Five Things you may not know about Matt Olosunde

Matt Olosunde spent most of his time as a youngster playing football. Aged six, he joined Princeton FC, a club based in Olosunde's hometown of Trenton, New Jersey. He spent a lot of his youth playing as a right winger, before making the switch to play right-back.

The defender's father, Peter, said: "You couldn't get [Matt] off the field. When he was 10, we’d be at the indoor facility and he’d keep joining the next practice session - three or four sessions until we finally said, ‘We can’t stay all night!’”

Olosunde soon progressed through to the USA national team at youth level. Between 2013 and 2015, he was capped 30 times for the U-17 side. He even represented the USA at the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup where he made one appearance.

Source Credit - https://www.princetonfc.org/Default.aspx?tabid=712913&mid=737332&newskeyid=HN1&newsid=157704&ctl=newsdetail

In 2012 Olosunde made the step up to join the New York Red Bulls academy. This was a huge commitment for him and his family. It was a two-hour commute there and back for his parents to take Olosunde to training each day.

Like many other young American sportsmen, education is very important for Olosunde. His parents let him play for the Red Bulls as long as his grades did not take a hit. Impressively, despite this tough schedule, he continued to get straight A's.

He spent three years with the club and given the top class facilities at their disposal, this experience will have been invaluable for Olosunde's progress. But he decided to leave the club after the U-17 World Cup to play college football at Duke University to further his education.

As we have already mentioned, Olosunde decided to play his national football for USA. But this did not have to be the case. As a result of his parent's heritage, he is also eligible to play internationally for Nigeria.

He grew up in the states and spent all of his younger years there, so it makes sense that he picked the stars and stripes jersey over the Super Eagles. He is still only 22, and he has impressed massively so far for the Millers so hopefully more national team call-ups are on the horizon for Olosunde...

After spending a brief time playing at Duke University, it was announced early in 2016 that he was joining Manchester United. Even the offer of a move to one of the world's biggest clubs did not take away Olosunde's focus on his education.

The Red Devils even set up online courses for him at Oxford University to convince him to sign, which shows just how desperate they were to get their man.

Olosunde spent over two years at United and in 2016/17, he made 18 appearances for the U-23's during the first-ever Premier League 2 campaign. He did not get to play a part for the first-team, but he did travel with the squad in May 2017 for their games with Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.

Source Credit - https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/man-utd-news-matthew-olosunde-13046545

During Olosunde's time at Manchester United, he was trained by academy manager Nicky Butt, who was formerly a member of the Class of 92. Butt was full of praise for Olosunde, who showed a lot of promise at United:

"He's a good player, a nice lad and a really good athlete. Hopefully we'll see a lot of him in the coming years because he's someone we're really excited about."

After two-and-a-half years in Manchester, he was released and subsequently he joined Rotherham United. The Millers did have a lot of competition on their hands to get their man, as Championship sides were also keen.

But Olosunde felt Rotherham was the right move and he really has repaid the faith placed in him by Paul Warne. He has come on a lot during the 2019/20 season and hopefully when football gets back up and running, we get to see Olosunde continue to improve in a Rotherham United shirt.

Source Credit - https://www.espn.co.uk/football/manchester-united/story/2849068/man-united-excited-by-us-matthew-olosunde-nicky-butt