just watched this for the first time in a long time. http://www.nike.com/nikesoccer/dtom It struck me how young a lot of our current team looked, also the fact that most of those guys in the video still make up the core. I am actually fine with this, but aside from Bradley, I do not really see anyone that has been good enough to push his way into the side. Newly found German Americans aside, where is the payoff from our youth programs? from the introduction of the MSL itself? Am I too early in expecting this to have paid off by now? and finally...has our decade or so of success been just all down to another german creation, Landon Donovan?
Um.............. U23's failed to qualify for the Olympics U20's failed to qualify for the U20 World Cup U17's lost to Uzbekistan in the last U17WC, before being demolished Germany. Yes, there are some individual talents amongst those squads........................but not a pool of talent to take us to the next level. [Meanwhile Mexico won the Olympics, won the U17 World Cup, and finished 3rd in the U20 World Cup. Talk about apples and oranges.] By the way, we heard rumors last year that this might be Bradenton's last cycle. Youth development is slowly transitioning into the domain of MLS and the development academy. So there's an understanding at the USSF that the current model isn't working. Sure it's better than we had 15 years ago, but that's not saying much. As far as a kid that's ready to break into the national team right now, I'd say its Josh Gatt. He could provide pace on the wings that's sorely needed.
Altidore, Corona, Boyd, and Shea have been getting caps. Youth professional development has never been a strong point in American soccer. Given the professional attainment of the mid career and veteran American baller, being a phenom, being promising in MLS, or getting minutes in a mid-tier Euro league isn't quite the filip of days past. In this way the program is maturing not having to rely on over-promoted youth.
The US professional system still has a very shallow, mediocre focus on development. Most of our 15-18 year olds are still not really in true professional environments. BUT, we do have far more mid-teens than ever in new, mediocre training environments, which is a quantity improvement over a decade ago. And it is why I think we are actually developing a rather large group of adequately solid pros. MLS is full of decent 2nd tier Americans, the type of guys who would all have been competing for the US Nat's in the 1990's. Just think of all the solid defenders, midfielders, keepers, and forwards who are solid pros, but just not quite good enough for the Nat's. The next step is to have a couple of dozen full-time, year-round, professionally run academies -- 20 or more setups better than Bradenton. From that we should be able to develop some more elite pros, somewhat more systematically than the sporatic hit-and-miss process under the single academy at Bradenton. The talent pool is wider than ever thanks to the creeping professionalism in US soccer. But we still are not set up to develop enough true elite players. And it's the elites you want for your national team.
When you join a team in Europe, they baptise you with magic Euro-powder. From that point on, all of the good things you do can be attributed to the powder, all of the bad things to your unfortunate American heritage. It's still not clear how he won the Golden Ball at the U-17 World Cup in the first place - I'm guessing that he secretly spent some time as a child in La Masia, but admit it's possible that the entire World Cup was fixed by Nike for promotional purposes.
the next generation is a few years away, and this generation is a few years away from expiring. Fabian Johnson Jozy Altidore/Terrence Boyd/Juan Agudelo? Brek Shea Joe Corona? Danny Williams Michael Bradley (i mean he is only 24 i think) Maybe Gatt but i do worry he's a lot more hype than substance Timmy Chandler if we ever take him back and if he ever wants to come back Eric Lichaj...maybe And we always seem to get a couple late bloomers as well, so i mean the next generation core isn't obvious but i think we are seeing the beginnings of one brewing
In the old days we'd have a guy like Pope and we put him in and he measured up. In the current era we have raised our expectations and don't think anything of young MLS players so we mistakenly believe that we have to grab whomever is playing in Europe and "wait" for the MLS youngsters to "develop". None of the "new generation" is ever going to get a chance or the attention they need to develop. The only team in MLS that I followed more than a little was Dallas and they have 8 starters who could give most Championship League teams a fair fight. The problem is that there just isn't the expectation of good play on the team and the 3 stinkers pretty much destroy the team. So you have some good players languishing in a poor culture. What I'm saying is that you have to beware of judging somebody on the basis of how they perform for an MLS team when comparing them with European players. Sometimes the MLS player is better but he looks like crap because of the MLS culture. Also bear in mind that the MLS stops its best players from going to Europe.
You seem to be confusing "stops its best players from going to Europe" with "refuses to accept the first low-ball offer that comes along."
Take a look at this post from morange on this thread He mentions 11 players of which two are in the MLS and one has a "?" after it along with one MexLeague player, also with a "?" next to it. All the others are in Europe. Notice how confident people are when it comes to ticking off the boxes next to Euro players. 19 yrs old CB's in Europe are "hot prospects" placed confidently right under Gonzo (defender of the year in the MLS last year) for that position (I'm thinking Brooks) but 23 yr old MLS players are "too young". Gonzo should be called up because "it is his turn" but Brooks should be called up and play because he is promising while MLS promising players should go to camp cupcake.
umm the guys i picked were because they have been on our NT squads consistently under klinsmann (or the end of bradley's tenure) Danny Williams is starting for our NT right now, Fabian Johnson has been for almost a year, michael bradley has for multiple years, altidore is in the same boat. Boyd has been getting a fair amount of callups so he might be on the edge but i thought he was worth listing, as was agudelo even though he's been in a rough patch in his career. Gatt i pretty much put a question mark on, and same with lichaj (who i am not a big fan of besides the fact that he's pretty fast). Timmy chandler was a consistent starter for us before he decided to not play for us prior to qualifying, but you never know if he comes back and JK decides to give him another opportunity. I don't see where you point fits in necessarily. I only picked guys who actually participated on the NT extensively at some point and are young. Gatt is the only exception that fits your point, and i only listed him because people have been hyping him up so much that i didn't want somebody complaining that i didn't mention him. If it would make you feel better I can remove him.
[Fabian JohnsonJozy Altidore/Terrence Boyd/Juan Agudelo?Brek SheaJoe Corona?Danny WilliamsMichael Bradley (i mean he is only 24 i think)Maybe Gatt but i do worry he's a lot more hype than substanceTimmy Chandler if we ever take him back and if he ever wants to come backEric Lichaj...maybe] umm.. you can take Fabian, Danny and Timmy out of that equation right? It's about producing homegrown talent. I'm basically looking for homegrown talent to be showing up in the nats - as in prime time and ready to roll. Just look at our neighbors to the south. I don't care that much where they play their club ball. For the record, I don't really watch that much MLS and when I do I'm put off by the sloppy defending. But that's a whole different topic. My point is, I was hoping that by this point the US would be producing it's own talented pool of players, but it just doesn't seem to be doing so yet and I coiuldn't understand why not. I think Mr. Martin summed it up best for me.
Soccer is very much a grass roots, bottom-up proposal. It is the one sport where you can't just take it up at 16 and find out you have the raw makeup of a world class player. So what we're seeing now is basically the state of our U-8's and U-10's fifteen years ago. I personally believe that the state of US soccer will skyrocket in about ten years. Why? Because the first large generation of kids to grow up playing, watching soccer and having a chance to play pro is only just arriving into their 40's now. They're the dads and coaches that will be crucial in forming team 2022.
my bad i didn't read your post closely enough, i more was responding to the title of the thread. Yeah it's one of those things that will improve as the game organically grows in our country. I know a lot of people believe that the introduction of a free-to-play academy system will work wonders for our youth prospects, but i am not one of those guys who are all into the european academy system, i think they have their advantages but in general, if a kid plays with a soccer ball everyday and masters his technique at a young age, and has good coaching to help him develop a higher soccer IQ and not instill bad habits, he should be fine (even if that's only at a more local club or aau team). I will say academies are nice as they operate year-round and help instill discipline and work ethic into the kids. This allows them to adjust to the rigors of a full year schedule and a professional environment. However it won't magically turn our players into a bunch of messi's or even thierry henry's. That's only going to happen as a result of organic growth and (as a result hopefully) smart monetary investment put into soccer in this country. When that happens you'll start seeing more higher quality prospects emerge in this country. But it's not like we don't have any. Brek Shea, Will Bruin, Juan Agudelo, Luis Gil, Nick Deleon, Jack Mcinerney, Kelyn Rowe, cj sapong, omar gonzalez, bill hamid, sean johnson, and im sure a few others im missing are decent prospects. Maybe not world beaters, and not enough to make that next generation "core" but i could see a few of these guys being solid contributors to our NT.
MLS is a significantly lower level of league than LigaMX. Young players doing well in LigaMX[Torres, Castillo, Corona, etc...] are just going to be further ahead in the queue for the US and Mexico than their MLS counterparts are. The young MLS player of today has to compete with a much larger pool of foreign-based talent than he would have faced a decade ago. Talent-wise there's nothing wrong with MLS based pool; lack of youth professional development and competition from foreign based players means opportunities are more limited despite the broadening of the pool. The typical MLSer getting significant minutes for the first time is going to be older---Cameron, Zusi, Gordon, Beckerman, etc.... The biggest attacking prospect comping out of MLS is Chris Pontius, age 25.
I think this is spot on..but I would point out that we probably have 10-12 really good players under 18 playing / developing outside the US. Thus, there are those exceptions with parents who move overseas as well as cases where young talent have the ability to move abroad that our numbers are increasing. examples are Nick Gaitan, Emmerson Hyndman, Ben L, Kyle Scott to name a few
Michael Bradleys BEST development came with verbeek in eredivisie. and now on roma he isnt a sure fire starter. clint dempsey is considered by most spurs fans a midtable average player and quite often complain about his lack of tactical awareness and his slow ball movement. slow to think etc. our best I mean OUR BEST players are considered marginal in europe with the top sides. we have an extremely long way to go.
from what i've heard a lot of spurs fan felt he was a bargain for the price they got him. I don't think they consider him elite, but i think you might be overselling their critiques a bit. And we do have a long way to go, but that's fine, let's stick to the positives and say that at least we don't make a fool out of ourselves on the WC stage. Then hopefully we can build up and be able to have more players get into those top sides and be more than midtable average. It's not like we've been at this for 80-100 years and it's not like this is our top sport anyways.
Spurs fans in the US? Or the spurs fans in the UK? Spurs fans in the UK think very different from the US ones. On the message board I am a apart of for spurs the locals are not friendly to clint. some dont mind him but they feel he is what he is. Dembele is by far the better player.
mostly US and a kid from denmark, i don't really go to spurs message boards. You may be right, i don't follow the spurs nearly as closely but i can't imagine he's that bad.