Major League Soccer (MLS) welcomed South Korean star Son Heung-Min and World Cup winners Thomas Müller and Rodrigo De Paul with open arms during the 2025 summer transfer window, which closed on Aug. 21. These signings follow the pattern of America’s top division importing global soccer household names in hopes of raising the league’s level and profile.
Son now plays for Los Angeles F.C. until the 2027 season, following in the footsteps of his former Tottenham teammate Hugo Lloris. He has options to extend the deal for two further years.
While not a designated player yet, Müller will receive that title in 2026 for the Vancouver Whitecaps. The “ramdeuter,” a nickname given to Müller to describe his style of play, signed a deal for the remainder of the 2025 season with an option for next season.
MLS used to have a reputation of being a retirement league, when aging stars like England’s Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard or World Cup winners David Villa (Spain) and Andrea Pirlo (Italy) arrived in their mid-to-late thirties.
These stars, who arrived between 2014 and 2015, were the last pieces of an era when big-name players who were coming to the end of their careers would fly across the pond for one last paycheck.
A decade later, the league had shed that stereotype. Alphonso Davies, a UEFA Champions League winner with Bayern Munich alongside Müller, passed through the ranks of the Whitecaps and made 81 appearances for the first team before moving to Germany.
Bournemouth midfielder Tyler Adams, who made 74 appearances for the New York Red Bulls between 2015 and 2019, went on to become the youngest captain of the U.S. Men’s National Team since 1950 when he was selected for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily about age,” Bradley Wright-Phillips, the Red Bulls’ all-time leading scorer and analyst with Apple TV for MLS Season Pass, told amNewYork. “I think it’s about getting the right ones. If you get the right ones that still buy in, can still run, can still impact a team and the league, then it’s the perfect signing.”
Son, 33, arrives in North America fresh off winning the Europa League — Tottenham’s first major trophy since 2008 — while scoring 11 goals with 12 assists across all competitions in 2024-25. The South Korean became the first Asian player to ever win the Premier League Golden Boot, an accolade he shared with Mohammed Salah in the 2021-22 season for scoring 23 goals.
“He looks quicker than half the players out there,” Wright-Phillips said after Son’s first two appearances for LAFC. “So I don’t think his age comes into it. I think it’s a perfect signing, commercially, just for the talent that he brings; he’s unbelievable for me.”
Son spent 10 years at the London-based club, where he developed into one of the most feared wingers in Europe, scoring 173 goals in 454 appearances.
“Let’s be honest, Son is probably the best Asian footballer of all time, LAFC’s stadium is a mere four miles from Koreatown in LA, there are going to be fans in the seats,” Sacha Kljestan, another former Red Bulls and LA Galaxy midfielder who has hung up his boots for an analyst gig with Apple TV, told amNewYork. “His jersey is already one of the best-selling in the world in any sport, so that’s a no-brainer to sign a player of his quality with his fame.”
Over half of America’s Korean population of 1.8 million lives in California, according to the Pew Research Center, with Los Angeles boasting the highest concentration of Koreans in any metropolitan area in the U.S.
Müller joined a Whitecaps side known for playing as “a unit,” according to Wright-Phillips, though he had options to sign for LAFC and FC Cincinnati, the MLS team that held the German’s discovery rights. The Orange and Blue traded their rights in return for $400,000 in general allocation money.
“[The Whitecaps are] a team that doesn’t just throw superstars there,” Wright-Phillips said. “They work hard, play as a unit. I don’t know if you can tell me a better player than Müller to join a team like the Whitecaps. He’s one of those humble superstars, and I think Mueller is a perfect fit for Vancouver. [It’s a] brilliant signing.”
Soccer journalist Manuel Veth, speaking on the Northern Fútbol Podcast, uncovered that Vancouver had “a more marketing-vision first” for the 13-time Bundesliga winner, who selected the Caps because of their priorities in his footballing qualities. The German was known for being the glue that held the Bavarian giants’ many stars over the years together — he played alongside the “Robbery” pair made up of Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben, winning a treble of trophies in 2013. He performed the same feat, acting as the foil to Robert Lewandowski’s lethal finishing in 2021.
His addition not only hands the MLS another Champions League and World Cup winner, but also one of the most cerebral players of his generation.
“Back in the day, you could have maybe seven, eight [good quality] players; now you can have 15, 16, [good quality] players,” Osvaldo Alonso, MLS Cup winner with the Seattle Sounders and analyst with Apple for MLS Season Pass, told amNewYork. “That made the league better, because when you make a substitution, the next player is going to do [even better]. That’s why the MLS is growing so fast. It’s been great.”
