I just thought that I'd give Rubio his own thread. This kid is something special. I think we should let him play with the U18s.
There's are about 5 players that could contribute to our u18 team and Rubin is definately one of those players.
For one game every 6 months. Why are so many enamored with the concept of playing up for Youth national teams that rarely play. He's fine playing constantly in the form that our U17s have right now.
If there was talk of removing him from the program so he could play with the 18's then I would agree with you. I don't think 3628 is advocating that. This is precisely why more of the deserving U17 players should be called into those camps. This would be an ideal developing tool for those top players.
Why even mention removing someone from an everyday development residential training environment. He never mentioned it and I never alluded to it. You're shifting the point. A single camp is not an ideal developing tool for top players. It makes fans happy but development coaches realize its not the same as playing up every day for a professional team. Somehow we mistake playing up with national teams for sporadic camps as the same benefit as playing up for professional teams. Its not apples to apples. Its not going to kill the player to do so but it isn't the benefit that we think it is either. If its benefit is null then why do it.
The main point I was trying to make is that this kid is good enough to be playing with older players. Rubio is a much better finisher than Jack Mac was at his age. Rubio Rubin scores a free-kick goal at 0:47 against SKC's reserves.
That is why I mentioned it. He/They would still be "playing constantly in the form that our U17s have right now" with the added developement piece of a 10 - 15 day camp with older players X amount of times per year.
I guess if you phrase it that way then I'll agree. I wish we were talking about playing up with a professional teams U18s on a daily basis rather than a national teams sporadic camps. Its important where they train everyday not just once or twice a year.
I totally agree. An added piece to that is when those players leave for that short period of time that would open up some spots for those players that are 15-20 on the u17 depth chart to show their quality with the 1st team in front of Ritchie and the coaching staff.
Or not to show their quality. U17 is such an odd development/training/scouting/recruiting dilemma. It was established to qualify and win games, it then developed into a very rigid limited training environment for a few players without any guarantee of future quality, then it became a way for US soccer to introduce young players into national teams but not professional soccer and recruit dual nationals into our programs, then it became a semester based way to bring in players to scout up close from our national DA programs. It does a little of everything but nothing really well because of its limiations. We think its a way to develop players for professional soccer without any pro team to go to when their done but they train everyday but soon won't. Close Bradenton and take their funds to fill in the gaps of a true professionally led integrated development ladder.
I've already watched that video a dozen times. Jack did well against CONCACAF countries but Rubio has been doing well against the ones from CONMEBOL.
And you've seen all these games and know the exact type of goals Rubio has scored? And you know for a fact all of Jack's goals came against CONCACAF competition? They're not even really the same position anyways. You seriously need to stop comparing players to previous cycles. What does Jack McInerney (who just scored 8 goals playing 53% of Philadelphia's available minutes this season) have to do with Rubio Rubin?
I've seen many of the goals that they scored at that age. Why should I stop? It is nice to know that we are improving.
He got a lot of time and space to take those shots. As a pro he doesn't bring much to the game other than good instincts in the box. If he was a top athlete in some respect like Boyd I think he would have a chance at a higher level....but he's below average athletically.
He got another goal and assist today against Turkey in just about 30 minutes on the field. 3 goals/assists in 2 games against some good competition at the Nike friendlies.
One would have to think that much bigger clubs than Portland will offer him a contract after residency
Laying aside other options Rubin might have, I tend to doubt that MLS would allow Portland to offer him a homegrown contract. Portland was recently rebuffed in their HG claim to Erik Hurtado, a college player who played his club ball with the team that would later be taken over by the Portland Timbers. Unless I am mistaken, Rubin is in the same situation, having never played for the club prior to the formal Timbers takeover. That being said, we all know how much HG rules are a work in progress and if MLS were to allow Portland to sign Rubin, it would not be the first time that the rules were tweaked to facilitate the signing of a coveted young player.
We can look at the Stevie Rodriguez situation with ChivasUSA as a possible model for this issue with Rubin. Stevie was a part of the Cosmos West. After he went to Bradenton, the Cosmos West was enveloped by ChivasUSA. After Bradenton, Stevie went back to ChivasUSA to train...........playing in quite a number of games for their U18 academy team. http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club...an-rodriguez-signs-with-club-tijuana_aid23733 It's still unclear to me whether Rodriguez didn't sign with ChivasUSA because the league nixed it. Or if he was unhappy with the timeline laid out for his signing by the club. It's clear, though, that ChivasUSA wanted to sign him and couldn't get it done. It could have been a case where the league said the player could be signed as a homegrown, but needed to complete a year's worth of service with the academy/reserves before he could actually play a first team game. And Stevie simply decided he didn't like that timeline, and instead could sign with Tijuana immediately.