Wow, that's wild for the U17 level, where things are even more skewed towards older kids than the U20s. In 2017, we had eight guys born in the Q1. In 2015, it was nine: Gallardo, Calvillo, Silva, Perez, Barbir, Zendejas, Arellano, Olosunde, and Wright.
19' | Goal USA! Kobe Hernandez sinks a penalty kick after Andres Jasson is taken down in the box by a Dutch defender. 🇺🇸 1-0 🇳🇱— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) September 7, 2019 HT | After holding strong vs. some solid opportunities for the Netherlands, the U.S. heads into half with the lead. 🇺🇸 1-0 🇳🇱— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) September 7, 2019 79' | Goal USA! The U.S. answers with a goal from Andres Jasson. Alfonso Ocampo-Chavez with the assist, setting up the shot with a nice run. 🇺🇸 2-1 🇳🇱— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) September 7, 2019
FT | Goals from Hernandez, Jasson and Fuentes earn the U-17 #USMNT its 2⃣nd straight W at the 4 Nations Tournament. The USA will look to clinch the 🏆 on Monday vs. Denmark. 🇺🇸 3-1 🇳🇱— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) September 7, 2019
Without seeing the way the game was played, that's an impressive result with a largely untalented team of back ups.
Did you see that game? It wasn't close, especially in the first hour to 70 minutes. We were dominating play, and in that classic hockey way, not finishing chances, and just like hockey, if you keep bouncing the ball/puck off the post and cross bar, eventually the other team is gonna make you pay for it, and they did. Outshot them 24-17, out on target shot them 10-6, 12 corners to their 4, and those stats would've been even more in our favor if it hadn't gone to extra time/if we'd finished any of an absolute bucketload of chances. Mexico played better and better from around what, the 75th or 80th minute on, but for the first hour, or more, it was a 3-1, or 4-1 caliber game, w/just absolutely horrific finishing, like South Korea in the aughts level bad. Don't disagree w/other points, just wanted it mentioned that us losing that game to Mexico was absurd and a total fluke. Just bizarre that in back to back cycles the US had Mexico by the throat in the final and found a way to lose both matches, one in choking fashion, and then this atrocity. Happily it seemed to wake them up, and they're playing better and better.
So, what's next for KHF? He's not on the LAG DA U18/19 roster and hasn't been signed to either the LAG or Los Dos. He won't turn 18 until June, 2020, so he may be making the rounds of some Euro clubs, or perhaps is with one club and just training and "scrimmaging." This is not an ideal scenario, but who knows, maybe the lack of real games over the next nine months or so won't set him back too far. Stay tuned...
Right now, I would happily take Wicky over Berhalter for the national team after only seeing a small sample size of their work. Wicky seems to understand that coaching a national team is far different than coaching a club team. He's taking a shortcut and that shows me he's the smartest guy in the room. National teams are basically like coaching all-star teams. Very little practice time, many of the best players that get called in play in the same positions for their club team, so you have to move some players to postions they may not be familar with or even comfortable in. You have precious little practice time to build a group of individuals into a "team". Because of all these factors and more, you have to take shortcuts if your goal is to win instead of losing "pretty". Dicking around with tactics that require hundreds and hundreds of hours of repetition in practice is the epitome of stupid for a national team coach. You keep it as simple and logical as you can and you maximize your opportunites. How does Wicky make it work? By emphasizing the value of set pieces. Scoring goals is one of the hardest things to do in soccer. Look at the team under Wicky and you will see that they allow very few set piece goals but score them at a very high rate. Being effective at that part of the game also opens up lots of other opportunities. Teams that scout that NATs will be telling their players not to foul or give up corner kicks. That becomes very beneficial in the final third when opponents are under pressure and turning the ball over instead of clearing it out. You even hear players and coaches yelling "no foul, no foul" while you are dribbling and that emboldens you to take defenders on and get in the box. It even influences refs when they hear teams doing that because a collision becomes a foul more often. I think this team can do well in the Championships because of his coaching. They don't need to be the "most talented ever" to be the most successful team ever.
I know a lot are impressed with Wicky, but I am not. I can't fault him for beating Antigua or Belize by 8 goals in qualifying, but what can you take from that? You or I could coach the team to a big victory over those teams. The one data point in his favor (that we have watched) is supposedly a game we lost. Maybe it was a game we were the better team, but I think its weak if the big argument in his favor is a loss. I also can't fault him for fans not being able to see the past two games, but how much can we really make of games we didn't see? Maybe I don't have complete information, but I can't say these two results are a big credit to Wicky. I can only comment on the result and the personnel used, not the performance. I think one area where I think there are substantial data points is personnel. I think he has done a woeful job with the personnel. Why are we using players such as Kayo, de Vries, Armour, Tomkinson, Freeman, Jasson? Most of these players are not any good. We have better options, such as Dunbar, Atencio, Penagos, Sarver, Stroud, Arce, to name a few. I have no clue why Gomez is not in this team. If he ends up playing for Mexico, Wicky deserves the blame. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on Nyeman, and assume he's not eligible, but if he is (no one can confirm one way or another), I can't think of a good reason why he wouldn't be on this team. The same applies for Chifamba, but to a lesser extent. It's not the most talented age group, but when the coach is making bad personnel decisions, I think it's worth criticizing. There were a few personnel decisions Hackworth made last cycle that I disagreed with (CB's, usage of his CM's), but I didn't think there was that much to disagree about. It's the opposite with Wicky.
How familiar do you think an outsider hired late in the game is going to be with the entire pool? I know you're not a fan of Kayo, but he has a DCU HG offer and a few Bundesliga offers and will sign in Germany once he turns 18. You make up your opinion on someone immediately (and at a very young age nonetheless) and absolutely refuse to change your stance positive or negative when results prove you wrong. How's your Agudelo, Junior Flores, Haji Wright, Carleton, Redding hype train going?
Just curious, what games have his teams played and performed poorly in that you were sure player X would have made a difference?
I suppose the proof will be in the pudding next month, although in fairness, tournaments are always small sample size, and aren't the best way to evaluate anyone. The long haul is a better one. I did find it interesting listening to a podcast this morning and one of the guys was talking about how the U17 team was a mess until they got Wicky in, and got some stability with a clear template going forward, and it showed in the tournament last spring. I'm at loggerheads over whether I agree or not with your criticism of him. You have your players, you always do, and you stick with them rain or shine, regardless of results based on your evaluations. To me that can make you a victim of take lock, but I do respect that you stick with your judgements after watching players, and believe eventually, the talent will shine through, even if it takes some pitfalls, and time. I can respect that, especially considering time I spent trying to figure out whether or not Llanez really was struggling, or if Hackworth was an epic moron for not calling him for the U17 WC. Eventually I went with the latter and was proven right. Otoh, there's been a lot of guys I really bought into like your Carleton, like your Wright, and I just think at this point, I was probably wrong about them, but they're still young and who knows. I think the problem at the end of the day, is whether or not he's a good coach. Maybe he has some of the same problems Ramos has in terms of favorites, or maybe there are things we can't see in the locker room, that are relevant, or on the practice field. Who knows. So far, I have been impressed, because at the end of the day, my verdicts are based on how well the team plays, and other than an ugly first half against Canada in Qualifying, they've been good, or better pretty consistently and have improved over time. I hope he isn't suffering from selection stupidity the way Hackworth did, or personality conflicts and general ineptitude the way Richie Williams did, and Ramos' mysterious ability to nearly always get his XI wrong, and to always seriously botch at least 2-3 players per U20 WC tournament. Maybe you're right. For now, I've been impressed. Once we see his selection for the final 23, we'll be in a better position to register a verdict on that. So far, he coached the best team at the Concacaf U20 WC qualifying tourney and it appears he's about to potentially win this four nations thing. I thought the Dutch U17 team was ridiculously good, is this the same team they're bring next month, or is it a weird batch?
There's good and bad with the latter, and we always need to own both sides of that equation. On the positive side, he makes his evaluations, and believes in them period. He's not gonna let sample size issues even a season or two long get in the way of a fundamental estimation of a players talent. There's some good in that, in that, he has his way to interpret talent, and trusts it. The negative for me is that it is a huge shining example of take lock. Something nearly all of us suffer from for different reasons. Sometimes it's just because we really believe in an evaluation, sometimes it's out of stubbornness, and sometimes it's because of a fundamental distaste for admitting you're wrong about things. I tend to think it's the former, not the latter, but then again, for most people, it's the latter, which is why I try to always make a point of owning horrible takes over the years, which I've had absolute bucketloads of. I believed in Zelalem, I believed in this wing forward we had in the aughts so much, and today I can't remember his name. I believed in all the guys you mention above that 93571 believed in save for Aguedelo, who I was neutral about. I thought Bradley was dog manure because I despised his empty bucket, and his terrible First XI's at WC '10 vs Slovenia, and Ghana (Ghana being so bad, I went for a hike instead of watching the game), but in retrospect, I was wrong. Bradley isn't some great manager, he's not a superstar, but he's good, he's definitively good, always was, and is the best manager we've had over the past 25 years other than Arena in 2001-2002. Anyway I'm babbling. Just thought they were worthwhile points. I don't like to talk about posters instead of the topics, but I think there would be a lot more warmer conversations between some of us if there were more humility and more owning of horrible takes (like I was fine with firing Bradley for Klinsy, probably the single worst move of the past decade for the USMNT in retrospect, I don't think 2018 happens w/o that move).
Yup. Basically, I'll wait until the U17 World Cup is over before making an evaluation of Wicky. All I know is that I've been happy with the results so far. I was happy with the CONCACAF Championships performance, and of course the results in this 4 nations tournament are quite nice. In fact, Wicky's win-loss record since taking over has been very strong. We just beat Holland in Holland with basically a "b" team. It'll be really interesting to see how he does when given a full cycle. To some degree he had to pick the team for the CONCACAF Championships based on the existing pool of USYNTers. And once those kids did that job, many of them were going to carry over to this group. If he starts from scratch on a cycle, I imagine his player selection strategy will look quite different. I mean, I like Jonathan Gomez as much as the next guy. But I like George Bello more. For me George Bello is a beast. If healthy, will dominate this level.
Looks like I hit a nerve. If you disagree with what I’m saying, address the substance, but don’t try to personally attack me. I have no respect for that and it only comes off as a reflection of your lack of knowledge in properly arguing against what I said if your best argument against what I said is about me and not the substance of what I said.
Among the playes you wonder why Wicky didn't select, only one or two I see is definitely better. For others, they are just better on some aspects and worse on others. Some aspects is just heavier in your assessment, but I cannot say the coaches made wrong decision, just preference.
Nice win over the host nation 💪The U-17 #USMNT is 2-for-2 in the Netherlands as it prepares for next month's #U17WC >> https://t.co/QHytt8SiLr pic.twitter.com/1VSa6hzitf— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) September 7, 2019 USSF write up Lineups: USA: 12-Chituru Odunze; 2-Tayvon Gray, 16-Jonathan Tomkinson, 5-Kobe Hernandez (13-Mauricio Cuevas, 46), 3-Adam Armour; 6-Maxi Dietz, 8-Bryang Kayo (4-Nico Carrera, 46), 23-Andres Jasson; 21-Ethan Dobbelaere (20-Gilbert Fuentes, 46), 18-Noah Jones (9-Ricardo Pepi, 72), 11-Jack de Vries (19-Alfonso Ocampo-Chavez, 62) Stats Summary: USA / NED Shots: 7 / 15 Shots on Goal: 3 / 7 Saves: 6 / 0 Corners: 3 / 8 Fouls: 10 / 13 Offsides: 2 /4
Can't help wondering if the Dutch should look into sending some of their young players to Holland for development, or perhaps the Netherlands.
You may be right in thinking Wicky would do a better job than Berhalter but it cannot be overstated how much better the player pool Wicky has at his disposal vs GB. At the Gold Cup, our best attacker was Pulisic. Pulisic scored 3 goals throughout the entire tournament. At the Concacaf U-17 qualifying, which is essentially the U-17 GC, Busio alone nearly doubled Pulisics production and that’s a player some people don’t even much rate. Then you consider talents like Reyna, AOC, Pepi, Yow all put up great/good numbers. The best senior team striker we have currently is almost constantly injured and our second best striker is a talented but inconsistent 19 year old that just recently gave an invisible performance against a 4th division German team. Meanwhile, Wicky has the luxury of having a striker that recently got minutes for his Liga MX club as 4th string. Did we have a single midfielder at the GC perform as consistently as Leyva did at the U-17 competition. Outside of CB, I can’t think of a position the senior team is stronger at than the U-17, and we conceded more goals at U-17 tourney than we did at the GC. Its not that Wicky hasn’t improved the team or that Berhalter should be impervious to any criticism, we’ve had some ugly performances under his tenure so the frustration is understandable, but if coaching a NT is like coaching the all-stars then we have to consider what kind of all-stars the coach’s have when facing their respective competition
Looked at the Dutch line up and it turns out our coach thought it to be a good moment to start 10 new players compared to the last match.
Three subs were made in the beginning of the second half and AOC came on 17 mins later, so not really the "b" team that got us the win.
That's how these youth "tournaments" work. We made 9 changes from game to game, so it was basically B groups playing each other.
What Berhalter does that Wicky does not do is force players out of their comfort zone. Steffens looks so uncomfortable with the ball at his feet staring down pressure. Every fiber of his being is telling him to whack the ball up field. He is fighting all his previously trained instincts and the results are predictable.