Will Luca Koleosho play for USMNT? NFL legend & Burnley co-owner JJ Watt reveals his pitch to teenage winger in bid to secure Italy snub

The 19-year-old, who was born in Connecticut, represented the country of his birth at U15 level but has gone to figure for Italy through to the U21 set-up. He can still commit to the United States, Canada or Nigeria.

Watt, who is now an investor at Burnley alongside his former USWNT star wife Kealia, has told the Men in Blazers podcast of his hopes for the player who is working under Vincent Kompany at Turf Moor: “This is a conversation that comes up on Twitter quite often from American fans. Everybody wants him to come back to America and be part of the U.S. men’s team. I have not personally had that conversation with him yet. I’m not opposed to having it. I’m very conscious of making sure that he understands who I am and what I’m about before I try to have any sort of influence on his life.”

Asked what his pitch to Koleosho would be, Watt added: “Everybody, the brightest experts in the world – all the people on Twitter, who obviously know better than anybody else – have told me that you should play for America. My pitch to him would be to think about how incredible and how special it would be to play for your home country, to represent your home country and to do something special and to help shepherd that next wave in of what could be. With the Olympics and the World Cup coming to our country over the next five years or so, there are going to be some incredibly exciting times in American football coming up and you can help to be a catalyst for even more growth in the game. Wouldn’t it just be fun! Every international break, you are where you want to be.”

Koleosho joined Burnley from Espanyol in the summer of 2023 and has taken in 15 appearances for the Clarets this season – with his first Premier League goal recorded in a crushing 5-0 win over Sheffield United. The USMNT are hoping to see him pledge allegiance to them, much like Folarin Balogun did last season – while exciting youngsters such as Gio Reyna, Malik Tillman, Yunus Musah, Ricardo Pepi and Benjamin Cremaschi are at their disposal.