This was also the lone US camp that Malik Tillman attended before sticking (for now) with Germany. That's right, we successfully called Efrain and Malik to the same US camp. And it had Joshua Pynadath too. Tillman and Pynadath were both on the bench for this particular match. Perhaps the single best 2002 US camp so far in terms of raw collected talent.
It's Canada and Alphonso Davies. Canada's way worse than Mexico, and Davies was playing in MLS vs. USL. I don't see it happening. If it does, ah well, too bad.
No. he is actually right. The pre-game advertising for the game down in Phoenix, had Michael Bradley as the center piece and the words "future" on it. its pretty insane.
The answer is Ledesma................... The Mexican media is reporting that the FMF already has an agreement in place with Alvarez (and family) for him to play in the U17 World Cup. Don't get me wrong. We should keep trying with Alvarez. I just see the players that we currently have in the stable as the highest priorities. Ledesma, Mendez, etc.
All touches vs Chicago. We should be going after this kid with everything we have, just like all the others.
AND firing whatever idiots dropped them. As a DC sports fan, it feels like some horrific amalgam of soccer equivalents to Bruce Allen, Ernie Grunfeld, and idiot owners Ted Leonsis and Dan Snyder are running the Fed, and the Youth scouting program. Is it any wonder why the 1990-1995 classes are a crater when you have development guys running off Alvarez, Gonzalez, and heck even Subotic, who appears to be the second guy Rongen totally botched. Two things have to happen: total clearout of anyone associated with the 1990-1995 debacle that doesn't have a ton of verifiable fingerprints on the 1995 (the ones that are fine from that '15 U-20 class) to 2003 successes, and aggressive recruitment of all dual nationals, and bringing in the right staffs and coaches for the youth teams. I'm utterly baffled at Ernie seemingly motionless while our youth development program slides into a sink hole. It feels like almost all the successes of the 1995-2003 era are connected either to men who aren't associated to the program, MLS academies or are entirely a product of the player forcing their way through. It's enormously frustrating that after Couva, we haven't addressed this most critical of problems, as already mentioned and written about by bshredder, while the coaches and vets have their stamps all over that abomination, the true source of the failure was in the feds total botching of scouting and development of kids born in that 1990-1995 window. It appears we're doing almost nothing to address it as a fed, and entirely dependent on MLS figuring it out, and MLS clearly hasn't figured it out because so many players are avoiding MLS entirely, or are stuck like Carleton has been. Need to fix these issues ASAP.
Earnie had nothing to do with Alvarez. It also had nothing to do with scouting. Everyone knew Alvarez. This came down to some "tough love" that backfired. It is not the first time a dual national ran afoul of the "my way or the highway" regimen of coaches.
Not relevant. Alvarez was in US programs, and we called him up every chance we had. We were aware of him well before Mexico was. There was some sort of altercation at a UYSNT camp that led to a massive disagreement between the Alvarez family and the USSF. Mexico immediately provided an opportunity, and they pounced at it. Keep in mind that I have no clue what you're talking about with regards to our youth programs sliding into a black hole. Only two countries made at least the quarterfinals of the most recent U17 and U20 World Cups. The US is one of them. The USYNTs right now with Tab Ramos as our youth technical director are probably in the best shape they've ever been. The U20s are back-to-back CONCACAF Champions. They're in the process (supposedly) of finalizing the hiring of the next U17 coach. They had offered the position to van den Bergh, but then he refused to move to USSF headquarters in Chicago (which is a requirement).
1. My point is the mishandling of players. 2. I'm fully aware of recent success for the our youth national teams, particularly at the U20 level, I saw all the games. What is alarming to me regards the problems of staffing, and lifers who seem to have their fingerprints on so many of these issues. While it may have been addressed recently, a month or two ago we had multiple positions unfilled and Ramos apparently handling all manner of things. I don't disagree that U-20 and U-17 results have improved dramatically since the 2007 U-17 through the 2013 Youth tournaments, but I do see a fundamental problem with staffing just a few months ago, I do see problems with individuals still heavily involved in recruiting dual nationals who have no business being near any of it (see Rongen w/reference to Subotic, then lying about Gonzalez contact a year ago). I am not clear on how much of our recent success is about MLS academdies+golden generations (for us) that even a blind man couldn't miss, and how much might have been about quality management replacing the disastrous management we saw in recent years. Do remember Abmod was still running our U-17 team just what, two years ago, or 18 months ago? There is a lot of fixing left to do.
Must have expressed my point poorly because two different posters misinterpreted me. I view the screw up with Alvarez as "of a part" with the screw ups with scouting. Essentially mismanagement at a number of levels with youth development, from bust ups with players, and poor communication, to no communication at all (Charlie Kellman recently in an interview), to poor scouting, to poor hirings (MLS lifers, proven hacks etc). There are a wide variety of issues. The Kellman interview wasn't the first time this past year you've heard a player reference no communication to speak of w/our youth teams etc. It's not one thing, it's a number of things, and while results have improved dramatically starting with the '15 tournaments, how much of that is the Fed finally getting it right, and how much of it might be things they couldn't bungle (quality of the players, MLS academies) because they weren't running it to begin with. While I'm happy w/recent results, I've got Gonzalez, Alvarez, Kellman etc suggesting we still have problems keeping prospects happy, and the lines of communication open and clear, and we've seen far too many positions continually either understaffed, or run by lifers with no discernible talent for the job beyond connections. Maybe I'm tilting at windmills here because these issues are getting better, but there are still clearly problems.
Your inability to see anything wrong with US is confounding. There are so many things they do wrong it doesnt take much to be confronted with a couple on a regular basis. People turning their heads and point at a couple successes just delays our improvement as a country. Hey, it is great that Garber has finally decided to be a selling league, but people have been arguing that for years. USSF doesnt handle dual nationals and especially hispanic players well. I dont know how you justify the comment I quoted. It has already been discussed in this thread and I'll paste it below. Playing one game and then being dropped does not equal calling him up every chance we got. Alvarez made one youth national team appearance for the United States — the country of his birth — in 2016. He scored in a 2-0 win over Uruguay for the U.S. U15s. Then, according to Alvarez, “Something happened with the U.S., and then Mexico came knocking on my door, and I tried it and I liked it there.” What was that something? In an interview with Soccer America, Alvarez’s club coach Mike Muñoz said that Alvarez was confoundingly dropped from a U.S. camp, which caused enough of a rift between the two sides for Mexico to take advantage.
Trust me, I am no fan of Tab. He is an average coach, a poor administrator, and a terrible recruiter. Thank goodness a few MLS Academies are getting their acts together and we no longer have to rely on USSF filling the pipeline. I just wanted to be clear where this break up happened. It was not about Earnie or any scouts. It was a coach on Tab's staff who decided to show Alvarez who was boss, it was poorly handled, and it was an incredibly stupid move. Personally, I think the USSF would be much better off to remove Tab as Technical Youth Director and put Earnie in charge to better align youth and senior national teams.
As long as Don Garber is CEO of SUM and MLS commissioner and he controls certain things within USSF, the USSF will be treated as a side show luxury once every 4 years for a platform for MLS. How can you have respect for a program that has its leaders wanting its former players to promote Mexico your archrival and enemy in a tournament that you were miserably kicked out of? The Donovan Mexico scarf, summed up why we are screwed as long as Garber continues to be a dictator and put Mexico's NT over the USMNT. The biggest mistake was only criticizing Gulati (as he was the better executive of them all). When Gulati left, it has gotten 5x worse and now Garber, Flynn, and Jay Berhlater call the shots. Cordiero is a wussy and wont do shit. Vomit.
Since you're in a position to know -- are the right people talking with Alvarez regarding his future NT prospects? Despite Tab being a mediocre coach, the US U20s played the Mexican U20s off the damn park in WCQ. If I was a young dual national, I know which program I'd be a part of...
The issue with Alvarez had zero to do with him being a dual national or hispanic or a talented young prospect or any of that. It had to do with the fact that he violated team rules while at a USYNT camp. That's what the scuttlebutt on the USYNT boards is anyway. He was kicked out of the camp, and Alvarez & his family were unhappy with how it was handled. They immediately pursued the mexico opportunity and haven't looked back.
Not that I know of, but that is not unusual. The USSF youth staff is notoriously bad at staying in communication with players.
I didnt say it had anything to do with him being a dual national or hispanic. I said we have a bad history of screwing up with them. The part I re-posted was to challenge your comment "we called him up every chance we had". He was called in once and not called in at least once. That is at best 50%. Were there camps prior to the one camp he was at? Was there not u14 camps the prior years?