Roy Wegerle 1984, 1986; 1984 (id)

Roy Wegerle was born March 19, 1964 in Pretoria in South Africa. He is one of two players who played in both the NASL and MLS, besides Hugo Sanchez. He one of three Wegerle brothers to play for the Rowdies.

Although born in South Africa, and having a trial with Manchester United in 1980, Wegerle chose to play college soccer in the United States. He spent two season with the University of South Florida in 1982 and 1983 and holds the school's single season scoring record with 21 goals. The Rowdies drafted Roy in the first round of the 1984 NASL college draft. He made his debut for the Rowdies during the 1983-84 indoor season, playing in 7 games and scoring 3 goals and 2 assists. He would play 21 games and score 9 goals, adding 17 assists, during the last year of the NASL's existence in 1984, being named league's Rookie of the Year. More significantly, Rodney Marsh coached him at Tampa Bay. This association would be integral to his future move to England. When the league folded, Roy moved indoors with the Tacoma Stars of the Major Indoor Soccer League for two seasons.

In 1986, Marsh, a former Queens Park Rangers star, worked his contacts in England to get Roy a tryout. He guested for the QPR side that played under the Rowdies name during the "Coca-Cola Classic International Soccer Series" in Tampa. While QPR passed on him at the time, Chelsea was sufficiently impressed to offer Wegerle a contract.

However, Roy never played consistently for the Chelsea first team and on March 24th, 1988, Chelsea loaned him to Swindon Town for the last 7 games of the season. At the end of the season, Chelsea sold Roy to Luton Town for £75,000. In his time with Luton, he became the team's leading scorer and was sold in December 1989 to Queens Park Rangers for £1 million. He would finish the 1990-91 season third on the First Division's scoring table, including having the honour of receiving the ITV 'Goal of the Season' award for that season (against Leeds at Elland Road). Roy continued to thrive at QPR until the arrival of new manager Gerry Francis who had little use for him and sold him in March 1992 to Blackburn Rovers for £1.1 million. The 1992-93 season saw yet another transfer for Roy as Blackburn sold him to Coventry City for £1 million after only 22 games. He played the last 6 games of the 1992-1993 season for Coventry, his third of the season. Roy remained with Coventry until his return to the United States in 1996. However, he was beginning to have injury difficulty, a recurring theme for the rest of his career.
In 1996, Roy signed with Major League Soccer (MLS). At the time, the newly established league was signing known players and allocating them to each of the league's teams in order to ensure an initial parity of talent. As part of this process, MLS allocated him to the Colorado Rapids. However, he enjoyeed little success in MLS. He played a season and a half for Colorado before the team traded him to D.C. United for Steve Rammel 14 games into the 1997 season. Aside from scoring all of 4 goals over 36 games with the Rapids, Roy also served a single game as caretaker head coach after Bobby Houghton was fired. When Roy arrived in D.C., he joined a team on its way to the league championship. While his scoring pace increased slightly, 5 goals over 19 regular and post-season games, he failed to produce as United coach Bruce Arena expected. As a result, Roy became part of what is considered the most lop-sided trade in league history, when D.C. sent him to the Tampa Bay Mutiny for Roy Lassiter on April 26, 1998. Lassiter was MLS's all-time leading goalscorer; Roy played the rest of the 1998 season for the Mutiny, scoring a single goal, then retired.

Roy Wegerle gained his US citizenship in 1991, after being eligible through his American wife. He made his national team debut on May 30, 1992 against the Republic of Ireland, and would go on to record 41 caps and score 7 goals for his adopted country. In January 8, 1994, Roy injured his knee and underwent numerous arthroscopic surgeries, but he was able to recover in time to become a key player for the U.S. in the 1994 FIFA World Cup. By 1998, his repeated injuries had hobbled Roy. He enjoyed a brief resurgence leading up to the 1998 FIFA World Cup, but never became the key player he had been in 1994.
Roy has a son that was born in 1987 whose name is Joelen. After his retirement, he has been trying to make it as a professional golfer. He had a brief stay as a co-host of MLS Extratime on ESPN2.