DaMarcus Beasley Signs With Hannover 96 of Bundesliga

When the final whistle sounded in Soccer City at the 2010 World Cup, most expected a flurry of transfer activity across Europe and around the globe. Instead, with clubs showing more caution due to the shaky economy, the usual post-tournament feeding frenzy was more like buying off the Dollar Menu. (Well, unless your name is Manchester City.)

Indicative of this global spending slowdown were some members of the U.S. national team, who spent most of the summer looking for new clubs, albeit without much news or rumor to report.

On Monday, however, with fewer than 48 hours left in the European transfer window, U.S. international DaMarcus Beasley inked a two-year deal with Hannover 96 of the German Bundesliga.

Beasley joins U.S. teammate Steve Cherundolo, who's been with the club since 1999 and was recently appointed first-team captain.

This will be Beasley's fourth European club. He moves away from Scottish Premier League champions Rangers, where he'd been since transferring from PSV Eindhoven at the end of the 2007 season. The move to Rangers came after spending a season on loan at Manchester City.

Beasley, 28, never really made a big impact with the Old Firm giants, playing in just 29 matches with the Ibrox outfit. His overall dip in form during 2009 had him on the outside looking in on the U.S. national team, and most were expecting him to return to MLS when his contract in Scotland expired.

Yet Beasley recaptured some of the form that made him one of America's most important players in 2002-2006 and worked his way into Bob Bradley's final 23-man roster for the World Cup in South Africa. It also put him back on the radar of European clubs looking for a left-sided player who can be deployed at left midfield or even dropped into left back.

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@FanHouseSoccer Hannover is looking to strengthen a squad that finished 15th in 2009-10, two points and one place in the table above the relegation zone. Signing a player like Beasley on a free transfer couldn't hurt.

Die Roten were tipped by many German pundits to finish at the bottom of the Bundesliga this season, yet through two matches Hannover is 2-0-0 with six points and a win over Champions League-bound Schalke 04.

Beasley joins a growing list of American players in the German top flight. Along with Cherundolo, there is current U.S. National team midfielder Michael Bradley at Borussia Mönchengladbach; Ricardo Clark at Eintracht Frankfurt, and German-born, American international Jermaine Jones at Schalke. There is also young Freiberg back Daniel Williams, who was born to a German mother and American father but doesn't hold an American passport.