American midfielder Richie Ledezma will stay at PSV Eindhoven through the 2021-22 season after the club announced a contract extension on Monday.
Ledezma is a product of the Real Salt Lake academy and he originally signed with PSV in December of 2018 on a one-and-a-half- year deal with a club option to extend by two years. The club have triggered that extension, according to their announcement.
He has not played for PSV’s senior team, yet, but he made his debut with their U-21 side, Jong PSV, at the beginning of the season. He has four goals with the team and is the only teenager in the Dutch second tier. He’s trained with the first team, most recently when he travelled to their winter camp in Qatar.
Ledezma was supposed to be part of the U.S. U-23 Men’s National Team that was slated to take part in Olympic Qualifying this spring. The global outbreak of coronavirus has put those plans on hold, however.
He is yet to make his debut with the U.S. Men’s National Team, but he is a regular with the U-20s and U-23s. He was part of the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup team that advanced to the quarterfinals of the tournament last June in Poland.
Ledezma was born in Phoenix to Mexican parents and has been contacted by Mexico to play for El Tri in the future. He’s remained non committal on which federation he will represent at the senior level while still playing for the U.S. at the youth level.
With the way the Dutch league structures foreign national salaries they must see real promise/potential to offer him a contract extension. Hopefully USSF will retain his services and we’ll see him with the Sr. National Team soon.
Retain his services??? He’s already a youth national team player, and a damn good one, so the fact that fans “hope” ussf doesnt continue making him feel at home is crazy. Too many times there is thought that ussoccer isnt doing enough to keep duals in house, well i say bullshit, because I can only think of maybe 2 players who have left the federation for ??(Alvarez and Jona Gonzalez). It doesnt look like Jona is apart of El Tri’s plans tbh, so I dont see that as a loss, and Alvarez is another who I think always wanted to play for mexico like Jona with pressure coming from their parents to represent their birthplace
He’s definitely a talent the U.S. needs to be heavy invested in.