Besides being 18 year olds of Mexican heritage who grew up in the US and have become among the best professional soccer players from this country their age, what else do these four players have in common? JUAN PABLO OCEGUEDA – Age 18 – Tigres where he became the starting left back with their U20 team for the past 2 years. Considered by many to be a top player in the US U20 National team pool. LUIS GIL – Age 18 - Real Salt Lake where he played his first game a year ago and is already a frequent starter. Was considered by many to be the most talented player on 2009 U17 team and is considered by many to be a top player in the US U20 National team pool. STEVIE RODRIGUEZ – Age 18 – Tijuana where he recently signed and is a starter for their U20 team. Started every game for the US in the 2011 U17 world Cup team. CHRISTIAN HERNANDEZ – Age 18 – Recently signed by the Philadelphia Union and scored against Everton last year when playing with the Union as a member of their youth program. Is Mexican and not eligible for US youth national teams but was the 2011 US U18 academy player of the year.
I'll bite- my guess is that all played together on the same club team, either Pats or some variation of the Italia team. By the way, I'm not at all surprised that Chris was signed by the Union. He was technically one of the best ball strikers I've seen in the youth ranks.
It is probably Italia. I know that Gil played for the Pats, and for some reason I thought the others did, at one time, as well. It just shows that if you reduce or eliminate pay-to-play, good players will find each other. From what I remember, those Italia teams were a labor of love.
Peretz and Headerdunce I guess it is no surprise that you are on the right track. Yes they all did play for Italia but the answer I was looking for was much more specific than that. I'll put up two other posts. I'm thinking Peretz48 has the inside track to give us the answers.
This group has something different in common than the first group. But it is also similar in an even more remarkable way: Eder Arreola – US U20 National team pool – UCLA; Chino Hills, CA. Jesus Gonzalez – US U20 National team pool – CZ Elite; Burbank, CA. Antinio Benitez – US U18 National team Pool – LAFC; Azusa, CA Pablo Cruz – US U18 National team pool – LAFC; Azusa, CA Omar Elmasri – US U18 National team pool – Chivas USA; Arcadia, CA Richard Menjivar US U18 National team pool – LAFC; Panoramma City, CA
Some wild guesses- 1. They've all been coached by scoachd1; 2. They've all posted at www.socalsoccer.com; 3. They all were on teams that got beat by Italia. You've stumped me.
Perhaps all played high school ball? Or maybe none played a full season of Academy? Or all played in the Hispanic leagues? If none of these I'm out of guesses.
All could be true I suppose, but there is only one that I know you are wrong about. Given what you seemed to know about Italia and the fact there is a pretty big clue in second one I thought you would get it. Here are three different groups that should be more obvious. Jaime Villareal – US U18 National team Pool – LA Galaxy, Inglewood CA Jose Villareal – US U23 National team Pool – LA Galaxy, Inglewood CA Emilio Orozco – US US20 National Team pool – Tigres; Oxnard CA Moises Orozco – US U20 National team pool - Tigres; Oxnard CA Christian Hernandez – PDA - 2011 US U18 academy player of the year Raul Mendiola – Arsenal - 2011 US U16 academy player of the year
The Villarreals played together at South Bay Force and then at Pateadores, The Orozcos at Real So Cal, and Hernandez and Mendiola at Arsenal (I think).
Sorry about the delay. I'm pretty busy early in the week and still marvelling at that way Porter had his team using an attacking minded 4-3-3 late in the game. If only this had happened 4 years into the future I would have been able to blame the DA's insistance that everyone plays that same style. Instead I'll have just have to blame the coach for being out of his depth in terms of tactics. Good job with getting the coach right on the second group but it goes a lot further than that. He had every single one of them on his U11 and U12 youth teams in 2002. single youth coach was developing more future U18 and U20 National team players in a two year age group in 2002 that 85% of the Academy clubs were givin credit by US soccer for helping to develop in the history of the Academy program (see the US soccer PDF) on ratings. While a single U12 coach (remember the academy grouping are just even years so U11 is part of U12) had 6 national team players, almost of half of the Academy clubs (about 45%) had one of none. If the academy program were as critical to development as working with younger players it would almost be impossible for this to be the case. But it is not. Furthermore it is not like these are the only players that Zein worked with. Gyasi Zardes who also has his own threads from time to time played with the U11 group the next year as a U12 player. But as a youth coach it seems like he tended to start with a group at a young age and continue with the team as it develops.
-JUAN PABLO OCEGUEDA - Registered to Itallia II 2001 (U9) - 2006 (U14) - coached by Art Todesco -LUIS GIL - - Registered to Itallia II 2003 - 2005 coached by Art Todesco -STEVIE RODRIGUEZ Registered to Itallia III -2005 (U12) - 2007 (U14) coached by Art Todesco -CHRISTIAN HERNANDEZ Registered to Itallia III -2006 (U13) - 2007 (U14) Along with these players there are at least 6 other players from these two teams that play or have played with other professional clubs Academy teams. I don't know much about the coach but from the records he was a parent coach (or maybe uncle coach) who just worked with three teams in CSL - ItaliaI ItaliaII and ItaliaIII. From what I heard from people they practiced together which means the younger teams would have a lot of experience going against the older group. That is why I was interested in Peretz "labor of love" comment. US soccer might not like to hear this but it seems like ItaliaIII played in every tournament imaginable and usually won. Again compare the player development results of one parent coach against what the majority of US academy clubs have been able to develop over the existence of the program.
Abel Leon - Galaxy Henry Rios - Arsenal/UCI Anthony Rodriguez - Cosmos/Chivas? Eduardo Quezada - Chivas What a team.
I'm sure you can see the trend by now Jaime Villareal & Jose Villareal played for PCSC B93 Blue coached by Jaime Villareal. Emilio Orozco and Moises Orozco played for OYSA Wave coached by Moises Orozco. Clearly having parent coached brother who do well is not all the surprising. But again it shows the power of coaching at a young age compared to what is accomplished during the older ages. But what is really interesting is that in 2005 Raul Mendiola and Christian Hernandez played on the same U12 SASC team coached by Gustavo Salazar. Think about how many players there are in the Academy program yet the best two were on the same U12 team. From what I understand Mendiola mostly played for Arseanl while Hernandez moved from team to team all over North America. Yet what their development had in common was the same U12 coach. Now whether this coach was a great coach or a great recruiter is unknown, but what should be pretty obvious is that great talent is developed at a very young age which is why started I think I started the Why Bradenton and DA are far less critical to US success than people imagine thread. It is why I'm so critical of the decision for needlessly preclude so many kids from playing HS soccer. Frankly many of the people that have been involved with US youth soccer over the years know very little about player development. Unfortunately they have demonstrated this lack of understanding over and over. While things have been improving, it still leaves a lot to be desired.
You can add these Henry Rios -Galaxy Derek Vogal - Galaxy Jordan Gutierrez Chivas USA - Tijuana? Filiberto Garcia - Chivas USA Alex Heilmann - Chivas USA
To answer your question, the "labor of love" I was referring to was close to what you said- a parent coach. Sort of. His son played on these teams, but he wasn't at the other players' level. The coach in question, Art Tedesco, I believe had a baseball background. But he was interested in their technical development, so he spent a lot of time on touches, drills, moves, etc., to improve their skill. I guess he picked up stuff from other coaches, clinics, etc. His approach had flaws, of course, as he really didn't know how to properly integrate technique with the rest of the game. As the kids got older it was obvious that he was up against more tactically astute coaches. And, unfortunately, Art ran into problems (which I'd rather not mention here), so he is no longer working in youth soccer (as far as I know). But to the extent that he gave a lot of his time (without pay, IIRC) to help these kids, I give him a lot of credit. Once he had a decent team with a core of a few good players word got out very quickly, and all of a sudden he had a bunch of very good players. And one conclusion I've drawn from this is if you eliminate pay to play and have something decent to offer, "They will come."