If you look up Bučin, North Macedonia, on a map, just a few landmarks pop up from the small village that straddles both sides of the Crna River.
One is the Church of Holy Nativity of Mary. Another is the hospital. Click the zoom button just once, however, and another landmark pops up for the town with a population of just over 500: the “Sports Sala,” a futsal court near the market square.
You can almost hear the smile as Danny Musovski remembers the walk from his grandmother’s house, just adjacent to Holy Nativity of Mary, down to those courts. He was 16 and visiting family during a two-month summer vacation.
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Musovski’s parents emigrated from North Macedonia to the U.S., and the Seattle Sounders forward was born in Henderson, Nev. He grew up speaking Macedonian and English in his house and would go back to the Balkan nation in Southeast Europe to see his extended family.
But the respect earned on a small village futsal court, where they held tournaments all summer long, stuck with him as his baptism into Macedonian football.
“All summer, my little brother and I were just playing football with all the kids, and I just saw how serious the soccer culture was there,” Musovski told The Athletic. “There were futsal tournaments that happened every week, where you had a group of guys, they go to a different village, and the whole village comes and watches this game at night on this little futsal court in the middle of the little (town square). And so it was just kind of cool to see, on that little micro scale, of how important soccer is to the country and how embedded it is in the culture.”
Now, 14 years later, Musovski will get a chance to represent the country of his parents’ birth at the UEFA World Cup qualifying playoffs this month. After scoring a team-high 18 goals in all competitions for Seattle last season, the 30-year-old striker was contacted by the Football Federation of North Macedonia in January and recruited to join the national team. He got his passport last month and was named to the roster on Tuesday for a playoff against Denmark on March 26 in Copenhagen.
North Macedonia faces Denmark in a World Cup qualifying playoff semifinal. (Dan Istitene / Getty Images)
For a player who once earned his stripes in that small village on the banks of the Crna, it’s a surreal honor — especially with North Macedonia’s first World Cup appearance at stake. With a win over Denmark, one more playoff victory over either the Czech Republic or Ireland would secure a spot in World Cup Group A with co-host Mexico, South Korea, and South Africa. (North Macedonia came close in 2022, eliminating Italy in the playoff round before falling to Portugal at the last hurdle.)
But first things first.
“It’ll be really special,” Musovski said. “Probably be a little emotional for me, just because maybe it’s different than when a young guy gets a cap early on in his career and you’re just young and ambitious and you’re not really taking everything in. Well, for me, I’m 30. I’ve played a lot of years professionally. Just to be able to earn a cap with the national team is such an awesome honor, especially for a game of this magnitude. It’s not just a friendly. It’s a big, meaningful, impactful game. So definitely it will be a big moment for me and my family. And I’m sure my parents will be crying. So it’ll definitely be something really special.”
Musovski was a top young player growing up in the U.S. He was a Gatorade Player of the Year as a high school junior in Nevada, and a two-time All-American at UNLV. Things didn’t go as smoothly as a pro.
He was drafted by the San Jose Earthquakes, but was immediately loaned out to Reno 1868 in the USL and never played for San Jose. After scoring 11 goals for Reno in 2019, he was signed by LAFC, and after scoring 11 goals across three seasons in a rotational role — and spending some time on loan with USL’s Las Vegas Lights — Musovski was traded to Real Salt Lake. He scored five times for RSL in 2023, and his contract option was declined after the season.
Musovski signed a two-year deal with the Sounders, and after just one goal in 500 minutes in 2024, he had a breakout 2025.
Seattle Sounders forward Danny Musovski celebrates a 2025 MLS playoff goal vs. Minnesota United. (Alika Jenner / Getty Images)
He tallied a career-high 18 goals in all competitions, one goal shy of the single-season club record set by Obafemi Martins (2014) and Raúl Ruidíaz (2021). He had a team-high 14 goals in MLS regular-season play and at one point scored in five straight matches. The forward also scored two goals in Seattle’s first-round playoff series against Minnesota United.
It was the payoff of a mentality Musovski had carried throughout his professional career.
“If you’re a guy coming out of the USL, you’re not going to get too many great opportunities, and they’re not going to give you that much grace when you’re on the field,” Musovski said. “You have to deliver results. And I feel like I’ve always taken that into every game I played. I always wanted to make an impact and make a difference.”
The standout season earned Musovski a new contract. It also earned some attention back in Macedonia. In January, Macedonian football legend Goran Pandev, who scored more than 100 goals in Serie A from 2002 to 2022, followed Musovski on Instagram.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” Musovski thought.
He told his parents, who were overjoyed that Macedonian football royalty now followed their son. Musovski did a bit of Googling and learned that Pandev was working for the federation. Soon after, he got a WhatsApp message from federation president Masar Omeragić asking if he would be interested in playing for the national team.
Musovski told his parents over FaceTime. There were cheers and tears.
Musovski flew to Macedonia to get his passport soon after and met with coach Goce Sedloski while he was there.
He also got a chance to see two of his cousins during the trip, but it will be a much more sizable contingent of family flying to Copenhagen for the game — including his parents, father-in-law, and brother-in-law.
“It’s just a really cool experience that I’ll probably look back on way later and realize just how cool it is,” Musovski said. “But for right now, I’m just living in the moment and, still definitely appreciative of it, but also understanding that these are big games on the line, and a lot of people really want us to win.”
It’s a long way from that “micro” scale of Macedonian football he learned during the futsal tournaments that summer as a teenager.
“Now I’m going to be playing on this big macro scale on the national team,” Musovski said. “So for me, it’s just like an awesome full-circle moment.”