Since when was he not on the first team? The most promising young players frequently go out on loan. This is no different than Chelsea sending Lukaku to Everton. If your young players are not regular starters, don't strand them on the bench. It's terrible for their development. As for why he chose Indy over some European club for his loan, it's because of the location, the comfort level with the manager, as well as the guarantee of playing time.
I agree, don't strand them on the bench. Spencer isn't at Chelsea though. He's at Molde. I'd like to see him making the Molde first team if we view him as a legitimately high prospect.
He is on the first team. Now if you're saying you want Molde (a serious professional team with Champions League aspirations) to start a 19-year old as their target striker, then that's sort of unrealistic. If Spencer were in MLS, he'd still probably be on loan this year.
I don't necessarily think this is a bad place for Ben to be this season. I watch a lot of youth soccer, and in my experience I think the toughest position to judge and evaluate a young player is a target forward. It is tough to tell if a player is scoring goals because of his height advantage against other young players, or if he has the skill to do it against grown men For a 19-year-old target forward like Ben, making the transition to adult defenders is the next step. Yes, the NASL is not a top league. But it will offer him the opportunity to test his skill against adults. That is a worthy step for him. And he will still only be 19 at the end of the season
That's my point, it'd be nice to see him at a level already where he's good enough to start at 19. 19 isn't that young in this sport. Best case scenario is he keeps developing and doesn't spend more than a year in the NASL.
Lots of things would be nice, but the fact is that a grand total of one player DURING the last U20 WC was starting for a professional team (and that was only because of an injury). We're still over a year away from the next WC.
That's not a fact. We won't count guys like Joya or Hernandez who had only gotten a handful of appearances. Yedlin started every Sounders game except on leading up to the World Cup with 12 starts. O'Neill started 8 starts before the World Cup. I'm not even going to count Luis Gil's starting appearances for RSL since 2011. Villareal had seven starts before the World Cup in 2013.
It should be noted that currently on their first team roster..............Molde has forwards listed that are 21 (Fredrik Gulbrandsen), 23 (Sigurdarson), 19 (Elyounoussi), 23 (Chukwu), and 16!!! 16-year old Sander Svensen has appeared three times for Molde since 2013. So what we can learn is giving young forwards a chance, but they preferred to send Spencer out on loan. [Lest we forget, Spencer has also appeared a couple of times for the Molde first team.] What does that mean? I don't know. If Ben stayed at Molde this year he'd probably be a reserve player with a couple of first team appearances. We'll just have to see if Ben is a full-time starter for Indy this season. If he's a squad rotation player for Indy, then I'm not sure what the point of the loan is. If he's a full-time starter than I think it was a good opportunity for him. Granted, I haven't actually seen Ben in club football. Only at youth levels with the US.
You are confusing "have started" and "have made an appearance" with "are starters". Gil, O'Neill, and Yedlin have gone to camp with the full senior team. Spencer is not at that point. I guess you can be disappointed with Spencer if you want, but I'm telling you it's not worth worrying about at this point. He's pretty much on the same track as everyone else.
I can't really follow what you are trying to say. You claimed that none of the U20 players were starting for their professional teams when four were regularly starting. Then you responded with some comment about Gil, O'Neill and Yedlin getting senior team caps. It's kind of been all over the place.
There are plenty of very promising players from the last WC (i.e. Stanko, Rodriguez, Trapp, Joya) who are not getting senior call-ups. It would be quite remarkable and very exciting if Spencer was good enough to be getting senior call-ups just months after the next WC. That would bode very well for his potential as a USMNT contributor. However, I don't really see the point in setting that as the expectation.
Well..................very few of our U20 prospects are getting regular first team games regardless of what position they play. Acosta, Delgado, Arriola, etc. have been. But none of the Euro prospects have I believe. I wouldn't be too worried about it right now. Two years from now if he's still at Molde and not playing, then I'd worry about it.
I think Spencer will get plenty of opportunities. He's one of only 3 forwards listed on the roster, and Sommer talked about wanting to give young guys chances to get reps and move up in their careers. Since it looks like Molde are well stocked with young forwards, a loan to a NASL team willing to play him a lot could also be a nice showcase to NA scouts for a potential sale down the road.
Maybe the comment was out of context or inappropriate but what started this all was: I was not talking about his ability to make the U20 team or contribute to it. I was talking about his long term projection.
Seems like there's a lot of talking past each other going on with Spencer. Can we all agree that... Spencer looks like one of our better current U-20 forwards The fact that a 94 and a 97(!) are getting playing time at forward for Molde while Spencer is loaned out doesn't look great, but that... Spencer still has an excellent opportunity to play and develop at Indy Eleven. He's only just turned 19 Spencer's season this year will do a lot to shape how promising (or not) his trajectory looks Big, tall, lanky center forwards have a tendency to develop slightly later than others Eh?
That's interesting. I didn't know that rule existed...........................but it kinda makes sense. Hopefully he'll be with the senior team at the 2015 Gold Cup anyway.