This question was submitted by Neil V.
I think that Matthew Hoppe needs to play in games. And I know that he played exactly one minute for Mallorca under Javier Aguirre, who took charge of Mallorca in March of this year.
This isn’t really a complaint about Aguirre. He was given the task of avoiding relegation and he succeeded. Unfortunately, that didn’t include much time or patience for letting Hoppe figure things out on the field. Now, two of the players ahead of him at forward last season (Fer Nino and Vedat Muriqi) were loanees, and Mallorca will have to make some decisions on what to do with their attacking personnel in light of that fact.
But when the transfer window opens, we’ll most likely get a clearer picture of what they plan on doing – and I would be surprised if that didn’t include at least one permanent striker signing.
It’s quite possible that Aguirre and Mallorca still have plans for Hoppe and want him to stick around, but if I was Hoppe and his agent, I would be quietly kicking the tires on clubs in the Netherlands that might need an attacker. The Eredivisie is traditionally a good place for attacking players to get chances and to actually go, you know, attack, which is a bit more difficult when you’re scraping for minutes and you’re already on a relegation-threatened team that’s focused on surviving at all costs.
The nice thing about the interest from MLS is that that interest probably won’t go away any time soon.
MLS teams know about Hoppe, they know what he can do and the interest he might generate with their fans, and some club will most likely still be in for him next summer if he sticks around in Europe and only plays 100 total minutes again next year.
At the moment, Hoppe might not have a sterling reputation in Spain, but he most likely still has coaches and scouts elsewhere, like in Germany, that know him and like him. That’s a valuable currency in Europe, and one that may dwindle if he jumps to the States now and doesn’t immediately start killing it in MLS. I say shop around in the Netherlands, France, back to Germany, even just to see if the interest is there. If all else fails, it would be shocking if no MLS team took a flier on him.
But I think there are still leagues of good quality in Europe where Hoppe can play, and be a more consistent contributor.
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