Saturday marked a memorable day for Luca Koleosho and his Burnley teammates.
Koleosho, an American-born midfielder, scored his first English Premier League goal on Saturday in the Clarets’ 5-0 home victory over Sheffield United. The 19-year-old helped Burnley to only its second league win of the current campaign, moving them up to seven points on the season.
Jay Rodriguez’s opening goal came in the first minute for Vincent Kompany’s side before Jacob Brunn Larsen extended the hosts lead to 2-0 before halftime.
Oli McBurnie was sent off for the Blades before halftime, giving Burnley an extra man advantage for the remainder of the match. Zeki Amdouni made the visitors pay by adding to Burnley’s lead in the 73rd minute at 3-0.
After striking the crossbar just minutes before, Koleosho slotted home Amdouni’s pass in the 75th minute for a 4-0 Burnley lead. It marked Koleosho’s senior goal since June 3, 2023 for Espanyol.
https://x.com/yorkballd/status/1730989715673735385?s=20
His goal marked Koleosho’s last contribution of the match as he was substituted off in the 77th minute. Burnley would add a fifth and final goal through Josh Brownhill, capping the final score at 5-0.
Koleosho, who last represented the United States at an Under-20 camp in 2022, has mainly featured for Italy’s youth teams. He is also eligible for Canada at the international level.
Burnley’s busy December schedule continues on Tuesday with a trip to Wolves.
Dave P,
Quiet down…that’s clown talk.
That’s good. Unfortunately his indications seem want to play for Italy
they missed 2022 world cup and were second by 6 points in their euro group. if you just want to represent “italy,” fine, but they have fallen off, we are supposed to be on the rise, and we tied his other choice england.
His other choices are Nigeria and Canada, no England.
And obviously Italy
I know I’m going to get hate for this. But do we really want half the starting team speaking English with an accent in the next world cup? It’s just not the best look for the sport here. Can’t we just focus on getting better without forever trying to rescue ourselves by recruiting European players from the countries where they really grew up?
I know every country does this, and you can make a list of great world cup stars that exploited a grandmother or something. But it just feels kind of wrong.
You will be happy to know that dude speaks with a completely ‘merican accent (just check out some of his interviews). He grew up learning the game and playing here in the USA. Any player who is a citizen is eligible for us. Irregardless of their accent. Why wouldn’t we want the most competitive players that can play for us representing the USA on the international level? What do you have against US citizens playing for the USA?
we’re talking by default about players with a US passport ie american citizens. at which point who cares? i’d be more concerned with do they show up and play hard/well — which is self-monitoring if the coach treats the games like they mean something and rewards/enforces performance expectations. to me you get into trouble a la klinsi when you fetishize a struggling group and that group has several dual nationals, and people suspect you’re favoring germans. but the core problem there remained his unwillingness to change the team up as it began struggling. the nationality thing was just a conspiracy theory why. to which arena then overreacted the other way to the point IMO he undermined his ability to fix the team. i have come to believe we qualify in 2017 if he selectively included some germans and the team had a little better quality in spots, eg. green instead of some of the forwards, chandler or FJ instead of villafana, brooks over omar. i am not even these players biggest fan, i just think what you’re advocating goes too far the other way and makes it bad in a different way.
if you want more domestic kids on the team fix domestic development. the fanboys keep pimping “go to europe” but unless you are a domestic player with a second passport you have to stay here through age 18. as such we have to invest here and can’t depend on dortmund or barca to fix it later on.
i also think there are some “reciprocity” concerns where some of our players get faster around UK work permit or foreign domestic quota rules abroad by using a second european passport. pulisic as croatian, yedlin as latvian.
the only area where i go protectionist is i think college players should require citizenship to get a scholarship. but that’s me thinking if my taxes fund that school then a canadian or english kid whose family doesn’t pay taxes shouldn’t get sports scholarships. that being said, pay your own way is fine — which is how the walk on contingent D1 and then all of D3 work. sign as many pay-your-way players as you want.
Should that also apply to out of state players whose parents pay different tax rates? What about private schools should they be allowed to recruit players from other countries but only if they are believers of that school’s faith? Barron Trump used to be in the DC United Academy should he not be allowed a scholarship since his dad doesn’t pay taxes?
JR: first off, dude, if you played college soccer you’d know most college teams tend to be a mix of in-state kids and then internationals with a sprinkling of out of state. soccer is not an infinite scholarship sport like football, for men we carve up 9 full rides for teams that might have 30 people. my state has also had as few as one D1 and right now has like five. as such we have kids go out of state and win the hermann or play D3 and get all-american and maybe even get MLS drafted.
most college programs primarily recruit locally or chase the same short list of regional ODP or YNT kids. SMU is illustrative. read the roster. it’s dallas premier league kids, foreign players, and then a handful of out of state. same pattern more or less every D1 we have. same pattern my old school. we had more kids from peru than any other state besides the school’s home state.
second, if occasionally a kid from LA goes to UW i figure that washes with occasionally a kid from seattle goes to UCLA. yes, if you want to nitpick, their parents only paid for their state school. but i figure that washes. what you’re missing is a kid from england odds are daddy hasn’t paid a dime towards UCLA’s general fund or sports budget. or any other state’s.
i don’t mind if the foreign kids pay tuition like most of us do under a 9 scholarship regime where we get offered a slice of a ride. wanna study here and pay? fine. we have a soccer team you can walk onto.
maybe you’ve not looked down a D1 soccer roster lately. i’ve seen teams with more than half foreign players.
IV: Universities use scholarships as marketing. Whether that is attracting academic minds or free kick takers. Better academics and better athletes attract more paying students and more importantly more paying donors. ADs higher coaches to put a winning product on the field. Thus coaches have to divide up their pool of money as they see fit sorry if a foreign player stole your scholarship but the answer to your problem was to be better not building a wall around your state.
JR: dude, you’re not listening. this is not “my whines” when a future hermann award winner leaves the state or several kids i know of end up D3 all-americans. it’s not late bloomer, they were all-state in HS. everyone saw them coming. they weren’t a scouting issue. they were an availability issue. sorry, kid, SMU wants dallas kids and foreign players. which workaround do you want to try?
dude, i was my college team’s MVP one year. success is the best revenge. it should just be easier. only a self-absorbed moron is like, just leave this mess the same for the next kids. you can pretend i am some trumpist — wrong on my politics — but when you can’t even keep the college player of the year in-state the roster room, incentives, and policies are wrong. you can engage in all the petty little personal jabs you want but it’s stupid, and it affected players better than me.
i am not stupid, it’s title IX in the south and interior west, it’s a few other things. but it’s also when half the team is foreign and they are getting scholarships. and as i made clear, i am ok with that competition when they pay to attend. when i am paying for their scholarship, that’s absurd.
two of the people i am mentioning made MLS. everyone i mentioned had high levels of personal success, all-america, all-conference, team MVP, NCAA tournament, hermann awards. it’s gross pretending we are losers just for saying the structure should be changed when we all have to do these workarounds. we don’t have careers like losers. we just would like it fixed. you don’t get to call us losers for complaining about patent issues we had to run around. what kind of dumb troll response is that. just fix it and quit being part of the problem.
IV: when you constantly say “if you played (insert level of soccer)” you’re trying to put everyone else down. Sorry you then don’t get to play the victim. By the way your tax dollars don’t go to SMU. They are a private school, might be why you didn’t get in if you can’t figure that out. There’s one D1 men’s program in my state and no professional team. If you limited them to in state players they wouldn’t compete. They depend on Midwest urban centers like St. Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago (the suburbs of those of course). It’s a mid major that makes the NCAA tournament as a conference champ regularly. They have 4 in state players (only 2 play) and 5 international roughly 20 out of state (I have no idea who’s getting what scholarships). I know you’re not a Trumper but the protectionist idea no matter how well intentioned is still protectionist. And protectionism leads to mediocrity in pretty much every situation. Economically in inferior products, less innovation, inflated pricing, etc. In talent rich states, it should create better players through better competition, but could also lead to players quitting in high school to be FG kickers or run cross country since they don’t have a chance with limited programs. You’d also have some players staying in USL because they have choice there but not in college. Also why would you pay more for a good coach if kids have to stay in state? What would Daryl Dike be if he had to stay in Oklahoma?
Dave P,
Quiet down…that’s clown talk.
Dave P
Arnold Schwarzenegger is an American. He seems like a useful citizen..
Sly Stallone has a pretty heavy accent. I think he’s an American.
Jeff Foxworthy has a heavy accent . You got a problem with him representing the USA for any reason?
And my favorites, Dolly Parton and Wille Nelson are as All American as they come and I can barely understand Dolly’s accent sometimes.
A lot of the rest of the world sees and more importantly hears these people perform and thinks of them as Americans. So tell me Dave P, are they wrong?
By the way did you ever listen to Clint Dempsey for any length of time?
You want we should round them up and deport them for their heavily accented, sometimes barely understandable English?
whoa whoa — clearly I meant foreign accent. I am happy to be disagreed with but not misunderstood! Discriminating against southern accents should literally be a crime. Clint is one of my all time favorite Americans.
Funny you say this because Koleosho sounds as American as you do, if not more.
Yeah I know I am not winning this one. Musah is my favorite player anyway. I’ll take the positive spin that we should develop our youth system,,,
“Yeah I know I am not winning this one. ”
It’s not about winning. Do you have any idea how much furriners and their funny accents helped developed our so called youth system?
You’re insulting a lot of good people.
Dave, I’m sure your heart was in the right place, but if someone is concerned about a players accent they likely aren’t going to be won over by soccer anyway. Luca lived in the US until he was 11 by the way so he actually lived in the US about as long as Gio Reyna.
And unlike Gio, Luca was actually born in the USA.