You’d struggle to find many European colossuses with a greater American influence than AC Milan.
Milan signed their first American player in 2009 with the arrival of Oguchi Onyewu — he would make just one appearance across his 18-month spell before departing for Standard Liège. Sergiño Dest became the club’s second American player after joining on loan from FC Barcelona, making 14 appearances for the Rossoneri across the 2022/23 season.
Milan would replenish the American contingent by signing not just one, but two US Men’s National Team players in the summer of 2023. Yunus Musah arrived from Valencia for €20 million, but so far, he has struggled to adjust to life in Serie A. He’s been utilized as a right back and a winger, but he’s failed to make a name for himself in his preferred box-to-box position.
Nevertheless, Musah has managed to become a more regular participant under new manager Sérgio Conceição, starting in each of Milan’s last six league matches and playing the full 90 in four of them. He’s already made 71 appearances for them, and at 22 years of age, time is on his side as he looks to establish himself as a vital performer in black and red stripes.
His compatriot Christian Pulisic has fared far more auspiciously. Having joined from Chelsea for €22 million, Pulisic didn’t take long to emerge as a vital cog under Stefano Pioli, racking up 15 goals and 11 assists in 50 appearances in the 2023/24 season. He became the first American to score in three of Europe’s top five leagues and was named in the three-man shortlist for the Serie A Midfielder of the Season award alongside Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Teun Koopmeiners.
After a stellar breakout campaign that saw him named in the Serie A Team of the Season, Pulisic has continued his momentum under Paulo Fonseca and Conceição this season, registering 12 goals and 9 assists and establishing himself as one of the first names on the team sheet. It’s yet another reason why, by the time the summer 2025 transfer window opens up, Milan could very well be inclined to tap into the American player market.
For all of the American players that Milan have signed, they’ve only signed two players from Major League Soccer. David Beckham became the first MLS player to arrive when he joined on loan from LA Galaxy in 2009, spending a year in Italy before returning to California. 16 years later, he’s making his mark in MLS as the owner of Inter Miami. Miami made history last season by achieving the most points in MLS regular season history (74), and with a star-studded squad boasting the likes of Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez, they’re poised for yet another successful campaign.
Shortly after Beckham’s departure from the San Siro, Milan acquired a Swedish striker by the name of Zlatan Ibrahimović, who would quickly establish himself as the club’s attacking talisman and even managed to win the league title in his debut campaign. After two years with the Rossoneri, Zlatan made the move to Paris Saint-Germain, where he marked an era in French football and allowed them to establish a domestic dynasty.
Zlatan then took his talents to LA Galaxy, where he would proceed to score 52 goals in 56 appearances, before returning to Milan in 2019. The towering Swede would prove instrumental in Milan’s return to the glory days as they ended an 11-year Scudetto drought and make it to the Champions League semifinals before eventually hanging up his boots in 2023.
Shortly after retiring, Zlatan was hired by Milan’s ownership group RedBird Capital Partners as a senior advisor to AC Milan, serving as the proxy to RedBird’s American owner Gerry Cardinale and playing an integral role in the club’s organizational matters, and there’s reason to believe that he could use his MLS connections to his advantage.
Between Diego Luna, Caden Clark, Jack McGlynn and Brian Gutiérrez, there are quite a few impressive young talents who are making a name for themselves in Major League Soccer, and it’s surely only a matter of time before one of them follows in the footsteps of Zlatan and Beckham and becomes the third MLS player to take their talents to Milan.
