The Official US Impressive Little Kid Video Thread

Since I like these so much and instead of starting a new thread for each kid to somehow falsely indicate he will definately make it as a National Team Player, we can just add them here. I'd like to keep them here because fans of Youth National Teams I would assume would enjoy them. A few simple guidelines:
1-Must have Wow factor. No simple run of the mill nephews videos.
2-Must be American. Cue Lee Greenwood.
3-Must be over 3. No babies kicking balls please.
Let's see if this works. Get ready to cue Derrick Etienne Jr.............................3...2...1....

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XkjzrWtpFE"]Derrick (Robinho) Etienne Jr. The Maestro - YouTube[/ame]

great thread, but how about info on age/club/background for these kids too?

Looks like he's with NY Red Bull Pre Academy U14 team. There was a Derrick Etienne who played for the LI Rough Riders and the Haitian National Team. Could be Dad.
He was in last yrs U14 National Team Camp.

Rumors are that this team is kicking some butt in England.

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1804398

http://www.redbullsacademy.com/academy/rosters/players.aspx?RosterId=6

http://www.ussoccer.com/News/U-14-N...-Somerset-NJ-for-Week-Long-Training-Camp.aspx

4. And no stupid annoying music. Your video is out.

Its not MY video. I got it from Youtube and....Youtube has a mute button so making up annoying rules is out.

Why does he have to be over 11? If he's got the goods and is younger, who cares?

Little Hassan Ayari is one of my faves for this genre, but he's only 8. There's a bunch of him:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuscEitPPu0"]Youth Soccer Develpmt, U10 Small Sided Games - Part 2 - Feat. 8 Yr Old Hassan Ayari - YouTube[/ame]

Official Rule Change: Any Age.
Just has to be good. Can we please keep the no babies kicking a ball?

Why are you discriminating against "Little Messi"??

Official Rule Change has been added to have no age restrictions. Except babies.

Never seen the movie "Baby Geniuses" have you?

I'm getting queasy just thinking about it. I think this started my irrational fear of babies years ago.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5x5OXfe9KY"]Oogachaka Baby - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSQj1nexXk0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSQj1nexXk0[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff9KpB20E5c"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff9KpB20E5c[/ame]

So the kid can dribble. Didn't see his shot at all. I know a couple of pit bull players in the Chicago area that would would not over commit like most of the defenders on the video and stuff him and send him packing.

Fancy footwork is about 10% of the game. Reminds me of playground basketball

The thing I like about the vids is that the kids seems to read the game well.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvMk43IC3yk"]This Kid Is Sick!!! Only 11 years old!!! - YouTube[/ame]

Kid started the most games for Solar Chelsea's U18s this past season. A '93 graduating in 2012 who's a midfielder.
http://ussda.demosphere.com/teams/27484436/27485058-27484530/18215124.html

I guess it helps having 9 USYNT players on their team . NYRBs have some serious young talent in their academy.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zEVuiF5-CM"]Zachary Herivaux - 13 Year-old Soccer Phenom - YouTube[/ame]

Already a YA thread on him, but just for anyone who's missed it. Unless he's selected for Bradenton, he'll be spend his first season with the Revs U16 academy team this year. Here's a new video of him, not doing tricks, but doing something nice regardless.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Eyb6IUGhU"]Zachary Herivaux 15 yr-old Haitian Japanese US National Soccer player - YouTube[/ame]

It looks like he hasn't been called in since. Another player from the videos, Wesley Wade, looks to have been called into a few more camps. Etienne looks good though.

Really? We complain that our youth players have no ball skills and play kick and run and when we show a quick player with tremendous ball skills we complain that he doesn't have a shot or the defenders were weak. You call them fancy footwork for a 13 yr old I call them ball skills. 90% of the game are ball skills and he has them.
Enjoy the videos for what they are. You can't watch that video and enjoy his ball skills of a young player? Skill that many think we don't have.

It sounds like if he isn't called into a U14 camp he's not considered good. Two Points:
We really don't need to bring this young of a player into camps for a week at a time.
Let him develop in a competetive environment and NY Red Bull Academy is just the right place.
There really aren't alot of U14 camps and there really shouldn't be so to draw a conclusion on something they really shouldn't be doing in the first place and doing it sparingly they probably at least understand on some level that to expand your pool tremendously to hundreds of players is valuable not to limit that pool to 30 or 50. Younger ages need large basis of players and should be allowed to develop in good environments over time.
Any definitive decision as to his overall skills physical and ball should wait until he gets to puberty.

I don't disagree that he seems to be developing nicely at Red Bull. But looking at the dates of the U-14 camp he attended, there have been 4-5 other camps since and a trip with the U-15s that he hasn't been a part of. The players that have been brought back in for subsequent camps since, many of them his NYRB teammates, show how the group is progressing towards the U-17s and possibly Bradenton. That is the nature of the YNTs, and players start to move forward in groups.

That's not to say that he won't get a look again. Personally, seeing his skill level, I hope he gets called back in. We need to start developing our own American Ribery/Nasri/Robinho's. These video's are great because the technique is fantastic. I just hope that they are not getting that creativity coached out of them to become lateral passing drones.

Why does it matter if he gets called back into these nearly pointless camps? He's 13 or 14 and in a great environment. He's not going to develop into a Ribery just because he's going to YNT camps. It's going to be the NYRBs who'll be responsible his development, not U14/15/17/18/20/23 Youth National Teams.

I'm not sure if this is the right place, but figure I'd ask anyway. I love the close ball control that I see from all these kids and don't doubt that having a significant number of players capable of such feats would greatly improve the full US team someday. It would certainly be the first step towards being able to mimic something like the way Barcelona plays, or just even better manage our possession period without going to that extreme.

That said, and while I would never want to coach any of this creativity out of them, when is becoming a more complete player supposed to be taught? It is certainly possible that these kids all have these skills and they just weren't shown in the videos, but the thing that seemed to kill our U-20 and u-17 teams weren't really bad ball skills.

Close dribbling skills doesn't mean anything if your first touch when receiving the ball is so bad you give the ball away before you can even think about dribbling. Same with if you can't accurately cross the ball, pass it 20-30+ yards worth a damn, have no vision or don't know how to link up with other players.

Again, I'm not saying that these kids can't do all of the above, maybe they can. What I'm really asking is when and how are the interplay skills that are the primary, but not sole way in which most offensive in soccer is generated supposed to be taught so that they don't also destroy the individual artistry seen here?

AWESOME THREAD!!!

Let's have at it!