All eyes are on DeAndre Yedlin at the moment. But Tottenham Hotspur's links to Major League Soccer go back a great deal further.
This week's news that Spurs will visit Dick's Sporting Goods Park to take part in the 2015 AT&T MLS All-Star Game marks the latest chapter in the North London heavyweight's long and growing relationship with North America and its top-tier league.
The ambitious club will be making their fourth preseason trip to this continent in the past six years this summer. Over the winter they signed a licensing deal with a US agency to promote their brand and grow a network of more than 30 supporters' clubs in the US and Canada.
Yet while Yedlin and his distinguished veteran colleague Brad Friedel are the latest Yanks on the English Premier League side's current first-team roster, a range of other American and Canadian foreign legionnaires have represented the Lilywhites over the decades – and more are coming through the pipeline.
Spurs reserve defender Cameron Carter-Vickers, a dual-eligible prospect of English and US parentage, is just 17 but has already impressed as an underage standout on the US U-20 national team and is pegged for future greatness for both club and country.
Yedlin's World Cup exploits in Brazil last summer helped him make his much-discussed move abroad, a transfer that was completed in January and took another step forward last week with his first-team debut in a substitute appearance vs. Aston Villa. Meanwhile Friedel has worked at White Hart Lane since 2011, and while he's transitioned from starting goalkeeper to backup in recent seasons, even that is an amazing accomplishment given his august age of 43.
Kasey Keller, the Seattle Sounders legend who was Friedel's longtime competitor for the US national team's No. 1 job, also contributed several good years to the Spurs cause, making some 85 appearances from 2001-05, one of the longest stops on his peripatetic European club career.
Keller seemed set to welcome an American teammate in 2003 when Tottenham was ready to pay a reported $3-million fee for then-D.C. United wunderkind Bobby Convey – but that move was scotched at the final hour by a work permit setback.
Current Sounders star Clint Dempsey passed through North London in his quest for UEFA Champions League soccer after his lengthy stay with crosstown club Fulham, pushing for a contentious transfer to Spurs in the summer of 2012.
But even after seven goals and fours assists in 22 starts during the 2012/13 campaign, changes in personnel and attitude at White Hart Lane – combined with a head-turning courtship by Seattle – drew him home ahead of schedule, and in stunning fashion, just a year later.
Canadian fans, too, grew accustomed to tracking and cheering for the Lilywhites in years past. Illustrious Canucks Lars Hirschfeld (2002-05) and Paul Stalteri (2005-08) proudly bore the Tottenham badge, though the latter saw far more match action than the former.
One familiar face who could well be in the All-Star squad awaiting Spurs this summer is Robbie Keane.
The LA Galaxy Designated Player and reigning MLS MVP spent some of his best EPL years on the Lilywhite side of London, making more than 200 appearances and netting nearly 100 goals in two stints on either side of his star-crossed chapter at Liverpool FC.
Toronto FC fans have also witnessed a web of Tottenham ties. Jermaine Defoe, John Bostock and Rohan Ricketts have worn the kits of both clubs, and the Reds lured former head coach and onetime D.C. United captain Ryan Nelsen away from North London to end his playing career and begin his managerial one in 2013.
Others: New York Red Bulls fans enjoyed former Spurs midfielder Teemu Tainio for two seasons in 2011-12. Goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini made 37 appearances for Spurs -- over five seasons! -- before manning the LA Galaxy nets in 2013.
The San Jose Earthquakes are currently long-term partners with Spurs in a relationship focused on “soccer and commercial development through the exchange and implementation of best practices both on the pitch and in the front office.”
Quakes fans would also point to impact Spurs loanee Simon Dawkins, who netted 14 goals and three assists in 53 league appearances for San Jose in 2011 and 2012 (for obvious reasons, his subsequent return to England was mourned by many in the Bay Area).
And finally, there is Darren Eales, currently the president of the new Atlanta MLS expansion club, who was an executive with Spurs for many years before returning to the United States, where he played college soccer (West Virginia and Brown).
