At some point, Steffen put the word out that he wanted to come back to America. Columbus put Steffen on its Discovery List for this year - the list of foreign players that a club claims first dibs to be able to bring to MLS.
It is arguably the league's most inane and annoying rule, and it should be abolished. But that is for another column. The Crew played the rules right this time, and yes, that includes the ability to "discover" a former player for another MLS club's youth teams.
Here's why.
A few people who are well-versed in the rules and Steffen's background confirmed to me for this story that the Union indeed never offered Steffen a contract back in the day, and never even officially tried to claim Steffen for Homegrown Player eligibility.
I was also told that when Steffen left for Germany at the end of 2014, he had not logged enough time training with the Union to qualify for homegrown status at that point.
It bears repeating that the Union's full-blown academy structure had barely gotten off the ground at that point. So the ability to spend the required training time within the Union organization was restricted to a degree.
But this all answers the question of whether the Union can claim any compensation for the Crew signing one of their former prospects. They cannot, and should not, and they know it.
That won't stop people from dreaming about what could have been, though.
