Join Now ANTI-DEVILISHMENT AND PRO-RIGHTEOUSNESS
One thing the auditor must not do is interrupt the person while in the middle of this major win or during the laughter. Otherwise it will invalidate the win.
One thing the auditor must not do is interrupt the person while in the middle of this major win or during the laughter. Otherwise it will invalidate the win.
In my entire 38 years, I've never, ever seen anything so sadistic, vile, immoral and mean-spirited.
US U-20 team: "Stay in school"
Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 03:57 PM by Dan Loney
Talking with Josh over at thecup.us about the U-20 World Cup, and how many freaking college kids the US is fielding. Here's a comparison of club affiliations of a few teams in the tournament. Spoiler on today's game at the bottom.
GERMANY:
Goalkeepers: Manchester United, Hamburg, Bremen.
Defenders: Frankfurt, Dortmund, 1860, Bayern, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Bielefeld.
Midfielders: Leverkusen, Bremen, Dortmund, Ahlen (never heard of them), Schalke, Kayserispor, Bursaspor (the last two are Turkish - fine, you knew that already)
Forwards: Leverkusen, 1860, Greuther Fuerth (who?), Bremen.
CAMEROON:
I don't feel like typing it out, but only six of them play for Cameroonian clubs. In fairness, the foreign clubs listed are not necessarily top of the line.
BRAZIL:
All domestic-based. That struck me as unusual, since Brazil has to be the most heavily scouted football nation.
And, the UNITED STATES:
FC Dallas: 3 players - Brek Shea, Josh Lambo, Pero Marosevic.
Chivas USA: 2 players - Gerson Mayen (who replaced CUSA teammate Anthony Wallace) and El Sueno.
Houston Dynamo: Danny Cruz.
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Hertha Berlin: Bryan Arguez.
Club Brugge: Jared Jeffrey.
Stabaek (Norway, apparently): Mikkel Diskerud. Grew up in Oslo, says this USSF interview.
The rest of the roster does not play professionally. Arguez actually replaced a college player, Sam Garza.
Paul Kennedy has background on some of the players, and it's...well....
This is the most wacky, random assortment pool of players I've seen since the 1990 World Cup team, if not the 1950 World Cup team. I have no idea whether such a random assortment of players making up a youth national team is an indictment or credit to coaches, players, clubs, talent pool, or God knows what. (Keep in mind that this is technically Jozy Altidore's class.)
But it sounds like this is the current state of US youth development:
(1) MLS clubs are focusing on winning today rather than developing youth projects - Jeff Agoos schooling Freddy Adu writ large.
(2) Young US players are, in whatever percentage, (a) preferring to stay in college than try the pros and (b) avoiding MLS wherever possible.
(3) Shouldn't Generation Adidas be picking up a lot more of these guys? Or is Rongen just making wacky picks?
(4) A college scholarship still outranks an MLS contract (PLEASE at least tell me the guys on this roster are at least on freaking scholarship). For 99.9% of college athletes, yes, it's wise to focus on a career outside pro sports, but I mean, you'd think once you got to the level of the U-20 World Cup, you'd at least consider doing this for money.
(5) Unless all these guys, according to MLS, are only worth $12,000 a year or so. Tying into #1, if these guys don't help you win, and don't sell tickets...then by God, that's how much these guys are worth, and they SHOULD stay in school. This is a topic that we won't settle in a blog post.
(6) Like the main US World Cup team, we've got a few really good players, but no depth. The talent dropoff from starter (and Altidore) to sub is going to be an issue for US teams for the foreseeable.
(7) SPECIAL SPOILER EDITION ON TODAY'S CAMEROON GAME: Well, over the weekend, all this would have made one think US soccer development has totally stalled, and that we can't compete with world powers. Maybe not, as far as Germany, but today's game....
Well, of course, we don't judge player development by single games in U-20 tournaments, however important - we judge player development by whether these guys ever contribute to a pro team.
Still...are we better off than we look, or is Cameroon even more ********ed than we are?
GERMANY:
Goalkeepers: Manchester United, Hamburg, Bremen.
Defenders: Frankfurt, Dortmund, 1860, Bayern, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Bielefeld.
Midfielders: Leverkusen, Bremen, Dortmund, Ahlen (never heard of them), Schalke, Kayserispor, Bursaspor (the last two are Turkish - fine, you knew that already)
Forwards: Leverkusen, 1860, Greuther Fuerth (who?), Bremen.
CAMEROON:
I don't feel like typing it out, but only six of them play for Cameroonian clubs. In fairness, the foreign clubs listed are not necessarily top of the line.
BRAZIL:
All domestic-based. That struck me as unusual, since Brazil has to be the most heavily scouted football nation.
And, the UNITED STATES:
FC Dallas: 3 players - Brek Shea, Josh Lambo, Pero Marosevic.
Chivas USA: 2 players - Gerson Mayen (who replaced CUSA teammate Anthony Wallace) and El Sueno.
Houston Dynamo: Danny Cruz.
-----
Hertha Berlin: Bryan Arguez.
Club Brugge: Jared Jeffrey.
Stabaek (Norway, apparently): Mikkel Diskerud. Grew up in Oslo, says this USSF interview.
The rest of the roster does not play professionally. Arguez actually replaced a college player, Sam Garza.
Paul Kennedy has background on some of the players, and it's...well....
Quote:
SHEANON WILLIAMS. ...Williams left the University of North Carolina after one season and had a tryout over the summer at German champion Wolfsburg's second team. He spent part of the summer playing in the PDL.
TONY TAYLOR. The University of Jacksonville product came out of nowhere to make the U-20s and impressed with his speed up top in the opener against Germany. He didn't play for the Dolphins as a freshman and made only six starts as a sophomore. He was recently signed by Brazilian management firm Traffic, which owns Miami FC and has gone on a spending spree, snapping up the rights to young American talent since Fernando Clavijo came on board as its U.S. soccer director. Taylor trained at Norwegian club IK Start in August.
....
DILLY DUKA. ....Duka had a tryout with Belgian club Lierse and spent time training with the New York Red Bulls, with whom he had played in their youth academy.
TONY TAYLOR. The University of Jacksonville product came out of nowhere to make the U-20s and impressed with his speed up top in the opener against Germany. He didn't play for the Dolphins as a freshman and made only six starts as a sophomore. He was recently signed by Brazilian management firm Traffic, which owns Miami FC and has gone on a spending spree, snapping up the rights to young American talent since Fernando Clavijo came on board as its U.S. soccer director. Taylor trained at Norwegian club IK Start in August.
....
DILLY DUKA. ....Duka had a tryout with Belgian club Lierse and spent time training with the New York Red Bulls, with whom he had played in their youth academy.
But it sounds like this is the current state of US youth development:
(1) MLS clubs are focusing on winning today rather than developing youth projects - Jeff Agoos schooling Freddy Adu writ large.
(2) Young US players are, in whatever percentage, (a) preferring to stay in college than try the pros and (b) avoiding MLS wherever possible.
(3) Shouldn't Generation Adidas be picking up a lot more of these guys? Or is Rongen just making wacky picks?
(4) A college scholarship still outranks an MLS contract (PLEASE at least tell me the guys on this roster are at least on freaking scholarship). For 99.9% of college athletes, yes, it's wise to focus on a career outside pro sports, but I mean, you'd think once you got to the level of the U-20 World Cup, you'd at least consider doing this for money.
(5) Unless all these guys, according to MLS, are only worth $12,000 a year or so. Tying into #1, if these guys don't help you win, and don't sell tickets...then by God, that's how much these guys are worth, and they SHOULD stay in school. This is a topic that we won't settle in a blog post.
(6) Like the main US World Cup team, we've got a few really good players, but no depth. The talent dropoff from starter (and Altidore) to sub is going to be an issue for US teams for the foreseeable.
(7) SPECIAL SPOILER EDITION ON TODAY'S CAMEROON GAME: Well, over the weekend, all this would have made one think US soccer development has totally stalled, and that we can't compete with world powers. Maybe not, as far as Germany, but today's game....
Well, of course, we don't judge player development by single games in U-20 tournaments, however important - we judge player development by whether these guys ever contribute to a pro team.
Still...are we better off than we look, or is Cameroon even more ********ed than we are?
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Total Comments 28
Comments
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Nothing about SEAN JOHNSON!?!?!
U-C-F KNIGHTS! UCF LETS GOOOO KNIGHTS!Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 04:19 PM by FijiUnited 
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Never heard of Ahlen? And we had a YA there last year until he broke his eye!Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 04:28 PM by Reignking
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Think you forgot US U-20 Captain Kyle Davies who has been a regular starter for Dallas at Center back.
Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 04:32 PM by Onelongrunner
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FWIW, I watched the game on Eurosport and the announcers concluded that Tony Taylor was the only US player really worth talking about. Maybe Brek Shea. They were laughing at Ownby on his goal: "It's like he's running through molasses."
Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 04:41 PM by Seanin
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For some reason, knowing little to nothing about German football outside of Bayern Munich isn't embarrassing for non-German pundits, it is a badge of honor.Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 05:09 PM by CCinGermany
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From what I hear the German team is basically their 2nd squad, since something like 20 of the original callups were rejected by their clubs due to club needs.
For the Brazilian players, the coaching staff avoided the same issue as the Germans and decided to select Brazil based only. Obviously there are a number of U20 capable (more than capable probably) outside of Brazil. With that being said, all these players on the Brazil roster are professional players, most have played significantly at their club in the Brasileirao Serie A or B, not to mention practice time along with the best Brasilian based talent. No doubt most of these guys have been scouted by European clubs since they were 14,15 yrs old, but decided to stay at home until the time is right.Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 05:34 PM by Mengao81
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When did Anthony Wallace start playing for Chivas USA? Last time I checked, he was still employed by FCD.Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 05:57 PM by SonicDeathMonkey
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If nothing else, we need to make sure Duka plays somewhere, just because we can't risk losing a name like Dilly Duka from the annals of professional soccer.
Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 06:19 PM by JSCram3254
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About #4:
Don't the Generation Adidas guys get their school paid for if they don't make it in the league?Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 07:21 PM by ElRoss425
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Well of course there are some guys in the pool at major Euro clubs, but Rongen, for whatever reason, left them at home
Greg Garza is at Sporting Lisbon, Vincenzo Bernardo is with Napoli, Elllis McLaughlin is at Herthe Berlin with Arguez, Giuseppe Nazzari is at Bologna and Jared Jeffrey is at Brugge in Belgium (not major but not the Orange County Blue Star either).
There are also 8 or 10 pool players with MLS clubs, which you'd expect (including Tristan Bowen at Galaxy) and a couple more at MLS Academies (including the Galaxy's Marcus Watson and DCU's Bill Hamid)
Most of these guys weren't called in. You'd have to ask someone with an absurdly deep knowledge of that age group, like Sandon Mibut, whether these guys belonged and Rongen is just an idiot or whether the college kids are actually just better.
The answer of course is most likely a little of this and a little of that. (And you can certainly get some serous traffic going in the "Thomas Rongen is a Babbling Nincompoop" forum), making real conclusions elusive.
One kid may have had 5 Euro monsters slobbering for him but he decided to go to college instead. Another kid might have been a very late bloomer that nobody ever heard of. The next one may have played with an obscure US club and his coach was incompetent (or his Dad, same thing often enough) and he was just never seen by anybody. And certainly several of them have turned down Generation adidas offers in favor of college. On and on, with each one having a story.
I guess what I'm getting at is that there's just no one place we can point a finger. As long as they're passing out free college educations to elite soccer stars, a lot of them are going to go that route. It's never going to stop. It's not that different from American baseball players who get drafted andturn down piles of dough because they promised Mom they'd finish college or NCAA football (hand egg) All Americans who decide to go back or their senior year even though they could make millions.
Hell for all I know half the kids on the German team would have jumped at the chance to get a college education but had to settle for playing professional football.Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 07:49 PM by Bill Archer
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