Yunus Musah was not the player to steal the headlines after the victory against Real Madrid, yet the job that he did was very important.
La Gazzetta dello Sport writes how Musah is the player that ‘every coach would like to have in his team’. Paulo Fonseca has discovered a wild card, someone who answered the call and helped tame the Ballon d’Or runner-up Vinicius Junior.
To do so, the American used his three best weapons: reliability, adaptability and attentiveness. He was the tactical needle that allowed the Rossoneri to create a five-man line in the non-possession phase, which proved decisive in blocking off Real’s dangerous left side.
The numbers bear witness to the success of the plan: Musah had 88% pass completion rate (including two key passes), three dribbles out of three completed, three blocks and six out of 12 ground duels won.
The data is not bad for someone who is not a regular, given he has just three starts this season. He got two in Serie A – defeats against Parma and Napoli – plus one in the Champions League, against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu.
Fonseca gave him a starting spot that not even he expected, as he admitted after the match: “I was surprised when the coach told me I would play.” Jokers are like that: in some card games they can appear out of nowhere, but they often have an intangible added value.
Last season, Stefano Pioli started the American against Lecce as a right-back in place of Calabria, and then deployed him as a right winger with the task of balancing the team. Fonseca rode the same wave and found the answers he was looking for in arguably the biggest test of all.
His work rate and ‘grinta’ made him perfect for the match against Los Blancos, but now the question mark becomes Cagliari. Fonseca must decide whether he needs a five-man line against a Cagliari team that will sit deep and as to be broken down.
Play musah as doble with fofana and play reijnders as attacking midfielder and pulisic as right wing
Musah was playing the Saelamaekers role under Pioli vs Real Madrid. Protecting the full back defensively and providing depth and balance offensively.
Calabria looked good when he had Saelamaekers in front of him to protect and double up, not so good when Pioli started playing Messias more or with Alexis off the team.
Now, considering Emerson’s performance (thanks to Musah) and Madrid missing a RB with Carvajal out and Vazquez being destroyed by Leao… Emerson for Nico Paz is more than a fair deal.
lmao
People are very harsh with Musah in general but they forget his only 20 years old. In Primavera Championship are many players at 19 years old. So Musah with just one year more he play at very high level for his age like we see in Champions League on Santiago Bernabeu. His potential are very very high, we must be patient with him.
Quite right. His physicality, tenacity, work rate, tackling ability, and ability to ball-carry to relieve pressure could make him something special. It makes me think of a young Kante. Not sure he has Kante’s intelligence and vision, but it’s something he can work on at only 20 years old.
He’ll be 22 at the end of the month.
LMAO 😂😂😂
Dudes just Benjamin Buttoned him for no reason haha
Musah just needs more minutes and consistency is a single position. RT Mid in a midfield 3 seems like it.
Keep playing him there and ditch the double pivot.
He is good now. Enough with this potential stuff, but I’m so tired of hearing about potential. Tonali showed potential in his first season and so he was played the next season. Musah showed as much if not more in his first season at the same age and has been frozen out. He can improve but he’s also already good enough for conte to want him who doesn’t ask for potential. Last season he was the best open field defender on the team and he remains the best open field defender. He wins the ball up field and starts Counters and beats players off the dribble to find leao. He is now passing the ball extremely well. His balls into the box are struck perfectly to bend away from the keeper and he can hit them low or high…the build up is hurting with only reijnders stepping between the lines, musah has always been good at positioning himself to pull defenders just enough to give his teammates space. Very underrated in his positional intelligence…both offensively and defensively. He’s now started against 2 PSG, Madrid, Dortmund and Newcastle and they have given up more than 1 goal in only one of those games. Can he start against Calgari? I dunno but he frustrated nandez so bad last time that he punched him in the back of the head…and Modric is no nandez…
I appreciated Musa’s capacity in the last world cup in USA vs France, even before he crossed over to our side. We haven’t seen the beat of him yet.