With important games ahead, Loons welcome Austrian attacker Dominik Fitz to the fold

He’s been in the United States less than a week, but it feels like you can already tell that new Minnesota United attacker Dominik Fitz is a veteran.

Conducting what was purportedly his first-ever interview in English, Fitz at one point struggled to find a word, then stopped himself and said, politely, “Next question.”

Veteran move, new guy.

Fitz turned 26 in June, but that already puts him in the top 10 on the current Loons roster in terms of age. And when you consider that he was entering his seventh full season in the top Austrian league, with more than 11,000 minutes under his belt, you can understand why Minnesota is hoping he will be able to contribute immediately.

Manager Eric Ramsay described Fitz as “as advertised,” after seeing him in his first couple of training sessions with Minnesota.

“He’s neat and tidy on the ball, and will certainly help us in terms of creativity and craft — particularly those situations that we find ourselves in more and more so now, where we’re trying to break down a team on the top of the box,” Ramsay said.

Fitz said his goal was to bring in his passing and creative qualities. “I hope that I can help the team sometimes when the games are hard, and I [can] make some passes, like I did in Austria,” he said.

There will be challenges, of course. Fitz had been at Austria Wien basically his entire career and is leaving home for the first time. A move from Central Europe to Minnesota might not cause the total culture shock of other recent Loons moves, but it’s still a new league, a new language and a new culture.

Julian Gressel, who grew up in Germany and therefore shares a language with Fitz, might be the natural touchpoint — but Gressel pointed out that he doesn’t want to make things harder for Fitz, in the long term.

“I don’t want to just speak German to him all the time and him have to rely on me; he’s coming here for a long contract,” said Gressel. “You want him to come in and really learn the language and be part of it, because that’s what we speak on the field, mostly English. So he has to get used to it quick. I’ll try and help him out as much as I can with that.”

Fitz also said that the tempo in MLS seemed higher, and that the counter-attacking game was more prevalent than in Austria. “The first trainings now, I feel a little bit tired,” he said. “But I think I need one, two, three weeks and then I’m [ready to go].”

Noting that the top-to-bottom quality of MLS is higher than Fitz was likely used to, Ramsay said: “I think there will be an adaptation, physically, required for sure. There’s a physical level that goes with that, that maybe Dom won’t have experienced up until this point.”

Fitz won’t occupy a Designated Player spot on the Loons roster, but that doesn’t mean Minnesota isn’t expecting him to contribute right away. Joaquín Pereyra was in a similar position this time last season, coming into MLS for the first time, and Minnesota threw him right into the starting lineup – partly out of desperation for the creative abilities that Pereyra could bring.

Putting Fitz in the lineup would also allow the Loons to move Robin Lod into central midfield, and give them some creativity there as well.

“What we need now, as we’ve lost Tani [Oluwaseyi], we need more threat from deep, we need more craft and creativity as we pick the ball up in pockets of space in between the opposition’s shape,” Ramsay said. “If you factor that in to what we have with Pereyra and then hopefully what we have with [Kelvin] Yeboah and his threat on the last line, then the attack should look different.”