Former United States national team midfielder Stuart Holden has predicted that teenage sensation Yunus Musah will emerge a star at this year’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Holden who is currently a lead TV game analyst for Fox Sports thinks the name that will be on Americans' lips after the Mundial in Qatar is the 19-year-old winger.
The World Cup has always been a stage that makes stars all over the World from the participating countries and the the United States is no exception from this.
Players like Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Tony Meola, Alexi Lalas, and Cobi Jones became household names after their performances at the World’s biggest football event.
One player is most likely to be coach Gregg Berhalter’s starting 11 but isn’t yet a household name amongst United States football fans is Musah.
Stars in the team like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Gio Reyna, Tim Weah and Brenden Aaronson are relatively well known by fans.
The teenager who currently plays his club football at Spanish club Valencia is one of three American youngsters in the national team midfield who are the engine room of the team.
Musah, McKennie, and Tyler Adams even have a nickname already for their three-man unit: MMA.
Holden, the former Bolton Wanderers player thinks Musah, specifically, will have a special few weeks in Qatar during the World Cup.
"Yunus Musah will be the breakout star of this World Cup," Holden told Alexi Lalas on his State of the Union US national team podcast.
"I’m a huge Musah fan. I think he’s the best — potential to be the best player on the team. Not the most skillful, not the most — a guy that I just think is unworldly different.
"His ability to get out of tight spaces, his balance, his power, his strength, his passing. If he can just add the goal and arriving in the box like McKennie, he’s going to be the breakout star.
Holden was a member of the United States squad at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa so he definitely knows what it takes to play at that stage and shine.