Jonathan Gonzlez hoping fresh start in Minnesota can be springboard to Europe

From the time he first broke through with Monterrey at the age of 17, Jonathan González has viewed himself as a No. 6. 

“I like doing that type of work,” he says. “You know, not the dirty work, but just playing out of the back and stuff like that.”

Of course, much has changed since 2017. González isn’t fielding questions in Nuevo León — he’s nestling a cappuccino (with oat milk) between his hands on a blustery autumn day in Minneapolis. While he prefers being a 6, Minnesota United manager Adrian Heath asked the midfielder to help the team find a decisive second goal. It’s neither his calling card nor his preference, but he admits his family has been begging him to play further up so he can make more highlight reels.

Advertisement

Luckily for his loved ones, the Vancouver Whitecaps seemed to be in on the request.

Jonathan González's first MLS goal is a huge one!

He might've just secured an @Audi #MLSCupPlayoffs spot for @MNUFC.#MNUFC // #DecisionDay pic.twitter.com/2pbf8MNJPh

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 9, 2022

“I had specific directions from Adrian,” González says as he watches the footage. “Some of the guys up top were pretty tired. He pretty much just said to get into the box. They were gonna try to cross a lot with Jo(seph Rosales) coming on, as well. I was actually making a second post run, since I thought Jo would cross it there. I got pretty lucky there on the rebound (off the deflection). It was perfect, right over the defender and onto my left foot.”

It was just his second career goal in league competitions, with his first coming in the 2018-19 Liga MX campaign. This one carried a lot of weight, essentially clinching a playoff place for the Loons. Both the advanced role and the cool temperature may be new to him, but after some lost years on the field, a complete change in approach is welcome for the 23-year-old.

To fully tell the Jonathan González story, one has to begin with a game in which he wasn’t even rostered.

On October 10, 2017, the United States lost to Trinidad & Tobago. The result is one of the most infamous in American soccer history, as it meant the U.S. would miss its first World Cup since the Reagan administration. At the time, the program’s status as one of the two giants of CONCACAF was under scrutiny. While Mexico was bound for Russia and another exit in the round of 16, the U.S. never looked deserving of a place in the 32-team field. 

At the time, González was a regular with the U.S. youth teams. He had moved up from the U-17s to the U-20s in 2017, and looked poised to join Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie in the midfield for the next three cycles. However, González was also eligible for Mexico as the son of Mexican parents who was born on U.S. soil. While he had long stated a dream to represent the U.S. at the senior level, the trajectory of each program may have shifted his decision in the other direction.

Advertisement

Now nearly five years removed from his announced decision to represent El Tri in January 2018, he wonders if the intense scrutiny given to his decision from both Mexico fans bullish on their regional superiority and U.S. fans worrying that the bottom had fallen out from under the program was fully warranted.

“Yeah, I thought it was too much,” González said. “I’ve always been a low profile guy. I don’t really like being like (making) headlines and I really like to have a low profile. Whether people are talking good or bad, I just prefer just to be on the side, you know? I think it was maybe a bit too much. Maybe that’s why I guess you could say I made an anticipated decision or whatever, but yeah.”

While González made two appearances for the Mexico senior national team in 2018, he wasn’t on their 23-man World Cup roster. Still, he had plenty to look forward to as a regular part of coach Diego Alonso’s first-choice lineup at Monterrey. At the end of the 2017-18 season, he was named Liga MX’s rookie of the year. It was a deserved honor, as he logged nearly 2,000 minutes in the engine room of a team which, despite failing to win either the Apertura in the fall or the Clausura in the spring, earned more regular season points than any other team over the course of the year.

That trend continued into 2018-19, as González regularly started. Around that time, however, things began to change. Alonso was a coveted coach after leading Monterrey to the 2019 CONCACAF Champions League title. Although González was recovering from an injury, he came off the bench in the second leg of the final to celebrate the triumph. By September, however, Monterrey was 12th in the league and lost to the same Tigres UANL side that they’d dispatched in the CCL final. Alonso was sacked, and soon joined Inter Miami as its first head coach.

By the end of 2019, González was also ready for a change. Having joined Monterrey’s academy in 2014, he was hoping to move to MLS to improve his chances of going to Europe. It was less than a year after Miguel Almirón had been sold by Atlanta United to Newcastle, and his former U.S. youth national teammates, like Paxton Pomykal, were speaking glowingly of the league. As the calendar turned to 2020, he was still in Monterrey, but it appeared that the club had moved on without him in mind.

Advertisement

“I think it was a year where I was supposed to move out,” González says. “They brought in a player from Argentina (Matías Kranevitter) who’s still there. From what I’ve heard from the club, they had liked the idea of me leaving permanently, they were going to sell me. There was a move lined up, and it was, I think, to Atlanta. I think we had pretty much everything ready and I think the coach brought (Kranevitter) in thinking, ‘Okay, he’s about to leave.’ I think that was part of why I didn’t get as many minutes.”

As far as he’s been told, the deal broke down due to the clubs not agreeing on financials over his transfer. Instead, González found playing time under Alonso’s successors hard to come by. He earned just 606 minutes across the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, and loans to Necaxa and Queratero in 2021-22 only added 309 more to his ledger. He was called into Mexico camp just once, playing 27 minutes in a 2019 autumn friendly against Trinidad and Tobago. 

For the first time in his young career, he was firmly on the outside looking in, for club and country alike.

“It was pretty tough for me from then on,” González says about the years following the collapsed move to Atlanta. “Just being on the sidelines, it’s hard. At that time when I wasn’t getting that much playing time, my head would just… I wasn’t able to sleep and stuff like that. I had to go to — I don’t know what you call it here, in Mexico it’s psicólogo (psychologist), like a mentor, I guess you could say. Yeah. So I had to really work on all that.”

Still, the allure of MLS stayed fresh in his mind. He let his agent know that he wanted to “start from zero” — a new club away from Liga MX to rebuild his stock. In recent years, more members of El Tri have come to MLS (even if their national team careers haven’t always benefitted). Javier Hernández and Carlos Vela have taken up residence in Los Angeles. Héctor Herrera swapped Atlético Madrid for the Houston Dynamo over a year after Alan Pulido became Sporting KC’s record signing. While it didn’t work out for player or club alike, Carlos Saucedo started this season with Toronto FC.

Even if Hernández and Vela haven’t turned strong form in MLS into El Tri recalls (albeit seemingly by the player’s own choosing in Vela’s case), he saw the move as a potential step in the right direction. He joined Minnesota United as the summer window closed, giving him a third loan spell in as many windows.

“Every case is different,” González says. “My case was probably different to theirs. I mean, they’re older; maybe looking to settle down and stuff like that. But I honestly saw this move as a big move for my future. I’ve seen a lot of young players, like (Alphonso) Davies, getting sold to Europe at a really good price. So yeah, just pretty much looking at it for a move in the future, hopefully.”

Advertisement

As for which European league he has sites set on, it’s another growing hotbed for Mexican talent.

“Holland,” González answers without any hesitation. “I feel like I could really develop as a player there because they really help you in everything. I had a teammate (at Monterrey), Vincent Janssen, who just told me everyday would be technical work, and just perfecting those types of things just really helped as a player. That’s where I’d like to go.”

Of course, that’s likely two moves away at this stage of González’s career. With fewer than a thousand minutes to his name since that 2019 CCL triumph, he came to Minnesota looking to take a step in the right direction. While he’s managed to get just 195 minutes with the club thus far, Heath was full of praise for the loanee heading into the postseason.

“Certainly he’s got my trust,” Heath said after the win over Vancouver. “I wouldn’t hesitate to start him if I thought that was necessary. It’s been difficult for him with the people in front of him, because Robin Lod, no matter where he plays, is always going to start for me here. I thought today that (González) gave us a real bit of composure and a little bit of solidity in there, and when the ball goes to him, you never think the ball’s going to turn over. Jonathan’s done great. He’s a great kid and we’ve loved having him here. We’ll have to see what happens at the end of the year, but we wouldn’t be averse to having him back.”

Lod isn’t the only midfielder who would provide competition if González comes back to Minnesota next year. The Honduran duo of Rosales and Kervin Arriaga have impressed at times, though each had an outsized number of yellow card cautions compared to their number of minutes. Hassani Dotson and Jacori Hayes had their seasons end early due to injuries, but each has also earned Heath’s trust. Likely, the team could have to decide between bringing González on either another loan or permanent deal, or retaining Wil Trapp, who joined as a free agent ahead of 2021 and is out of contract in December.

In the meantime, González has settled in with Minnesota. He’s a regular inclusion when Loons flock to Call of Duty: Warzone on PlayStation on afternoons off. He was full of questions about the club and metro area, appearing to truly want to make the north — however frigid it can be — his next home. His family and friends have visited, finding it easier to get to Minnesota from California than the trek to Monterrey. He studies Thiago Alcantara as he looks to pick up tricks to round out his midfield approach, hoping to spray the ball more and mimic the Spaniard’s movements. 

And as for his national team decision, as Mexico is now in a bit of turmoil while the United States is a young team on the rise, would he change the timing of his decision, if not his choice altogether?

Advertisement

“I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason,” González says with a smile. “So I’d probably just leave it as is.”

That’s probably for the best — one-time switches, as the term implies, are irreversible. For now, González’s focus is firmly on Minnesota’s playoff push, as the Loons head to Dallas on Monday night (8:30 p.m. Central on FS1). While the two teams split the season series, each club’s win came at the other’s home stadium. Heath and his charges will like their chances of replicating that result from May and advancing to the second round.

González may have ambitions to go overseas, but he’ll first have to rebuild his stock in MLS or Liga MX. Whatever the case, the talented young midfielder is determined to get back on track. After helping Minnesota secure a playoff place on the final day, more clutch performances in the playoffs could do wonders in that regard.

(Photo: Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57knBna3Fja3xzfJFrZmpoX2aEcLbOp5itoJGjeqi7zbOYpZ2qYrqqus2eqqiskWLCr7XTnptmpZWttqS7jg%3D%3D