2016 Olympic Qualifying Team

I'm not sure I share much urgency regarding the setting up of a U23 coach and program.

At this point, our U23 team should essentially be a youngish national team made up entirely of professionals already getting meaningful and regular club playing time. Such players can't (and shouldn't) be taken from their clubs for what amount to meaningless camps; neither should they require extensive, year-round camp time for team training or identification purposes.

There might be some value in some kind of setup to scout/check in on players who, at this point in the cycle, are not professional but might be by the time qualifying nears.

At some point, we can hope, our U20 program might function the same way.

A post-U20 CONCACAF tournament is an interesting idea, and would be fun to watch, but I imagine that it would be problematic. I would guess that it offers very little revenue opportunity, and many of the top young players from most nations not named Mexico or the United States are already heavily involved with their full squads.

 

Well screw you guys then!!!!!!!!!!!

 

For what it's worth, I would also love to see an off-Olympic-year U-23 team, but it's true that it's not very practical. Most would agree that the Olympics are a valuable experience, but it's hard to see how that valuable experience could be replicated in, say, 2014. As others have mentioned, there isn't much of an appetite for a CONCACAF tournament, and even if there was the standard of play wouldn't be very high. And if we're just talking about offseason MLS training camps for U-23s, that's not a bad thing but the upside of that experience isn't very high either.

 

Totally get your guys points on the practicality/logistics. I just wish there were some way to combat the arbitrary (albeit necessary) cut off dates.

For example- Juan Agudelo is about 8 weeks older than Jonathan Top. Agudelo's been ineligible for any YNT for over a year now, while Top still has 3 year's of eligibility left up to the 2016 Olympics. I just feel like guys miss out on tournaments and YNT games that would be great for their development and integration into the national team set up just because they were born in the wrong year.

 

Don't worry about Agudelo. The plan is for him to be injured enough this season so that he won't have much Euro interest this offseason, leading him to re-sign with the Revolution. Then comes the breakout as he and the other Revs youngsters lead the team to MLS Cup glory in 2014 and beyond.

Right?

 

In theory, that's what they should be. The reality, however, is extremely different. Even at the time of 2012 qualifying, many of our better U23 players had gotten little or no meaningful club playing time. And for those who'd gotten playing time, it wasn't necessarily in their best long-term position.

There aren't that many U23s who are heavily involved with their full squads. For instance, Guatemala fielded a young, experimental team against us, and even so, only one of their starters was a current U23 (meaning born 1990 or later).

 

Let's put it this way. A U21 or U23 event would be an awful lot less stupid than the CONCACAF U15 tournament they recently announced.

 

There's the Pan Am Games in July of 2015. It's was an U-22 tournament in prep for the following year's Olympics in 2011, but the 2007 Pan Am Games was an U20 tournament, which was stupid because it overlapped with that year's U20 WC.

Toronto is the host, so if it's the same format as 2011, CONCACAF should do the top 3 (or however many spots CONCACAF has) finishers other than Canada at the 2015 U20 WCQ's, also qualifies for the Pan Am Games.

 

That's perhaps the case. Still, all I'm really saying is that the ultimate responsibility for finding match time for post-U20 American players seems to lie with MLS (and, I suppose, the minor leagues) and U.S. Soccer, not CONCACAF -- particularly for the ones who are on the older side of the Olympic four-year group.

If MLS as currently structured can't figure out a way to identify players who can compete for first-team minutes by age 21 or so, I've got to wonder what those players are doing on pro rosters in the first place when they could mostly remain in academies getting almost the same experience and training. That is of course a bigger issue.

I'm not sure what I think about this -- the Gold Cup is a very small sample of a sprawling confederation. There are six 93s (or younger) on GC rosters this year, all of them on non-Hex teams. That is obviously not many. But it's also true that for most of these countries, especially those not in WC contention any more, this is some of the best competition they will see for a while.

Anyway I don't think we are particularly arguing any point here -- just trying to figure out what makes sense given the rather complicated matrix that is soccer in the States.

 

Apologies for jumping in mid-sentence, but I feel like this is one of the major misconceptions on this board. From an MLS standpoint, it is a perfectly legitimate business strategy to rely on skilled players who are foreign and/or entirely developed elsewhere. As such, it has no direct responsibility for finding match time for post-U20 American players.

Of course, a lot of the top young Americans still aren't on pro rosters by the time they turn 21. This continues to be one of our challenges, and I think it's also worth emphasizing that plenty of "post-U20" players aren't close to 21 yet. Jordan Morris, Collin Martin, et al., are still 18.

More broadly, my viewpoint is that there remains a wide gulf between youth soccer and pro soccer in the US. It'd be nice to think that MLS will bridge this gulf, and steps have been taken in that direction, but even if this happens eventually, it clearly isn't an imminent possibility. In the meantime, US Soccer's policies should respond to the on-the-ground reality.

 

I agree that MLS teams should not be induced to play unqualified players in their first teams because it's "good for their development." But surely the league has in an interest generally in finding competitive matches for the players it signs, otherwise why bother signing them? I suppose there might be some degree of fear that prospects might be otherwise lured to foreign or other MLS clubs, but that doesn't seem to be happening in meaningful numbers.

This is true. For a range of reasons, a lot of top post-high school players who might be of interest to MLS clubs prefer to do other things besides play pro soccer -- such as go to college for a year or four. That limits the pool of players who can be signed as teens in a way that, I would guess, most other soccer-playing countries do not have to deal with.

When people connected with players considering pro careers have asked me for advice, I've suggested that they attempt to find a pro club as soon as 1) they are sure it's what they want to do with their life and 2) they get an offer (or offers). A great many top American prospects seem to make this decision later than foreign players.

Jordan Morris would already be a pro in almost any other country on Earth. That dynamic puts American players at a disadvantage in an aggregate sense.

I don't disagree. I've long believed the U17 program should be scrapped, the money redistributed (largely back to the U17s, but with a different emphasis) and some of it put toward finding increased training and playing opportunities for 18-21 year-old players who need a bridge to the pros.

I just don't see another CONCACAF tournament as helping us as much as other options that could be used in combination. Of course, that at least puts things on CONCACAF's dime. But what about, say, a regional U20 super league or part-time mini-residencies?

Heck, just helping a large number of youth clubs make their top age-group teams free to play (hopefully ensuring better competition and player identification) might make a bigger difference in making sure the right players are moving up into the U18 and U20 setups.

 

I think it's fair to say that MLS teams are still trying to figure how player development fits into their priorities, as well as how to make it work. As a result, sometimes players seem to get signed without a clear plan for what happens next.

And although I agree that MLS has an interest in developing US-based players, it's important to emphasize that this interest is limited by economics. If player development expenses are too great, then the league can survive just fine without it ... which is part of the reason that it has advanced so little down this road in nearly twenty years.

True as that is, the kids like Morris who could turn pro but don't are only one facet of our disadvantage. We've also got kids who don't get a chance to turn pro, and kids who do turn pro but aren't offered the same first-team exposure that comparable kids get in places like Argentina (even though their league is stronger).

 

Could not possibly agree with this statement more.

 

It looks like Collin Martin made his pro debut yesterday for Richmond. They beat the Whitecaps reserves 2-1. Martin played 85 minutes.

 

Any idea why the Kickers didn't let him play out the match? Was it injury? Attitude problems? Inexperience? Height? Width? Depth? Area? Volume? The fact that ODP is too political? Lingering aftereffects of college soccer? What if he had a Mexican grandfather? Would a European coach have made the same choice? Would he have started the match at all? Does this prove or disprove the assertion that American Soccer Is At A Crossroads?




Congratulations, Collin. Welcome to the pro game, and best of luck.

 

Martin wasn't able to finish the match because there's no system of promotion and relegation in this country.

 

DC didn't want him to be cap-tied to the Kickers...

 

USAprospects ‏@USAprospects 1m
'94 #usynt Jalen Robinson is trailing with Freiburg and loving it. Robinson has impressed in defense and in midfield. Elite US prospect

Wash Post wrote about him having EPL interest before he chose the college route. We'll see if this amounts to anything.

 

Penetrating questions.

The American soccer community deserve to know!