'Exceptionally bright young' Leeds United star hailed by Gary Lineker after impressive showing

United’s USA international midfielder Tyler Adams has continually impressed since signing for Leeds from RB Leipzig in the summer and the 23-year-old gained more huge praise for his composure in a spikey press conference ahead of his country’s Qatar World Cup Group Stage finale against Iran tonight.

USA captain Adams was criticised by an Iranian journalist for his pronunciation of Iran and then challenged on representing a country that has issues with racial discrimination. Adams, though, admirably kept his cool before delivering a measured response which has gone viral on social media and Lineker took to his own Twitter page to hail United's midfielder.

"Another exceptionally bright young footballer dealing with tough questions intelligently and gracefully," wrote Lineker in a post that itself gained over 13,000 likes.

In the exchange at Monday’s press conference, the Iranian journalist said to Adams: “First of all, you say you support the Iranian people, but you're pronouncing our country's name wrong. Please once and for all, let's get this clear. Second of all, are you okay to be representing a country that has so much discrimination against black people in his own borders. And we saw the Black Lives Matter movement over the past few years. Are you okay to be representing the US meanwhile, there's so much discrimination happening against black people in America.”

A composed Adams replied: “My apologies on the mispronunciation of your country. That being said there's discrimination everywhere you go. One thing that I've learned, especially from living abroad in the past years and having to fit in different cultures and kind of assimilate into different cultures is that in the US, we're continuing to make progress every single day.

"Growing up for me, I grew up in a white family with an obviously an African American Heritage and background as well. So I had a little bit of different cultures and I was very, very easily able to assimilate in different different cultures. Not everyone has that, that ease and the ability to do that and obviously it takes longer to understand and through education, I think it's super important – like you just educated me now on the pronunciation of your country. It's a process I think, is as long as you see progress. That's the most important thing.”