Homegrown New York City FC star makes the move to Bundesliga

New York City FC have announced a deal to loan midfielder James Sands to German side FC St. Pauli, taking the 24-year-old midfielder to the Bundesliga for the remainder of the 2024/25 season.

St. Pauli also maintain an option to extend the loan through 2025/26 if certain conditions are triggered during the next six months. It is Sands’ second crack at European soccer having previously spent a year with Scottish giants Rangers in the 2022/23 season.

Sands was the first homegrown player to sign for a nascent NYCFC back in 2017 and made his debut just one month after his 17th birthday. He was a part of the NYCFC team that lifted MLS Cup in 2021. The New York native made his senior debut for the national team that same year and has gone on to represent USMNT 13 times.

“We are really pleased for James that he has earned this opportunity to play for a fantastic club in the Bundesliga,” NYCFC sporting director David Lee said in announcing the news.

“When James returned from his loan at Rangers in 2023, he was always clear that in the future he wanted the opportunity to return to Europe and we agreed that we would be supportive of those ambitions at the right time. This is an incredible opportunity for James to play in one of the top five European leagues.”

Another USMNT representative in Germany

Links between the United States and Germany are rife in the world of soccer and Sands is the latest player to move from the former to the latter. Young midfielder Giovanni Reyna joined Borussia Dortmund in 2019 and has gone on to play more than 100 games for the German giants. He followed in the footsteps of USMNT teammate Christian Pulisic, who spent a successful four years at Signal Iduna Park before being snapped up by Chelsea.

Many of the USMNT’s most celebrated players have featured in Germany during their careers. The likes of Landon Donovan, Michael Bradley and Brian McBride spent time in the Bundesliga. In fact, five of the top seven USMNT goal-scorers played in Germany at some point.

Sands is following in a rich tradition and joins St. Pauli after a quietly impressive season for NYCFC. He started in 33 of his teams 38 regular season and postseason MLS fixtures, notably scoring a dramatic late leveller in a draw against Inter Miami back in September.

He departs an NYCFC team in a state of flux after parting ways with head coach Nick Cushing. The Englishman had been in charge for two years but had only managed a win percentage of 34.29%, not enough to satisfy club ownership at the ambitious City Football Group.

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