Musah returns to the USMNT after a tough year of loan spells and a missed World Cup

Some players just need the right message at the right time to get back on track. For Yunus Musah, it came by text, before preseason, signed by Ruben Amorim. The AC Milan manager wrote to tell him that he was counted on, that the club wanted him to stay, and that he would be an important part of his plans. A few months later, that message had turned into minutes, starts, and eventually a ticket back to the United States national team.

The context mattered. Musah was coming off a difficult loan spell at Atalanta, with no clarity about his future at Milan, and he admits he didn't want to get his hopes up too much over Amorim's words at first. "I thought maybe he was just saying it, like other coaches do, to keep you at the club," the midfielder confessed poolside at the national team's hotel, ahead of the friendly against Mexico. But preseason proved the Portuguese coach right: Musah played, talked with him regularly, and the promises held up.

As preseason went on, I saw that I was playing a lot, that he was talking to me a lot, and that it was true. I started the season, played a lot of minutes, a lot of starts. And now, coming back to the national team too. It's been a great start to the season, having coaches who believe in me again.Yunus Musah

The numbers back up that feeling: Musah has played in all five of Milan's league matches so far this season, racking up 329 minutes. That form was enough to earn him a recall to the USMNT for the first time since March 2025, a stretch that included being left off the World Cup roster.

Wearing the national team jersey, Musah started in the 4-1 win over Peru and came on as a substitute in the 4-2 win over Chile and the 3-0 win over Mexico, the latter a match in which he looked especially active. Asked about the call-up, he didn't hold back: "I felt like it was something I deserved for the season I've had from the start, so I think it's well deserved on my part. I've been performing very well at a big club, Milan, and I think it makes sense and I'm happy to be back."

Lessons from a hard year

Musah doesn't shy away from self-criticism when talking about his time at Atalanta. At one point he described himself as "wasted on the bench," though he later clarified that the time there also helped him sharpen parts of his game. "There was a good midfield there, so I learned a lot of things: how to position myself, play with just two in midfield, stay constantly available," he explained. He also acknowledged that he adjusted his body posture and learned to recognize which areas of the field were worth taking risks in.

Still, he drew a clear lesson for the future: do more research before joining a club and avoid going out on loan again, because he felt "a different vibe" from not fully belonging to the team. That stretch ended up costing him his spot at the World Cup, a sharp contrast with his role in 2022, when he started every match for the United States. "Not experiencing the World Cup was hard, and as the season went on I could feel it coming, because I wasn't getting called into the microcycles and I wasn't playing at Atalanta either," he admitted.

While the tournament was being played, Musah was far from any screen: he traveled with his wife and daughter to Ghana and Zanzibar, enjoyed the food and the beaches, and didn't watch a single minute of the competition. "I literally wasn't on social media. I didn't use my phone much. I was outside, with the local people in Ghana and Zanzibar, enjoying my summer," he said. Only in the final week of vacation did he start training to get ready for Milan's preseason.

That disconnect, he says, is something he does every summer. In fact, back in 2025 he had already asked Mauricio Pochettino to leave him off the Gold Cup roster, with his daughter Yumna just born and after a very intense final stretch of the season at Milan. "I wanted to prioritize staying with my family, those are very important moments in my daughter's growth," he said of that decision.

Musah is still rebuilding his place in the USMNT, but if the level he's showing at Milan holds up, it seems like only a matter of time before he's back to being a regular fixture in the national team's plans.