Yunus Musah Commits to USMNT - Yay?
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Yunus Musah caused quite a stir this week by committing his international future to the US national team.
Now, as you can imagine - a young player doing well at a top league usually gets a lot of attention in the hobby and on social media. When he’s an American prospect, it’s turned up to eleven.
And on brand, there were plenty of cringy posts and social media images circle-jerking this announcement.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the young prospects that the USMNT have at the moment, and as an Aussie I’m incredibly jealous.
It’s just everyone is the next superstar on Insta - does my head in.
Anyway, moving away from the “get off my lawn” and “old man yells at cloud” vibes, I’d like to give a little look at the pros and cons of Musah as it stands.
Note, this isn’t a full scouting report - there isn’t enough hours in the week for me to write two scouting reports in a week while I do this part time.
Having said that though, here’s how he stacks up against other attacking midfielders and wingers among the top European leagues.
As you can see, there’s some good defensive metrics there but not much else. In fact, I’d say he’s one of the worst performing wingers in the top five leagues throughout Europe this season.
However, the positivity is just that - he is playing.
I’ve spoken before about the sheer importance of playing a lot of minutes at a young age, and Musah has already clocked up over 1200 minutes this season.
And while Valencia haven’t been world beaters this season, they middle to bottom of the table in La Liga is very tight - they’re a bad few games away from pushing relegation.
Basically - they need to win.
That means that the manager is looking to play his best players and guys who he thinks can keep them up this season.
And as we’ve discussed in older newsletters, a young player that gets the trust from a manager at the highest level is incredibly important.
You don’t just get gifted minutes in European soccer - this isn’t the NBA where you can tank a season and try to get a good pick. A few poor performances can be the difference between relegation and staying up.
According to an article in the No Grass In The Clouds Newsletter, since 2008 there’s only been 49 players in La Liga, Serie A, Premier League, and the Bundesliga that have played more first team minutes than Musah has done so far in his career.
The article excluded the French League because the average age is a lot lower than the rest of the top five.
Anyway, out of that list of 49 players, the vast majority went on to have a good to solid career in the top five leagues at the bare minimum. There were a few that looked great but faded away (Jack Rodwell as an example), and a few that you’d have to Google.
I’d say the solid player at a top five league is an expected outcome for Yunus Musah at this stage of his career. That isn’t the world-beater that some might expect him to be, but shit… that’s a pretty good career and will guarantee that he’s a member of the USMNT for a while.
I won’t rule out the chance that he outperforms that estimate, but I’m pretty confident in my decision making process here.
Regardless, that would be a good outcome for Musah, and those who have bought his cards/stickers. If you’re not expecting a world class player, but interested in a guy that should get a lot of caps for the USMNT, then I think Musah is a good pick.
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