Years after learning soccer in their basement, brothers Brenden and Paxten Aaronson both play for US

Brenden and Paxten Aaronson play on better soccer fields these days than the New Jersey basement known as “The Dungeon” where they used to practice penalties and free kicks.

“We had to put in special lights so they wouldn’t kick the light bulbs and break them,” mom Janell Aaronson recalled. “We had to do some padding on some of the poles that are in the basement so they didn’t get hurt. We made it as safe as we could."

On June 10, she was in the stands at GEODIS Park in Nashville, Tennessee, watching them become just the fourth pair of brothers to start the same match together for the U.S. national team, the first since George and Louis Nanchoff against the Soviet Union in 1979.

“I played with this guy since, I don’t know, 5 — he was probably actually 2 at that time,” Brenden said. “Maybe 7, I was, and he was probably 4.”

Brenden, 24, already is a World Cup veteran, appearing as a substitute in all four U.S. matches at Qatar three years ago, Paxten, who turns 22 in August, hopes to make the World Cup roster for the first time when the U.S. co-hosts next year's tournament.

“Completely different players. Both in different ways can perform,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said.

Both are on the roster for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, where the Americans play Guatemala on Wednesday night and hope to advance to a final against Mexico or Honduras on Sunday. Both are midfielders and wingers who made their way up through the Philadelphia Union academy system and moved to Europe after two seasons in Major League Soccer, Paxten at age 19 and Brenden at 20.

At the start of their national team camp together, they reflected on learning the sport in their backyard and the downstairs room given its nickname by their dad, Rusty.

“We always played in the basement, right before or after dinner,” Paxten said. “We had a basement with kind of like a mini-pitch that we built off of carpet and goals that we taped on the wall and stuff like that. So we would always just play down there and then come up for dinner, then after dinner go down and play, We broke a lot of lights.”

And learned competition.

“Toes have been stepped on," Paxten said.

Their dad, Rusty, played college soccer at Monmouth, ran a risk management firm and is sporting director of Real Futbol Academy in Medford, New Jersey. In addition to the brothers, 18-year-old sister Jaden will be a freshman on Villanova's soccer team this fall.

“I don’t know how these guys do it without having a younger brother or someone to train with,” Brenden said. “When you’re in a shooting drill, sometimes you can take times off. But you know he’s going to want to beat me and I’m going to want to be him, so you go that extra mile to keep even getting better at it.”

Brenden scored in his MLS debut with Philadelphia in March 2019 and has played for Salzburg (2021-22), Leeds (2022-25) and Union Berlin (2023-24). He made his U.S. debut in 2020 and has nine goals in 51 international appearances.

Paxten debuted in MLS with the Union in May 2021 and has played for Eintracht Frankfurt (2023-24), Vitesse (2024) and Utrecht (2024-25). He made his first U.S. appearance in 2023 and scored against New Zealand at last year's Olympics.

Before the match against Switzerland, they hadn't played on the same team together since the youth academy. They faced each other briefly on Nov. 4, 2023, when Brenden entered in the 83rd minute for Eintracht Frankfurt and Paxten in the 85th for host Union Berlin.

“There’s been some fights throughout the years,” Brenden said, with Paxten sitting adjacent and laughing. “It’s more in the one v. ones when I would get beat by him. Because you’re the older, you feel like you have to win. But he’s beat me a handful of times where I had a temper tantrum. I was kicking the ball against the wall. I literally — I can’t take it sometimes.”

But afterward, they resumed playing the FIFA video game.

Having the common “E” in the names of the siblings was mom's idea.

“We spelled Brenden `E-N. I just liked the spelling of that vs. ‘A-N. Just visually. It looked better to me,‘” Janell said. “When we ended up having our other kids, I just made sure that they all ended in `E-N.’ I don’t know why. I just did that.”

After the Gold Cup and brief time off, Brenden will return to England to prepare for the Premier League season with newly promoted Leeds. Paxten will report to Eintracht Frankfurt unless he’s loaned again.

Trying to watch all their matches is daunting for their parents, who also will be at Villanova for Jaden.

“Sometimes when the games are on, I don’t like to get the updates because I do like to go back and watch,” Rusty said. “Sometimes I’ve looked at my phone, something good has happened and then the cat’s out of the bag and there’s no need to watch the game.”

Streamed replays are not for mom.

“I don’t even know how to work any of that,” she said.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

United States midfielder Brenden Aaronson, left, walks of the field with his brother forward Paxten Aaronson before the start of an international friendly soccer game against Turkey, Saturday, June 7, 2025, in East Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

CORRECTS ID AT RIGHT, TO MAX ARFSTEN, NOT PAXTEN AARONSON - United States midfielder Brenden Aaronson, left, is congratulated by Max Arfsten after scoring against Trinidad and Tobago during the second half of a CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer match in San Jose, Calif., Sunday, June 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

United States defender John Tolkin, left, talks with teammates Brenden Aaronson, center, and forward Paxten Aaronson before the start of an international friendly soccer game against Turkey, Saturday, June 7, 2025, in East Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

United States midfielder Brenden Aaronson, left, poses for a photo with his brother forward Paxten Aaronson before the start of an international friendly soccer game against Turkey, Saturday, June 7, 2025, in East Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington — an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack.

Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas, the capital, as Maduro’s government immediately accused the U.S. of attacking civilian and military installations. The Venezuelan government called it an “imperialist attack” and urged citizens to take to the streets.

Trump announced the developments on Truth Social shortly after 4:30 a.m. ET and said he would host a news conference at 11 a.m. ET.

Here's the latest:

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says Maduro and his wife will face criminal charges after an indictment in New York.

Bondi vowed in a social media post that the couple will “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”

Maduro was indicted in 2020 in New York, but it was not previously known that his wife had been.

The Justice Department during Trump’s first term in office charged in the several indictments that Maduro had effectively converted Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups as he and his allies stole billions from the South American country.

The coordinated unsealing of indictments against 14 officials and government-connected individuals, and rewards of $55 million for Maduro and four others, attacked all the key planks of what then-Attorney General William Barr called the “corrupt Venezuelan regime,” including the Maduro-dominated judiciary and the powerful armed forces.

One indictment by prosecutors in New York accused Maduro and socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, head of the rubber-stamping constitutional assembly, of conspiring with Colombian rebels and members of the military “to flood the United States with cocaine” and use the drug trade as a “weapon against America.”

Read our news report from 2020 on the charges

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau says the military action and seizure of Maduro marks “a new dawn for Venezuela,” saying that “the tyrant is gone.”

He posted on X hours after the strike. His boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reposted a post from July that said Maduro “is NOT the President of Venezuela and his regime is NOT the legitimate government.”

Utah Sen. Mike Lee said Rubio informed him that “he anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in U.S. custody,” the lawmaker posted on social media.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted on X that he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who briefed him on the strike. Rubio told Lee that Maduro “has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States.”

The White House did not immediately respond to queries on where Maduro and his wife were being flown to. Maduro was indicted in March 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges in the Southern District of New York.

President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, one of Trump’s fiercest critics, said the Colombian government convened a national security meeting before dawn Saturday and sent security forces to the border in preparation for a potential “massive influx of refugees” from neighboring Venezuela.

He said he’d also call on the U.N. Security Council to consider “the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.”

“Without sovereignty, there is no nation,” Petro wrote on social media.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it called a U.S. “act of armed aggression” against Venezuela in a statement posted on its Telegram channel Saturday.

“Venezuela must be guaranteed the right to determine its own destiny without any destructive, let alone military, outside intervention,” the statement said.

The ministry called for dialogue to prevent further escalation and said it reaffirmed its “solidarity” with the Venezuelan people and government, adding that Russia supports calls for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting.

The State Department issued a new travel alert early Saturday warning Americans in Venezuela urging them to “shelter in place” due to the situation.

“U.S. Embassy Bogota is aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas, Venezuela,” it said without elaboration.

“The U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, warns U.S. citizens not to travel to Venezuela. U.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place.” The embassy in Bogota has been shuttered since March, 2019 but operates remotely.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweeted Trump’s announcement without comment, but his deputy, Christopher Landau, posted Trump’s statement, adding that it marked “a new dawn for Venezuela!” “The tyrant is gone. He will now—finally—face justice for his crimes,” Landau said.

Venezuela's Vice President Delcy Rodríguez says, “We do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.” He added: “We demand proof of life.”

Trump said Maduro “has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow.” He set a news conference for later Saturday morning.

The explosions in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, early on the third day of 2026 — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report hearing and seeing the explosions. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties. The apparent attack itself lasted less than 30 minutes, but it was unclear if more actions lay ahead, though Trump said in his post that the strikes were carried out “successfully.”

Pedestrians walk past the Miraflores presidential palace after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

A vehicle drives along a darkened highway next to Fort Tiuna, the main military garrison in Caracas, Venezuela, after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Smoke raises at La Carlota airport after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)