Yunus Musah’s continued growth at the international level helped him earn a major individual achievement on Tuesday from U.S. Soccer.
Musah was named the 2022 Young Male Player of Year for the first time in his career in his third overall nomination. The 20-year-old Musah racked up 84 percent of the overall vote for the award while former Philadelphia Union homegrown Paxten Aaronson finished second with nine percent.
“To the fans from when they started the ‘Can’t spell Musah without USA thing’, through qualifiers and the World Cup, I feel like the fans have been behind me for so long – since before I even did anything in football,” Musah said. “As we went on playing games and they enjoyed the way I was playing and everything – I’d just like to say thank you for their unbelievable support and their trust since day one. The fans of the USMNT are great and I love them.”
Musah started all four matches for the USMNT at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, alongside U.S. Soccer Male Player of the Year winner Tyler Adams, and fellow midfielder Weston McKennie. In total, Musah made 12 international appearances in 2022, logging over 1,000 minutes and continuing his rapid development for the USMNT.
Musah’s impact was also on display at club level with La Liga side Valencia, where he totaled 39 appearances, one goal, and two assists across all competitions in 2022. He became the second USMNT player to appear in the Spanish Copa del Rey Final, coming off the bench in Valencia’s penalty kick shootout defeat to Real Betis.
He joins Josh Sargent, Ricardo Pepi, and Sergino Dest as the latest USMNT player to win the yearly award.
day umpteen of me asking the same basic questions. we play a game in 8 days. where is the list? when is the camp? these are preseason players. this is not WCQ. you cannot practice a weekend with players 30-45′ fit then play 2 games. i really hope that having named a caretaker we aren’t playing for time to have GB run it instead. if the players agree with me that hudson is brutal and we are having trouble making numbers, get another temp coach named that they will respect.
last point: particularly if we are shopping the coaching job the idea is, regardless of the family food fight going on at the edges, to convey the idea the Fed is honest, competent, in charge, can walk and chew gum at the same time, and isn’t playing some double game of its own eg pretending to investigate the coach and name a caretaker while hoping he gets cleared and can coach next week, while in public acting like they are shopping his job, and letting the press know of a candidate or two they approached. one way to convey business as usual is to have a 2-3 week camp already picked and going, with a competent caretaker in command, and then play the games next week.
but then the reality is GB was being probed for weeks without an announcement until tweets started flying and the feuding families started issuing their own press releases. in reality it’s been less transparent than they might want us to think. which the dawdling towards the games actually mirrors.
Wednesday at noon eastern. I think this is a federation that thought they’d have their coach by now (whether that was Berhalter or not) but the entire thing was slowed by the ridiculousness. Once it was going to be a caretaker, it was always going to be like the Sarachan era of just roll out the ball with only the most basic plan and simple tactics. Most MLS teams have been going for a week or two so likely a concession since it’s a caretaker to leave them with their club as long as possible. With the exception of Vazquez I’m not sure anyone is available that’s really in the NT discussion at this point that hasn’t already had a full evaluation. We’re 3 1/2 years out from the WC this is about how do guys handle speed of International game more than can they play in Hudson’s style.
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Full time manager needs to be in place by end of month though so they have time to scout the roster and evaluate before NL.
2-3 week camps are no longer a thing for the January camp. MLS preseason has already started for most if not all of the teams since the beginning of January.
Roster drops tomorrow.
He’s also a lock for Young Player Understatement of the Year:
“I went to this local team, played like two matches, and after that an Arsenal scout took me over to Arsenal to have a trial, and, yeah, signed me after the first game, which was nice.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18SPZEV1sf4