Both, and that's why I actually believe that Williams will be much more successful with U-17 than his predecessor.
Watching Georgetown play Maryland once again demonstrated how much teaching players how to play soccer makes a difference. Georgetown are to the point where they are recruiting players that would be considered "the cream". Maryland recruited "creme de la creme", yet Georgetown players are taught how to play soccer during their time at Georgetown. The difference is stunning. Maryland did as well as they could through individual quality and battling to the very end, but Georgetown won by playing superior soccer, even if their players didn't always have the quality to finish off their attacks. They had enough quality to squeak by Maryland in a shootout. People who have never learned how to teach the game often have a hard time understanding how much of a difference you can make in the career of a player by teaching him how to play - even in the 18 - 22 year old range. Georgetown demonstrated it against Maryland. The real proof is in how well Georgetown's players are able to do as professionals. The trouble they will face is finding other players to link up with outside of Georgetown who will understand how to take advantage of their superior movement without the ball or their ability to find players without hoofing the ball in front of the goal the way Maryland did. I will be interested in seeing how the Georgetown players do in the pro game or how many are able to actually make it. Maryland deserve credit for their individual quality and for their fighting spirit, but anyone who understands the game has got to marvel at the quality of soccer that Georgetown displayed. I don't know if they can repeat their performance on Sunday - the turnaround time is very quick and it is obvious that Georgetown's players are new to this kind of experience, but the quality of play that they showed really left an impression on me. Georgetown are my new favorite college team! Also, having watched Indiana top Notre Dame, I can't say that I am surprised to see them in the final and I wouldn't be surprised if they won it all. They have a lot of quality as well. Georgetown play superior soccer, but Indiana have very good players. Andrew Oliver isn't cracking their lineup because, at this moment, he isn't good enough to crack their lineup. They are a legitimate contender. I would like to guess a winner for the final, but who knows? I want Georgetown to win because of the way they play, but I cannot ignore Indiana's quality. I actually think that Indiana is a tougher team to play than Maryland in some ways, who really don't play a high level of soccer when you consider the quality of their players. A great final on Sunday with two compelling teams and a lot of compelling players that may be better players than a lot of people realized during the regular season. Picking an under 20 team is a crap shoot because everybody is still getting better. Guys who were considered the very top players are being caught up to by kids who are quietly learning more and improving even more than the top players. Honestly, Tab Ramos job of picking the best players is a tough, fluid task.
I haven't seen a lot of Georgetown, but was hugely impressed by them. Was I watching the next Akron? Who is this coach Wiese? A buddy of mine I was watching the game with said he was from Stanford (under Bobby Clark at the time), and that he got a degree in mechanical enginerring while he was there. Jeeeeesh. I went to IU, so I'm gonna have to root for IU. It's gonna be a close game. Indiana's already knocked out Notre Dame and UNC, so I know they can do it. I turned on the game yesterday right when Indiana scored, and I had no idea who the player was. Then they said it was Femi Hollinger-Janzen.....................and I thought, damn, that guy on Big Soccer was right! He scored the goal, but I'm not sure his overall game is good enough for this U20 team. [He also could have gotten that 2nd goal right before halftime.] There's a lot of competition in the attacking positions. What did people think of Tomas Gomez in goal for Georgetown?
I'm more inclined to agree with the second half of this statement than the first. With pro leagues as athletic as ours, tactical development will only take a player so far. As for Maryland, it bears mentioning that their development track record is a good one, including players like Zusi who weren't considered creme de la creme when they arrived on campus. I don't know what you would've said about their coaching in the past, but this year in particular, I felt that they were gaming the system. Their individual talent was much deeper than anyone else's, so instead of working to develop team play, they tried to run their opponents into the ground. Even with the bad day they had yesterday, it very nearly worked. Finally, while I share your enthusiasm for Georgetown's coaching, how about the impact of the MLS youth initiative? In particular, I'm thinking about Brandon Allen (NYRB striker) and Keegan Rosenberry (Philly attacking right back), who are very polished for freshmen. The Hoyas also rely heavily on midfield orchestrator Ian Christianson (Fire). With Maryland, the strengths and weaknesses were obvious. Indiana looks like a much more balanced team. Based on how they've looked in the tournament, I don't understand how the Hoosiers struggled so much toward the end of the regular season.
I find these statements ironic. If they have superior movement (which they do) they are very easy to play with and are open and create passing lanes for themselves and their teammates making playing with them easy and productive. I also assume that the players in the MLS who play the game fulltime also improve their movement and player recognition at a more advanced level. Good players are good players and are recognized as such and a significant part of that skill is movement and understanding space and time on the pitch. I'm sure GT players will be recognized for this fact and it wil of great advantage to them and not a hinderance. I don't think MLS will say you have great movement and create terrific passing lanes but our professional players don't know how to play with you.
The defining moment of the game for me was Georgetown's second goal. Georgetown had a cross over hit from the left end line. Neumann was chasing it as it went over his head until he saw a player coming out of midfield to collect it. Instead of running a couple of steps to the side and looking for a rebound or running straight to the goal as the Maryland players did so many times, he ran a good five to eight yards back outside of the penalty area so that he was in a position to get the ball at his feet and face the play. Obviously he did a nice job turning and chipping the ball into the far post, but the movement that he made to get the ball in that position is something that you almost NEVER see in college soccer, yet Georgetown looked to do that kind of thing ALL GAME. Their players understand that a really good player forces defenders to commit one way or the other. If you don't go all the way out and mark someone away from goal they will be able to pick you apart with the ball at their feet. If you go out away from the goal to deny them the ball, they run straight past you and get the ball one on one with the goalkeeper. Georgetown are the type of team that score goals where the opposing coach is always whining about his own team's "defensive mistakes" when it was really about the play of Georgetown. When you commit to teaching players how to play, you don't raise their play five or six levels in one season. What you do is you aim to raise everybody on your team up one level in comparison to their peers. Different players on the team will have different levels of success depending on how hard the commit themselves to getting better, but generally you expect for players that play for you to rise up at least two to three levels in comparison to their peers during the time that they play for you. Look, I can sit here and argue that just about any big name coach is a great coach and it will all be based on parts of the truth that I select to fit my argument, but the fact of the matter is that very few college coaches teach their kids how to play good soccer because they don't have to. College soccer has always focused primarily on won/loss records or winning championships. There is nothing wrong with trying to win. I am just excited to finally see a coach who understands that teaching players how the game works and how to make great decisions quickly is what leads to more skillful, quick thinking players. Most coaches and most fans don't understand that it is all about challenging players mentally that leads to the most skillful play. Obviously people come from different starting points in college, but Wiese gets it. He understands what Ajax learned in the 60s and what Barcelona learned in 90s and what few college coaches have the desire to learn today - that the key to developing players to the top of their potential is to challenge them mentally. I knew this game was different when I started to notice that Georgetown's player kept passing up chances to cross the ball into a congested area to instead look for a chance to create a numerical advantage. Maryland's defenders were used to camping out in the box and winning the ball when it get's hoofed in. Georgetown forced them to come out and get the ball so that they could run behind them. We can get bogged down in details, but the import detail is that this is not another Johnny come lately as far as teaching the game is concerned. We will wait and see what Wiese's other qualities are, but as a teacher of the game, he is outstanding.
You have never made a run and had someone not pass you the ball, have you? In addtion, when you have the ball at your feet and everybody either runs straight forward or stands in front of the goal waiting for you to hoof it in - have you ever experienced that? Even in this forum we have people talking about how Ben Lederman isn't that great. A guy like Messi is a world beater scoring three times the amount of goals as a normal world class striker on Barcelona, but when he plays for Argentina and his teammates don't make those same runs, people talk about how he is not all that great.
I have watched so many bad college games through the years I often get frustrated with the false frantic pace, the defenders who just kick the ball to covered forwards upfield, players missing open players 10 feet away from them. When I watched them vs Notre Dame (who plays similarly) San Diego and MD I concur on all points. They hold the ball around the box instead of ripping low percentage shots on goal or just kicking the ball 'into the mixer' hoping to get lucky with a defender's errors. I think we're seeing a shift where quality possession soccer being played the right way is being taught and are winning championships with Akron, Louisville, UCLA, North Carolina, and Georgetown all proving that the game being played right by fairly skillful players can out think, out play, and out wit a team that just goes in a linear straight ahead direction at full speed all the time.
Of course MLS isn't Messi/Barcelona good but its not SPL, English championship kick ball either. MLS players do often find players making good runs and get open easily. I watch enough MLS to know that the good Georgetown players will succeed and fail on their overall qualities and not get cut because they get open too much for their professional teammates to fail to see them on a constant basis.
Okay. I see what you are saying. I was referring to them playing with other college age players. Once they get into MLS, it will be a different story. That is what I will be interested in seeing - how many of these kids actually make it in MLS and how well do they do? Time will tell.
And I thought you were talking about their professional success at the next level. Miscommunication solved.
It's not even clear what position he'd play at a higher level, but he's a gifted young player nonetheless. For that reason, it makes sense to get him some exposure to the game's higher levels. (As an aside, the NCAA needs to change the stupid countdown rule that wiped out his second goal.) I hope my judgment is premature, but I haven't been too impressed. In the games I've seen, he hasn't really impressed me much, under-sized and too often out of control going for balls in the air.
I am slightly concerned about who's going to play in goal for this U20 team. The players Ramos has called up so far this cycle have been Kendall McIntosh, Zac Steffan, Cody Cropper, Kamil Kaminski, Jon Kempin, Jake McGuire, Daneil Medina, Tyler Miller, Andrew Wolverton, and Jesus Guzman. And that's a whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooole lot of question marks for me. I know people write in Cody Cropper for the job, but I havent' seen enough of Cropper to have any opinion. Are people just writing in Cropper because he's in England? He was on our 2011 qualifying squad..................... There just doesn't seem to be "the guy" out there with only months to go until qualifying. Last cycle we knew MacMath would be starting in goal. In 2009 we were pretty confident with either Sean Johnson or Brian Perk in goal. In 2007 we knew it was going to be Seitz. Right now..................I guess it's Cropper. I guess.....................
Of the names on this list, Tyler Miller stands out to me. He was named first-team all-Big Ten this year and has looked very solid when I've seen him. There was also a pretty good crop of college freshmen this year, none of whom have been called yet, led by Alex Bono at Syracuse, Jeff Gal at Creighton, and Wade Hamilton at Cal Poly. Not that any of these guys is necessarily great, but they're all much better options than McIntosh, who made only one appearance for Santa Clara this year and allowed five goals to San Jose St.
The injury wasn't too major. He was out for two months, but he returned this past week to play for the U-21 side against Man United, and he actually played quite well. He kept them in the game.
I hope so also . He plays very well when he is facing the ball but anything in the air he is a complete mess as we just saw today and Friday night
I don't know about anybody else, but I was pretty disappointed in the college cup final from a U20 perspective. I think you can put some blame on Tomas Gomez for IU's only goal. He came out for the ball, didn't get it, and was in no-man's land. Andrew Oliver came on, but was non-descript. The Georgetown players just looked gassed. Brandon Allen didn't play to the level which he had earlier in the tournament.
Just saw this on the Yanks Abroad forum: Marc Pelosi is flying off to Singapore to participate in the NexLions Cup 2012. This is the first year of this mini-tournament and will feature teams from Liverpool, Man U, Singapore and Sporting Lisbon. LFC squad is Liverpool: Goalkeepers - Tyrell Belford, Ryan Fulton; Defenders - Lloyd Jones, Ryan McLaughlin, Bradley Smith, Naill Heaton; Midfielders - Jordan Lussey, Jack Dunn, Kistoffer Petersson, Marc Pelosi, Yalany Baio, Joe Maguire, Daniel Trickett-Smith; Forwards - Adam Morgan, Samed Yesil, Jerome Sinclair, Jordon Ibe. Perhaps these games will be streamed or televised in case people want to check out Pelosi..................
Yanks Abroad @YanksAbroad Adam Henley was invited to the U.S. U-20 camp, and was considering accepting before Blackburn nixed it. Definitely a story to keep an eye on