Wednesday Convo: USMNT's Mark McKenzie on his Toulouse debut and experiencing the transfer market

McKenzie: I landed here two Fridays ago, and, from there, I really had to hit the ground running. You've got physicals, you've got testing. On Saturday, I trained finally. Sunday, I was with the team for the first game against Nantes. Then from there, it's building into this past week and you start looking at it and preparing to start.

When you get that word, in the back of my head, I hadn't played in a couple of months. At the Copa America, I was disappointed I didn't play a lot there, I didn't play at all at the Copa, and then coming into this season with Genk, we kind of knew where I was at with things, and possibly wanted to make a move and take a step in my career, so I'm training with the team, but we're not sure when if it'll happen. You get the call that it's happening and you get that moment of, 'I've worked hard to get to this point.'

You still get the emotions of excitement and those butterflies a bit, you know? It's my first game in a big league, and I want to make sure my teammates know I'm ready. You go, 'How fit am I?' I want to make sure that I can play as long as possible but it's also been a couple of months, so I've got to get my fitness.

All that being said, I really just bungled it into 'Just be simple.' Play simple, do your job, be reliable, be trustworthy, and grow into the game. Play what the game gives you, and from there, you'll find comfort. My teammates and the coaching staff have all been exceptional in welcoming me into the group and allowing me to implement my style into what they've already grown here.

To be honest with you, it's one of those things where you can't really prepare because you don't know. There are no guarantees in the game. You just have to be ready. You know, in your head, that you want to take a step, and I wanted to do this for my career, but I can't bank on it happening either because we see how many times in the transfer window deals look like they're going through and they're at 98 percent and then bang, it falls through. That's where my head was at through this whole process of wanting to take a step.

There were lots of conversations with the agency saying, 'These are possible landing spots, this is
what the different leagues look like, so how can you now slide into this team and implement your style with what the league is? How can you be dominating your position within the club and assert yourself?'

You lay all those things out on the table, and then from there, it's like, 'Alright, well, I know what's out there, I know what the possibilities are, let me just focus on doing all the things I need to do.'

It's about building on the foundation that I've already put in place and doing all the things that have gotten me to where I am. That was my mindset going into the whole transfer window.

It was more of a promo thing, to be honest with you. The league is sponsored by McDonald's. I get to the league and they're sponsored by McDonald's, I'm American, As soon as they got word I was coming, they sent over an idea. Originally, we went through a few repetitions, but, with my French, I couldn't get the full sentence in French. I ended up saying part of it in English.

I got it in the beginning, but then I started thinking too much, and they said, "We'll just leave this part in English and it'll be alright".

I have a little bit, but it's growing daily. I'm a language geek, so I enjoy it. I speak Spanish, Dutch, English and, now, learning French. I understood a bit of French already, but it's nothing like when you're here. It's different. The accent is all different. Even in the country, when you speak to people from the south of France versus people from the northern part of France, the accent is different. The way they speak is different, the speed at which they speak, the cadences, there are little nuances in language.

I can say, "How are you doing? Have a good day, have a good night, good evening". I can ask them to get the check, please. I have the little things, so I can go out to dinner... It's a lively city. It's nice to see things open past eight o'clock. Restaurants are still open later into the night. It's a nice change, for sure.

I wanted people to say, 'Oh, he's genuinely a good guy, he's got a good heart, he's kind, he's empathetic, he holds the door, he'll say thank you.' It's little things like that, little small seeds that you plant...It's something my parents instilled in me: wanting to lay positive foundations and positive seeds all around with every interaction I had.

Not to be cliche, but I really wanted to just leave a positive mark on the club, on the city, on the people during my time there. With each interaction, I really was just trying to lay that positive seed, and it really did grow into something special. The relationships that I was able to develop back in Belgium, second to none. I consider that my first home away from home.

It's special, to be honest with you, because you look back and I think back to when we were with the academy, it was me, it was [Auston] Trusty, it was Raheem [Taylor-Parkes], it was Brenden [Aaronson]. Brenden was completely different than he is now. He was a small kid with long hair, this beach boy. Trusty and I, we were lanky, body still developing. We look back to being 13, and honestly, before that, just in the pre-Academy at 11 and 12, and Jim Curtin was my coach, we had Tommy Wilson, who was there as well.

I think back to all those stories and those trips we took, and finally, getting a call that you're going to be part of the academy training every day together. It's funny to flash forward now being on the other side of it and see 'Wow, we have a real pipeline!' Guys coming through this academy are so much better than we were at 14, 15, 16, 17. These kids are legit. You look at Cavan [Sullivan] at 14 years old, the things that he's been able to do now? There's a young kid named Jamir Johnson at MLS Next Pro. It's wild to see these young guys that were coming up even when I was on the first team and just see how they've progressed.

We spent the last five years with Gregg [Berhalter], we'd gotten to know him well and what he wants in the team and I can only show appreciation for him bringing the opportunities that I was shown, but I also feel like I deserve maybe some more opportunities here and there. Nonetheless, that's part of football. You can have the door open, but sometimes that opportunity won't present itself just yet.

Now we have a new coach [reportedly Pochettino], and he may be looking for some things that are different and some that are the same. That's the biggest thing for me: going into it with the mentality of 'What do I need to do in order to showcase myself at the highest level? What do I need to do to continue to build on the work that I put in, the resume that I've put together so far?' Then from there, there's only so much you can do.

Even though you may be playing every game, the coach may just have certain guys first. They just have certain profiles they prefer, so as a player, as a professional, you have to be okay with that. You have to accept that and use it sometimes as motivation like I'm going go even harder now. You can use that to kickstart you.

For me, it's a new opportunity, a new chapter. We have just two years until a World Cup, which is something that I've got circled on my calendar for sure. That on my vision board. I want to represent my country at the international level, on the biggest stage, in front of my family and loved ones. That's a goal for me in these next couple of years: to become a mainstay within the national team and a player who's playing regular minutes with the national team.