It is easy to see the relief on Josh Sargent’s face.
The U.S. men’s national team striker was sitting in an office in Toronto on Tuesday afternoon, a few final steps away from officially becoming a Toronto FC player. When the medicals and final details were finished, it ended a saga that goes back to early January, when Sargent pulled himself out of the team at Norwich City in order to force a move to the MLS side.
Sargent spent the next month and a half training with Norwich’s Under-21s while the transfer stalemate wore on. A breakthrough came on Feb. 20, when Toronto FC agreed to pay Norwich a fee north of $22 million. The move was announced officially on Friday, allowing Sargent to turn the page.
The smile on the St. Louis-area native’s face on Tuesday communicated his comfort at finally knowing his future.
“It’s a lot, obviously, that’s gone on the last, however long it’s been now, I can’t even remember,” Sargent said. “I don’t want to get into too much about everything at Norwich. It was complicated. But happy to finally be here and start this new chapter of my life.”
Sargent spent four successful years at the English club. He scored 51 goals over the past three and a half seasons, becoming one of Norwich’s most consistent threats and, at times, wore the captain’s armband. Sargent turned down a transfer this summer to Bundesliga side Wolfsburg before pushing for this move closer to home. The way it went down did not endear him to the Norwich fanbase — even with his record of success at the club.
Asked if he had a message for the Norwich fans, Sargent looked down at the floor and stared for 10 full seconds before lifting his head to answer.
“I prefer not to talk about it right now,” he said. “And if there’s a correct time to kind of address them, I’ll do that. But, yeah, I prefer not to talk about it right now.”
Asked later about how he managed to stay mentally prepared to play again during the drama, Sargent again declined to answer.
“I’m probably not going to get too much into all the past,” he insisted. “I’m just trying to look forward and (I’m) excited to get started here. I know that’s a boring answer, but I don’t want to get into it.”
Sargent, instead, wants to focus on what he might be able to do with Toronto FC, a team that is beginning another rebuild after a failed stint with Italian designated players Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi. For Sargent, it was a chance to get closer to home. But he also felt encouraged by how TFC’s project was shaping up.
The red-headed striker is the third American player signed to shore up the core of the team, along with midfielder Djordje Mihailovic, acquired in a trade last season, and center back Walker Zimmerman, signed as a free agent.
“Off the pitch, my family is growing,” Sargent said. “We have three kids now. The thought about moving closer to home and my kids growing up and being able to see my mom and dad more often, my wife’s mom – that’s, of course, a very attractive thing for us and excites us. As well as speaking to Toronto, to the coach and to Jason (Hernandez) the sporting director, and just hearing what they had to say and their plan with everything, this kind of rebuild that they’re doing, everything just sounded very exciting to me. It got me very excited about coming over here and playing in MLS. So I’m excited to experience the league and get started.”
Sargent has never played in MLS. He signed with Werder Bremen and joined the professional team on his 18th birthday. His entire professional career has been spent either in Germany or England. Sargent has kept up with MLS via his U.S. international teammates or by watching some games when he could. Sargent said colleagues told him the league has been improving and is at a good level, but he admitted it will be a baptism by fire when he first steps onto the field with Toronto.
When that comes remains to be seen. Sargent completed his medical and finalized paperwork this week. But he was with Norwich’s youth players for more than a month and still needs to work into full match fitness.
“It’s hard to say exactly when I’ll be ready,” he said.
But Sargent also knows that when he does debut, it will come with heavy expectations. His goal-scoring form has been solid in the English Championship, but Emmanuel Latte Lath’s struggles in Atlanta show that there’s no guarantee of it translating straight away to MLS. Latte Lath had 27 goals across two seasons with Middlesbrough, but just seven for Atlanta last season.
Josh Sargent last played for the U.S. in September 2025 (Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)
Sargent said he has become a more “mature” and “smarter” player during his time at Norwich. He feels confidence in “what works for me, what puts me in the right headspace, what doesn’t.” And he feels a sort of obligation to get it right in Toronto.
“Knowing how hard Toronto worked to get this deal done … they worked their butts off to get this done,” Sargent said. “And that just makes me extremely grateful for what they’ve done, for waiting it out, for sticking through everything. And it just makes me want to repay them, and makes me excited to get started, to be honest, and just work as hard as I can for this club.
“I understand that (the transfer fee and contract) probably comes with a responsibility that you have to perform, but I know what I can do. I know I’m a good player, and hopefully I can hit the ground running and get started right away.”
Sargent met his new teammates on Tuesday and he equated being at a new club to “the first day of school.”
He’s more mature than he was last time he moved clubs, at age 21, and feels confident in being able to become a leader of the team. But he said he’ll take his transition slowly. Knowing Zimmerman and Mihailovic undoubtedly will help ease the move, joking that while Zimmerman himself is new at the club he’s got a personality that has already helped him get to know everyone.
The ultimate hope is that Sargent can click fast enough that, maybe, if he scores enough goals, he can fight his way back into the picture for the World Cup. Sargent started two games at the 2022 World Cup before an injury forced him to miss the round of 16, but he hasn’t scored in the red, white and blue since November 2019 and has been outside of Mauricio Pochettino’s squad since September.
The U.S. will play a pair of friendlies next month against Belgium and Portugal before Pochettino picks his final World Cup roster in May. That leaves very little time to make an impression – especially when fellow strikers Folarin Balogun, Ricardo Pepi, Patrick Agyemang and Haji Wright have all hit patches of scoring form. But Sargent believes this move will put him in the right place to get back to scoring himself.
“That’s the idea,” Sargent said. “Anytime I can get back with the national team, it’s a huge privilege and honor. And I’d be more than happy. But with all this going on, I’ve just been worried about getting here and getting started. That’s kind of been my main focus. Of course, if you do well at your club, that puts you in a better position to get with the national team. So full focus right now is on starting out well here, start scoring goals, and that should hopefully put me in a good position to get a call-up.”