England manager Gareth Southgate says he is not pleased Yunus Musah decided to play for the United States of America and not the Three Lions.
Musah was born in New York City to Ghanaian parents and he moved to England at the age of nine and joined Arsenal’s academy.
He was, however, not able to progress his way to the first team which necessitated a move to Valencia in 2019 at the age of 16 and he has become a key player for the first-team with 82 appearances since the 2020-21 season.
On the international scene, Musah represented England at the youth level, playing from the Under-15s up to the Under-18s, but the 19-year-old decided to represent the country of his birth and made his USA debut in November 2020.
He has since played 20 times and he is part of the US squad at the ongoing World Cup in Qatar.
Ahead of England’s Group B clash with the US on Friday, Southgate spoke of his unhappiness at losing Musah who made the international switch before the England boss got the chance to know him well.
“Well, firstly, they [US] have been very proactive on recruitment if you like, talent identification,” the 52-year-old manager said. “Obviously they took one of ours (Musah), which we weren’t very happy about but, fair play!
“With Yunus, it was a strange situation because he was in our Under-19s and we went into the pandemic and lockdown so it wasn’t possible to travel and see games so he was a player that at that stage I had not had a lot of contact within the junior teams.
“One or two of the others I knew a little bit better and that decision was made before I had the chance to get to know him well.”
England opened their World Cup campaign with a 6-2 victory over Iran. The United States, on the other hand, played out a 1-1 draw with Wales.
