Player profile: Yunus Musah

The Bronx-born Yunus Musah has had quite the progression in his short career over the past two years. Musah left the Arsenal youth academy when his contract expired back in 2019, where Spanish giants Valencia swooped him up on a free transfer.

Musah made a total of 35 appearances for Valencia across all competitions during the 2020/21 season, registering a total of 1,642 minutes. Musah’s performances in La Liga registered interest from the United States men’s national team head coach Gregg Berhalter. Musah was called up by Berhalter in the fall of 2020 where he made his debut against Wales for the USMNT. Before making his debut for the USMNT, Musah had only ever represented England at the youth level, never the United States. In the spring of 2021, Musah committed his national team duties to the United States of America, although he is yet to be competitively capped. So what makes this 18-year-old wonderkid so special?

Overview:

• Country: USA
• Age: 18
• Height: 5’8 feet
• Position: RW/CM
• Value: $16.5 million (transfermarkt.us)

Ball Progression:

One of Yunus Musah’s greatest strengths is his dribbling ability. Watching him live, you can tell that he possesses great ball skills especially when he is deployed in the middle of the pitch.

The scatter plot above measures carries that move the ball toward the goal at least five yards versus carries that enter the final third of the pitch. (La Liga only)

Yunus Musah ranks above average during the 2020/2021 season in La Liga when it came to ball progression. Some names that might be familiar that surround him on the graph are Casemiro of Real Madrid and David Silva of Real Sociedad. Although Musah was deployed mainly as a Right-Wing for Valencia, it looks as if Berhalter prefers Musah to be more of a number 8 in the middle of the pitch. Musah reminds me a lot of Mateo Kovačić of Chelsea, in terms of his dribbling ability and ball progression. Musah ranks in the 59th percentile across Europes top five leagues when it comes to successful dribbles leading to a shot attempt with .3 per 90 minutes. Musah also ranks in the 62nd percentile across Europes top five leagues when it comes to fouls drawn with 2.0 per 90 minutes. This displays Musah’s ability to dribble and even at age 18, ranks above average in this metric.

This next sequence of photos is from Musah’s International debut for the USMNT, where he was deployed in the middle of the pitch as a box-to-box midfielder in a 4–3–3 formation.

Musah picks up the ball from center-back John Brooks, where he finds himself in a lot of space. The two main options here for Musah are to either turn and drive at the defense or lay the ball off to Weston McKennie.

Musah turns quickly and starts driving at the defense where his dribbling skills and acceleration prove to be too much to handle for the Welsh midfield.

This final frame of the sequence shows how dangerous Musah can really be. His run starts from inside his own half and doesn’t release the ball until around the top of the box. The impressive thing here is his ability to shrug off a defender while drawing the whole Welsh backline to become more narrow. You can see that all of the Welsh players in this frame are focused on Musah as he drives toward the box. This allows space for Gio Reyna on the right-wing to make an attacking run toward the goal. This sequence eventually ends with Musah playing the ball out to Reyna, who then whips in a cross toward the box.

This run captures Musah’s strengths when it comes to ball progression and his speed and acceleration which reflects how dangerous Musah can be when deployed as a box-to-box midfielder.

Areas of Improvement:

If Musah is continued to be deployed higher up the pitch on the wings, he will need to improve on his final product. Musah only scored two goals and assisted zero across all competitions during the 2020/2021 season. Musah ranked only in the 2nd percentile across Europes top five leagues when it came to xG with only .04 xG accumulated per 90. Yunus also ranked only in the 1st percentile across Europes top five leagues in xA with only .05 accumulated per 90. Finally, Musah ranks only in the 1st percentile when it comes to total shots taken with only .35 per 90. These metrics summarize that Yunus Musah will need to significantly improve on his final third production if he is continued to be deployed on the wings. Luckily for him, he is still only 18 and has plenty of time to develop as a player, especially at a top club like Valencia.

References:

• transfermarkt.us
• Fbref.com
• Fox Soccer Youtube