The morning after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the US presidential election, more than a few Americans spoke of feeling as if they’d woken up in a different country to the one in which they went to bed.
Trump’s rise from outsider to President-elect has made some Americans consider moving overseas, while others who had planned to make the move to the United States are now having second thoughts.
And not just any potential immigrants – German international footballers, too.
Wolfsburg defender Marcel Schäfer, who won eight caps for his country between 2008 and 2010, had been linked with a move Stateside at the end of the Bundesliga club’s current campaign.
But the 32-year-old, whose contract will end in the summer after a decade with Wolfsburg, is now not so sure relocating to the United States would be the right option in the current political climate.
“This option is still there, but I’m not quite so sure,” Schäfer told Wolfsburger Allgemeine.
“The outcome of the election has started a thought process. When I look at the election campaign, a lot has happened which is incompatible with my values, especially because I am an athlete.”
German internationals are no strangers to MLS, with Lothar Matthäus and Torsten Frings both ending their careers on the other side of the Atlantic (though Frings did so with Canadian outfit Toronto FC), while several Germans currently ply their trade in North America.
But Schäfer is not the only Bundesliga player having second thoughts about such a move, with Bayern Munich’s Javi Martinez wondering out loud whether his future might lie elsewhere.
