In honor of the United States hosting the World Cup along with Mexico and Canada and on the day they face Belgium in one of the biggest matches of their history, we bring you 5 American players West Ham should consider for their Championship campaign. There is no official interest from Nuno Espirito Santo and newly appointed director of recruitment Nils Koppen or the club, but what if they brought an American to the club? While everyone is looking to see where Christian Pulisic, Florian Balogun, or Weston McKennie go next, those names are unrealistic for the Hammers since their relegation. But there are other players looking for a chance to get into a starting eleven more frequently and other players looking for an opportunity to show Europe they can play at the Championship level and beyond.
1. Gio Reyna — Borussia Mönchengladbach
In the last minute of stoppage time against Paraguay in the opening group game, Reyna received the ball, drove forward and, with virtually the last kick of the match, planted his left foot slightly wide and smashed a trivela — an outside-of-the-boot finish mastered only by the elite — into the top corner. It capped a 26-pass team move assembled in 70 seconds, the kind of goal that sparks genuine debate about the greatest in USMNT history. It brought back memories of the greatest ever team goal in the World Cup when Brazil's Carlos Alberto finished off a multi-pass move against Italy in the 1970 final. Reyna then revealed his wife was pregnant by tucking the ball under his shirt and sucking his thumb. It was, by any measure, a moment.
The backstory makes it more remarkable. Reyna played just 510 league minutes with Borussia Mönchengladbach this season, starting just four games after injuries again interrupted his campaign. He has started just 20 league games since 2021. Club football has never been able to contain him consistently — injury, circumstance and bad luck have conspired at every turn. Yet the moment he pulls on the United States shirt, something different happens. In 39 caps, he has nine goals and six assists, and of those 16 goal contributions, half have come in official games.
For West Ham, the proposition is the one this club has been searching for all summer. Reyna is a 23-year-old attacking midfielder, technically elite, under contract at Gladbach until 2028 at a market valuation depressed relative to his ceiling by limited club minutes. A move to the Championship is not a step backward for Reyna — it is a guarantee. Guaranteed starts. Guaranteed centrality in Nuno's 4-2-3-1. A system built exactly around what he does. The World Cup is reminding the world of his quality. His versatility also allows for Nuno to move him to a wing position.
Transfer value: €10 million
2. Sebastian Berhalter — Vancouver Whitecaps
Two weeks ago, Sebastian Berhalter was an MLS midfielder most English football fans had never heard of. Then came the Turkey game.
Against Turkey in the group stage, Berhalter came off the bench, scored and assisted in a 3-2 defeat. It was not a surprise to anyone who had watched Vancouver last season. In 2025, Berhalter started 41 of his 47 appearances across all competitions and recorded career-highs in goals and assists, finding the back of the net eight times while leading the team with 16 goal involvements, rising to second in the club's all-time assists charts in the MLS era.
A central midfielder known as a set-piece deliverer who carries a consistent dead-ball threat, Berhalter has 11 senior caps for the United States and earned a place in the 2025 MLS Best XI for his club form.
He is not the profile that replaces Mateus Fernandes in the truest sense. He is not a deep-lying playmaker who controls possession phases. He is a box-to-box eight with a dead-ball weapon, a goal threat from midfield and the work-rate to run Championship full-backs into the ground over 90 minutes. For a squad that needs legs, goals and set-piece threat in the engine room, Berhalter is not a headline signing. He is something more useful: a certainty.
Transfer value: €4-6 million
3. Yunus Musah — AC Milan (via Atalanta loan)
A cornerstone of the USMNT at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a player Pochettino relied on throughout the rebuild but left off the final 26-man squad entirely, the victim of a club season that refused to give him what he needed.
Musah was candid about how the year at Atalanta had gone: "Here in Atalanta, obviously, things haven't really gone my way or anything. It's been a tough season, not going the way I wanted. So mentally, it's been tough to get through it. I expected to play a lot more." He made 26 appearances but started just six times. The former Valencia man was an unused substitute in five of Atalanta's last nine league matches.
The structural situation is now clear: Atalanta are unlikely to activate their €25 million purchase option. Musah returns to AC Milan as a player they need to move on. He is 23 years old, has Champions League football on his CV, and is ferociously motivated to prove the World Cup omission was a mistake.
A loan to West Ham — with an option to buy — solves everything. Milan move a player off their wage bill and keep his value alive. Musah gets 46 Championship games where he starts every one of them. West Ham get an athletic, press-forward midfielder who played at the 2022 World Cup and who arrives at the London Stadium with more to prove than almost any player available this summer. His energy and ball-carrying quality in the double pivot alongside Souček would give Nuno's midfield a completely different dimension. The Championship will not know what hit it.
Transfer value: €12-15 million
4. Tristan Blackmon — Vancouver Whitecaps
West Ham's centre-back situation is unresolved. Mavropanos's future remains uncertain, the squad needs a commanding defensive presence who can lead a back line through 46 gruelling Championship games, and the budget — buoyed by the Fernandes sale — is there to make a move. Enter Tristan Blackmon, and one of the most compelling defensive profiles available at any price this summer.
Blackmon was a mainstay along the Vancouver backline in 2025, helping the Whitecaps reach the final of both the Concacaf Champions League and MLS Cup. In doing so, he earned MLS Defender of the Year, a place in the league's Best XI, and his first two senior caps for the United States national team. He is 29, left off the World Cup squad, and watching from home as teammates he trained with every day represent his country on the grandest stage. That stings. That is precisely the kind of sting that makes a player want to cross an ocean and prove a point.
Vancouver rebuffed a $3 million bid from Inter Miami in January and subsequently extended Blackmon's contract through 2031, which tells you they value him. West Ham should test that figure aggressively and find out what it actually takes to get a deal done.
Transfer value: €4-6 million
5. Diego Luna — Real Salt Lake
Luna was the centrepiece of numerous promotional campaigns ahead of this World Cup, including Nike's. He had 16 caps and seven goal contributions in 2025 alone. He was a core piece of the run to the Gold Cup final, scoring three goals, including a brace in the semifinal. He is one of the most dynamic and exciting players in Major League Soccer, recording four goals and three assists in 608 minutes over nine MLS matches for Real Salt Lake this spring. And then, in the most shocking omission of Pochettino's tenure, he was left off the final 26-man squad.
Pochettino's explanation did little to soften the blow: "The final decision wasn't based solely on individual talent, but rather on balance, specific roles, and collective chemistry. You don't always pick the biggest names; you pick the right team."
Luna is 22, left-footed, cuts inside from the right, presses with ferocity and creates chaos in tight spaces. Real Salt Lake view him as the face of their franchise and have not entertained formal offers. But for a player left off a home World Cup squad after appearing in Nike's promotional campaigns, the emotional case for a move to Europe has never been stronger. That rage, that chip on his shoulder, that hunger to prove everyone wrong, that is exactly what you want arriving at the London Stadium in August.
Transfer Value: €6-8 million
The last American to don a West Ham kit was Jonathan Spector from 2006 to 2011. Before that it was John Harkes in 1996 on a one-year loan. Harkes played for the USMNT in the 1994 World Cup. Three decades later, with all that USA has shown the world, maybe it's time West Ham takes another look at some of the players looking for a fresh start this season.
Add us as a preferred source on Google