D.C. United’s Robbie Russell and his wife finally together after years apart

Robbie and Tiana Russell will be apart for most of the next five weeks — Robbie at D.C. United’s warm-weather training camps to prime for his first season with the MLS club and Tiana commuting from their Arlington apartment to her downtown law office.

Distance tends to strain relationships, but for the Russells, separated by 2,000 miles for a large swath of their four-year marriage and a wider gap for much of their dozen years together, five weeks will feel like five minutes.

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United’s acquisition of Russell from Real Salt Lake in November filled a void on the back line. It also filled a void in his heart. For the first time, he and Tiana are embracing careers in the same city and enjoying the rhythms and routines of married life.

“It was a huge sense of relief,” Tiana said of the trade that brought her husband to Washington. “We got better at [being apart], but it’s definitely hard. There’s a lot of anxiety that goes with it.”

After 3¹ / ₂ seasons in Utah, where he won an MLS title in 2009 and fell a victory shy of a Club World Cup berth last year, Robbie longed for a trade to United to reunite with Tiana, who had settled here in 2009.

A deal seemed to make perfect sense: His contract was up; Real Salt Lake was in a payroll jam, with younger players ready to step in; and United was hunting for an experienced right back.

Robbie and Tiana crossed their fingers.

“When the trade went through, I called my mom,” said Russell, 32. “She was screaming through the phone, she was so excited I’d be living with my wife again. It was a quick transition: I’m packing up and then showing up on my wife’s doorstep with all of my stuff.”

While it’s not unusual for military spouses to live apart, it is unique in sports circles. Soccer players’ wives follow an unpredictable path, accompanying their partners to Dallas or Denmark. In the Russells’ case, Tiana’s ambitions, coupled with untimely circumstances and a rough job market in Salt Lake City, pushed them apart for long periods.

Upon graduating from Duke together in 2001, Robbie launched his career with the Norwegian club Sogndal while Tiana spent time with extended family in India and volunteered with an after-school program for children living in Mumbai’s slums. She joined him for a summer in Norway and, while enrolled at New York University’s law school, visited when her schedule allowed.

Tiana accepted an offer from Arnold & Porter, one of Washington’s biggest firms. Robbie moved to Norway’s biggest club, Rosenborg, where he won a league title and played in the UEFA Champions League, Europe’s ultimate competition.

A knee injury sidelined him for a year and a half, dropping him out of favor and leading to a transfer to Viborg in Denmark. Tiring of the long-distance relationship, Tiana quit her job and joined him.

In 2006, he proposed. A year later, during Viborg’s winter break, they were married in Puerto Rico. Back in Denmark, she taught at Aarhus University law school and worked as a consultant for a Danish law firm.

Their future, though, was in the United States. He signed with Real Salt Lake in July 2008, but she stayed behind to see out work commitments. Later that year, they reunited in Utah. “It was a perfect situation,” he said. “All that was left was a job for my wife. With her credentials, we didn’t think it would be a problem.”