Leeds Midfielder Brenden Aaronson Scored A No-Look Tap-In Against Chelsea

One of the early games during Sunday’s Premier League slate pitted a whole bunch of Americans up against one another. While Christian Pulisic is on the bench for Chelsea, which seems hell-bent on never playing him but also never selling him so he can go play somewhere, Leeds United has a distinctly red, white, and blue feel — the team’s manager, Jesse Marsch, is from Wisconsin, while midfielder Tyler Adams and midfielder/forward Brenden Aaronson are from New York and New Jersey, respectively.

Chelsea are viewed as the better side, but weird things happen at Leeds’ famed Elland Road. We got an example of that a little more than half an hour into the game, as Aaronson — who is legitimately one of the best players in the world at pressing opponents — forced Chelsea’s Thiago Silva to pass it back to his keeper, Édouard Mendy. Aaronson kept pressing (I cannot stress just how good he is at this), which forced Mendy into making a mistake.

Now, usually, when goalkeepers make mistakes, this leads to goals, and that’s exactly what happened here as Aaronson slotted one home for the first time since he joined Leeds this summer.

Not only did Aaronson slot this away, but as you can see on the close-up shots, he actually was looking back at his teammates and didn’t watch himself put the ball in the net.

Leeds would get another before halftime to go into the dressing room up 2-0.