored just 14 goals in two-and-a-half seasons, with just four in each of his last two full campaigns.
Out there with his former Azzurri team-mate Federico Bernardeschi, it’s been all too easy to forget about them given Toronto’s lacklustre time of it of late.
You imagine Toronto wouldn’t mind cutting their losses on a big investment that just hasn’t worked out, but he remains contracted until 2026 and they’re unlikely to find any suitors.