Why you say this? How can anyone conclude that any of these kids are early or late developers based on 3 games in the Nike friendlies and a tournament in Turkey. There are 1000's of big fast players that fit the mode of Wright but for whatever reason professional scouts see something in him that makes him different than just a big fast guy. Maybe it's his vision, and runs and soft touch? I agree that at U-17 it's too early to get hyped up about prospects, but from a scouting pov I think if a player hasn't demonstrated unique skills by U-12-13 then they may already be way behind the curve. The truly gifted players are identified as 11-12 years by scouts who are pay to know what they are looking at.
Yeah, it just seems like he is older because he was picked to make the 'World Cup roster at such a young age - quite frankly, way before he was ready. All my points remain the same. It has taken him since 2006 at Arsenal to lose the habit of trying to blow by people rather than think. Now that he can do it, he is still running into the age old speedster problem of being injury prone. If Theo becomes an impact player like they want him to be in England, it will because he overcame all of the things that come with being a speedster. His speed did get him signed by Arsenal, but it also drastically delayed his truly reaching his potential once he was there. He still might do it, but unlearning those habits are extraordinarily hard, even if you play for the person who is probably one of the best teachers in the professional game. If you get too caught up on one detail, you can miss the point - especially when it is uncomfortable to acknowledge - and clearly this is very uncomfortable point to acknowledge for many people.
According to USYNT twitter, USA tied Scotland 1-1. Gallardo with the goal and Velela with the assist. Scotland tied it up with 2 minutes left. That puts us in the championship game against host Turkey on Saturday.
I suppose I was not clear enough. The types of players the US needs to be producing more of is kids with the requisite athletic, technical, and tactical skills to make it on the world stage. There need to be more than one kid like Haji Wright (a few dozen, I'd say) who at least has the potential to be a great forward. I don't expect there to be few dozen of Haji Wright clones out there, but rather 15-16 y/o kids with the combination of physical and mental skills who might develop into special players over the next 5-10 years. In the past, finding the athletes has not been all that difficult in the US, although certainly there are a bunch more athletes not playing the sport. Combining inherent athleticism with technical skills is less widespread because of the reliance on parents who have never played the game, but there are probably still enough each year. The paucity of coaches in the US who can teach players how to read and play the game tactically reduces that number still more to the point where we are now: that Haji Wright is a bit of a revelation because he has at least the foundation on which to build into a star. You may see that there are a bunch of these kids out there now, but I haven't. There are some out there, to be sure, but I just don't see the numbers you do. I have seen the US outathlete and outhustle other teams at the U14 and U15 levels, and some kids absolutely are on par with their foreign peers, but overall I just don't see the depth of tactical quality you (and others) are talking about, although this seems to be changing. Heck, given the awful first touches and trapping I routinely see at the elite US youth levels, there are technical deficiencies as well. This current U17 cycle looks promising in terms of quality depth, but whether it is the beginning of a trend or an aberration is still to be seen. That said, I think we are focusing on opposite ends of the same issue. You look at the number of players with the requisite abilities to blossom at U17 and above and feel it is adequate and that it is where the system fails them (the latter being an inarguable fact). I feel that the number is inadequate because of all the wasted talent that never even gets to this stage, partially because of failings at the U9 and below level and mostly at the U10-U15 level. The overall problem indeed needs to be worked backward, and with the USL-Pro reserve league, and the DA, there is at least some hope on the horizon, but that shouldn't ignore the issues inherent at younger age levels.
First, you have way more faith in US scouting then I do. I think its getting better, but the notion that our scouts are doing a great job at 11-12 is a bit far fetched for me. I think you misunderstand what I mean by early developer. When you look at his build, his height, his shoulder width, you see someone who is either going to be a giant, or is pretty close to reaching his maximum growth. Thats fine, nothing wrong with that, just because you are ahead physically doesnt mean you wont stay ahead. But it does mean that over the next few years the average player hes facing is going to get much closer to him physically then he is facing at the U17 level. And its not that that is all he has going for him, its that it provides an advantage to him at this age that makes his performance against his age cohort less helpful in evaluating him then it does vs other players. Physically he looks like mismatch vs. a lot of the kids hes playing against, which is great. Hes using that to torch guys in these highlights. What I dont see is him going up against someone whose as big and fast, or as fast and quicker, which he will have to cope with at a higher level. Because some guys do start out ahead physically, and some guys catch up later, but by the time you get to an MLS level everybody is an athlete. And this is the case for any U17. Remember Adu torching guys at the 17 level? Then at the 20 level he was still good but not nearly as dominant? Then at the pro level hes struggled? At each level up his lack of size and lack of top end speed has been more and more of a problem. Now I like Wright as a prospect much more then I did Adu, but the U17 level is the easiest level to stand out in. Not everyone is on equal footing developmentally, and those who still are experiencing a lot of growth and physical development gain a lot. So Haji Wright on the U20s is going to be way more informative to me then Haji Wright on the U17s. Even the fact that hes a March kid is an advantage to him at this level. There is a well documented phenomena of kids born in the first 3 months after the cutoff have a noticeable advantage at getting selected to a youth team. But by the U20 level, with a few exceptions, everyone will physically be on more or less even terms. And this is why the U20 team, not the U17 team should be the focus of US soccer. The U17 too many kids are still in transition between being kids and men physically.
I would say this is a general rule of sports and falls under the physically dominant youth prodigy. You see it in the NBA with super athletic big men, who just dominate lesser athletes through college then hit a wall in the NBA because suddenly they are faced with their athletic peers. Similar in baseball with pitchers with cannon arms, you throw a 97 mile an hour fastball in high school and nobody will touch you, but suddenly in the pros you hit a level where you actually have to know how to pitch, because the guys can hit that. When you have superior tools at a young age you can often get by without superior technique, until suddenly your tools aren't as special as they were before.
Of course, I was just nitpicking, shitty morning. It's taken Walcott what, 6-7 years to figure it out? Haji won't get the luxury of playing at arsenal at 17 and having 6 years to improve there. It'll be interesting to see how he progresses. I'd personally rather have him at LAG than Bradenton.
I don't think we are that far apart in what we are saying. As for the scouting I think it is fair to say that many of the US youngsters are being scouted by foreign clubs pretty heavily. Case in point Ben Lederman and Ryan Palmbaum. Whether or not our coaches and scouts are learning this craft I have no idea. Wright will be an interesting one to follow. While there is no disputing that he physically leaves guys behind he also shows quickness and skills in a big frame that is usually found in smaller players.
And at the professional level, everybody is a smart athlete who know how to not let you do the main thing that you want to do. This is what Johan Cruyff had to teach folks when he was in charge at Barcelona. The famous story is how he had to tell them to move Pep Guardiola up because, even though they considered him their best player, they were holding him back because they thought that he was too small. Here is a quote from Pep's Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pep_Guardiola As Phil Ball writes in Morbo, "In his first week at the club, [Johan] Cruyff turned up unannounced at the 'Mini' stadium, a venue just down the road from Camp Nou used by the youth and B teams. Just before half-time he wandered into the dug-out and asked Charly Rexach, the youth team manager at the time, the name of the young lad playing on the right side of midfield. 'Guardiola – good lad' came the reply. Cruyff ignored the comment and told Rexach to move him into the middle for the second half, to play as pivot. It was a difficult position to adapt to and one not used by many teams in Spain at the time. 'Pep' Guardiola adjusted immediately, as Cruyff had suspected he would, and when he moved up into the first-team in 1990 he became the pivot of the Dream Team."[6] Who knows exactly what happened - there are a lot of legendary stories around soccer - but the theme of finding players that see the game more quickly than everybody else is a common one when it comes to identifying players that turn out to be world class.
If Wright basically just putting his head down and blowing past people his age with size and speed, I'm not sure the "traditional" approach -- throwing him up against bigger, stronger, more experience defenders he can't do that against -- will necessarily break him of these tendencies. It might just leave him floundering. Instead, why not keep him playing at a level where he can try things and learn new techniques without getting punished for doing so, and measure him by his improvement along these lines? If he figures it out, great. If not, and/or he shows no signs of ever being able to, then maybe you think about a position switch. If, on the other hand, he really is just outplaying people his age -- and my quick observation, from the same highlights you are seeing is that he may be; he seems to play with his head up and has more to offer than a single cutback, a ball behind the last defender and a heads-down sprint -- then maybe he's ready to move on, or close. I say this knowing nothing about his training environment in Bradenton; a few match highlights here and there don't tell us much about that. In short, I don't automatically believe every dominant teenage player needs to jump two levels in play to get better; what matters is what they need to learn and where/how best to learn it.
If he was born a day earlier Monterrey would never want him and he would suddenly suck. You're confusing innate talent with who gets picked for youth national teams. Don't worry alot of people confuse talented youth players with those chosen to youth national team rosters. I've said for years that its fun to follow YNT's and alot of good players will come from that structure, but more importantly its the development that comes outside Bradenton that is much more significant. We're confusing true development with YNT callups. Gallardo is a talented youth prospect no matter if he was born a day earlier or not. Its ok if we wouldn't have seen him on TV a few times.
There's no lineup in this U.S. Soccer report, though it adds a few details. Match was tied at halftime: The USA’s best chances in the first half were made possible by incisive play from midfielder Luca de la Torre, who set up Gallardo for the American’s opening chance of the second half. Though Gallardo saw that opportunity saved, he did well to chest down Alexis Velela’s 30-yard pass and race beyond the Scotland defense before coolly lifting a shot over the Scotland goalkeeper and into the back of the net in the 46th minute. With only two minutes remaining, Scotland tied the match through Ross McCrorie, who was able to elude his marker to slide home an in-swinging cross at the back post. http://www.ussoccer.com/news/u-17-mnt/2014/01/140123-usa-1-sco-1-aegean-cup.aspx
Dont take it the wrong way. Doesnt mean I dont think your opinions are worth listening to, or that that you arent capable of making your own decisions. Just in 20 years you will understand what I mean.
This team has been tearing it up since the Copa Mexico tournament last year, where they got 3rd place.
A more experienced GK would have gotten the cross that Scotland scored on. Oh well, let's see how they do against the home side, Turkey.
^I think it was an OG The GK punched it out but the player in front of him deflected it back in towards the net.
But by that same token, a more experienced defense would've handled the kick-and-chase attack that the US scored on. Both goals were ugly.