Ramsey easily MOTM. I agree, wouldn’t surprise me if he’s in the XI at the U17 WC. His positioning is miles ahead of being an 02. His passing is also fantastic and seems like a natural leader. As for Edwards, I don’t know that I’ve seen better hands on any US GK, at any level. He holds everything that comes his way. He has some work to do with his feet, but was really impressed with this kid. Wasn’t the greatest of watches, but congrats to Solar.
Disagree, I found it very entertaining. CF YNT players showed their quality. Both teams played positively.
Yup. Pilkington was a huge pickup for NYCFC out of Bethesda-Olney. Their academy continues to gain momentum. To me they're clearly the better academy over NYRB right now. Keep in mind that this is now two years in a row that NYCFC has won this age group at the academy level. For a newish team that's pretty remarkable. They don't appear to be doing the "Atlanta thing" of having that first great group and then fading. There's momentum here. Their stadium situation just clouds my whole opinion of that franchise, though.
Sparks had a filthy assist for the lead early in the first extra time (I think 93rd minute). Hopefully there is a gif of it somewhere.
Apologies, that came off the wrong way. Personally, I thought it was a very exciting, open match that was fun for a neutral. The football wasn't the greatest, but since the game was so open, you got to see some qualities in players you normally only get a snip it of.
What a great win by Solar to bring home the National Championship at U16/U17. In all honesty the game was not the best display of high level soccer but a win is a win at this point in the year. Solar was good all year and with the 03s they have coming in for next year would consider them the favorites in their conference. An interesting note is the Solar U16/U17 girls are the favorites to win in tonight's Girls DA Final and if they win there, Solar will hold both titles at U16/U17. Congrats to Adrian Solca and his coaches.
I thought Dallas was a disaster from the organizational, coaching side of things. They had players all over the place in the back and Collodi was playing 30 yards in front of his box all game, even when the other team had it at midfield. Not sure if that was planned or just because they were down. Never could really tell who was the back four in the second half with kids getting out shape regularly. Having said that, FCD had a lot of the ball. Just couldn't score. This was more like an FCD "B" team compared to who they could have brought in Reynolds, Roberts, Ferrara, Cerillo but still a good team of players. Wondering why the left mid Number 8 on FCD hasn't made any USL appearances and the same for Toledo and Burns. I assume if you are at FCD at age 18 and not making USL appearances they may not have any future plans for you.
I thought the FCD #8 was terrible yesterday. I've seen him enough to know he is a good player, but he lost possession nearly every time he had the ball and he couldn't get past his defender. I would have bet a lot of money that Redzic would have come on for him at half. Agree on the overall shape of the team. It looks all out of sorts with very little organization.
Same "B" team issue for the U-17's. Pepi, Sealy, and Redzic could have played for U-17s in playoffs. That is a lot of offensive firepower.
So, I knew there was something different about Solars U17 GK, Chris Edwards. I don’t know what it was about him that intrigued me so much, but the way he seemed to hold onto every shot and his lack of kicking ability led me to see what I could find out about him. Now, it all makes sense. The U17 Golden Glove winner, is also one of the top private school wide receivers in the state of Texas. Per his twitter, he already has some football scholarship offers, though at small schools. It’s always interesting to learn the background of these kids and they all seem to have different stories.
Yup. I think we're at the point where MLS clubs are pushing their best U17s aggressively up to the U19s, USL, and even MLS squads. To me this is a big reason why so many non-MLS DA teams advanced far in this age group. At clubs like Seattle and LAG and FCD and RSL...............kids should hopefully advance quickly past that level. You take out the five best FCD U17s, and yes Solar becomes evenly matched with FCD (well, they were evenly matched with FCD down a man most of the game and extra time). Jonathan Gomez of Dallas is 15. Do we think he'll ever play for the FCD U17s again? No. He just started a first team friendly against Tijuana, and held his own. The Seattle Sounders were the U17 Generation Adidas Cup Champions after beating teams like Valencia and River Plate Ocampo-Chavez was the leading scorer in the competition with a masterful display. Leyva had a great tournament. So what exactly does Seattle losing to Solar and Bethesda in the DA playoffs tell me? Not much. They've signed a bunch of those best U17 players away from the academy to their USL and MLS team. I'm not taking anything away from these Solar and Concorde Fire kids that advanced to the final. I think FCD has the best U17 team in the country. Solar and FCD played 4 times this season. The result? 1 FCD win. 1 Solar win (in extra time). 2 draws. That was very close. But don't tell me it means Solar has the best U17 pro prospects in the country. That's a different question altogether.
Chris is a great athlete and will have a number of options for college. Wondering if he will start to get US National team looks after these DA Playoffs. Chris Edwards won the Golden Glove for DA Nationals and Solar Forward Bailey Sparks won Best Player. Solar was able to beat Seattle Sounders MLS DA, La Galaxy MLS Da, Montreal MLS DA and FCD Mls DA on this run. Worth noting the Solar Girl U17 DA also won the National Championship last night giving Solar Another National DA title.
Do you know if his first choice is soccer or football? I see lots a football camp/clinic highlights of him, even during the DA season. While he seems to be a very good football player, he isn’t being recruited by big schools. With 6 solid months of footwork with the ball, passing and kicking, he could be a pro soccer prospect. From a shot stopping and hands standpoint, I would love to see him get a look at YNT. That said, I don’t know that his game is complete enough for that level quite yet. If he can get comfortable with the ball at his feet and learn to strike the ball better, he could go a long way on the soccer field.
No, don't know if he favors one over the other. It is interesting that during his career he has always put on a show by simply throwing the ball further than most goalies can punt. He would regularly throw it past midfield to a players feet. Getting in the spotlight with a DA title probably helps his progression.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bailey Sparks putting on a show in the DA semifinals. Wonder if Wicky is watching. <a href="https://t.co/QUDZGhL5nr">https://t.co/QUDZGhL5nr</a></p>— J.R. Eskilson (@JREskilson) <a href="Bailey Sparks putting on a show in the DA semifinals. Wonder if Wicky is watching. 👀 https://t.co/QUDZGhL5nr— J.R. Eskilson (@JREskilson) July 9, 2019 ">July 9, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Has there been a good prospect in recent memory who was a two sport star? Football, baseball and basketball lose players all the time to this. I think it shows improvement in player development if soccer is starting to have players like this.
Colin Smith the 03 FCD DA player is a high level basketball player too. I think he played HS basketball and DA for FCD this year at the same time. Would make sense some of these kids do other sports as well and do them very well.
Lots of controversy about multiple sports, but I really don’t think it hurts development that much. As long as you can give the appropriate time to both sports, I think it actually helps. Basketball and soccer are perfect partners when it comes to two sports. Short bursts, getting past defenders, remaining calm when shooting or passing all come to mind. What I like about multiple sport athletes is that the movements are just different enough to where more muscle groups are engaged and I think it helps prevent injuries from the same repetitive movements. Didn’t know that about Colin Smith, interesting.
The one that I really remember is Taylor Twellman. He actually lettered in 4 sports in high school. Baseball, soccer, basketball, and football. Baseball and soccer were the two he was best at. He had a contract offer from the Kansas City Royals out of high school, but chose to accept a scholarship to Maryland instead to play soccer.
there was a great story on espn about how young basketball players today are ticking time bombs due to overspecialization. lots of talk about lack of functional movement, lack of strength, inability to balance, etc
usaprospects posted some rumors of player movement on twitter. These could be placed in a few different threads, but since they are mostly youth players coming from the DA or going to the DA, I'll post the most notable ones here. Go to his twitter account if you want to see all of them. Diego Ochoa ('02) from SSM to LAG Brendan Lambe ('04) from NCFC to Atlanta United Tyler Wolff ('03) from Columbus Crew to Atlanta United or Austin Bold Oliver Larraz ('01) from Colorado Rapids to Germany Shai Neal ('01) from McLean to Germany Cameron McGregor ('99) in German Sixth Division to Werder Bremen Leo Sepulveda ('01) from LAG to Club America or Atlas.
Chris Richards talks a lot about how he played basketball growing up. Don't know if he was considered a star.