Is this 3 straight 4-1 defeats (Denmark, Brazil, Senegal?), regardless, I don't think this team is this bad, but I worry about mental toughness. It really feels like they mentally imploded after giving up 2 horror show, wtf are you doing goals to fall behind just before half and about 25 mins later. If they have mental toughness, they should beat Japan, but then the Netherlands? Maybe looking for revenge after outplaying us and losing in that tournament back in August, or maybe just being flat out way better. Our only chance in that match is if they rest guys having already advanced and/or due to card accumulation. I will be paying close attention to yellow cards in their next two games because that might be our only chance at advancement at all.
Tough to argue with any of this except Reyna will be fine. BVB know what they are doing. He could be getting 1st team minutes on a champions league team in the B1 by the spring. He probably gets capped before the next WC. He looked ok today, what did not look ok is GGG's system. It had Puli looking like a Rec player and crying on the bench a couple of weeks ago. Then he drops the hat trick in the Prem yesterday. This U17 team looks like a mini version of Greg's senior squad.
Lots of fear-mongering hysteria ITT. You guys judge one match out of the whole tournament. Remember that this crop of U17s is different than the crop in 2017. Changes need to made tactically. Still think they will advance to the knockout round. Win the next two and you're in. Not sure about the quality of U17 Netherlands and Japan, if people can chime me on that. Disappointed with Griffith Yow's performance today, but that too will pass on me.
No, but if I were to rank the past three cycles it would be: 1.) '17 U17 team (crashed out in quarters w/a crap coach) 2.) '15 U17 team (also crashed out in a group of death w/a dog crap coach) 3.) '19 U17 team (Similar cream to '15 group, less than '17, less depth than either In fairness, I'd put the '07, '09, '11, '13 U17 teams below the '19 squad.
Not a whole lot to like here. I’ll start with the few positives. The back line wasn’t bad. We gave up four goals, but they held the fort as long as they could. There were a few errors from them, but I thought all played well enough. Las also was good. If he hadn’t contributed to that third goal with a weak attempt to catch the ball, I’d say he was excellent. Reyna wasn’t bad either. I can’t fault him for being merely good instead of an attacking mid who can carry the offense. Leyva and Saldana were dominated in every way. We’ve seen this for years with Saldana when this team plays a good opponent. The only difference was a different player next to him. Leyva might’ve been even worse. He’s looked bad in this age group against good competition. I think he’s still a good prospect, but it’s definitely questionable how good he can be playing up a year and playing next to a guy who is going to struggle against good competition. He can’t be the main CM in that lineup. Yow added nothing. There’s not a lot to say that isn’t usually said. He shouldn’t have been selected for this team. Busio was a passenger as usual, but he does pop up with goals. He’s a problem due to how little he adds from minute to minute, and his absolute inability to even consistently look good against his own age group, but he’s far from the biggest problem. It’s not Pepi’s fault that this team creates very few chances for the striker. It’s been like this all cycle. They’ve both dealt with this. They both look much better at club level than in this team. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. With Pepi though, I just don’t get the sense he’s capable of being an impact player playing up a year. AOC is better right now, and should be starting, if you aren’t going to play both. None of the subs added much. I won’t blame Wicky that much for anything that happened in this game because Senegal’s players were just a whole lot better. The problems with Wicky were squad selection. It’s the age group you probably wouldn’t want to work with because it’s so weak, so I can cut some slack over results. The squad selection under Wicky has been about as bad as I’ve seen since I started following the U-17’s. My problems with Wicky’s coaching are much bigger than any bad result in this tournament, but I think this result speaks to the issue he created.
So that twitter dude (I follow him too, great stuff), didn't notice us get "stomped like a narc at a biker rally"(Dennis Miller when he was funny) by England in the U17 quarters just two years ago? No offense, but that England team took us out to the woodshed, and eviscerated us, no fluke goals, just a curb stomping. Senegal scored a fluke goal when half time was about to be whistled, scored on the worst defensive breakdown I've ever seen from the US at any level ever (close runner ups might be against Morocco in a pre '06 WC tune up, and against Ghana when Reyna's knee exploded), scored on one of the best free kicks you'll see in the tourney, and got that third goal as our players were deciding to quit. England just kicked us in the face and the crotch for 90 minutes straight, then gave Sargent a goal because they empathized with his ginger locks.
Who’s hiding? No one singled out a player as “trash”. This team suffers from the same problem that the senior team has.
Sorry, the word was garbage. Forgive me for substituting a synonym. It's a loss. It happens to everyone, but in particular, bad games can happen a lot at this level. And if it really is that the team isn't talented enough, that's life, too. Unlike some, I'll be watching and rooting on the teenagers representing our country without ridiculous hyperbole or calling them insulting names. (And I'm not saying you can't criticize). Some of you need to get enough of a life that you don't feel the need to emotionally go after teenagers when they lose. How many disgraceful things do you see in life? When you do a shitty job at work one day, is it disgraceful? Lotta adult internet tough guys.
I’m not sure what we’ve seen leads to good results. I think Wicky is ill-equipped to coach this team. He doesn’t know the player pool well, IMO. He may have a good resume and he may be a good coach of professionals, but this job is not that. Hackworth did a much better job than Wicky at coaching the U-17’s, mostly because he clearly knew the player pool and got out of the way when it came to coaching.
This is your preconcived opinion wich may be the right one or not. I personally disagree with that. But in this game he was the most involved player on the team and everything remotely reminding atack (the goal, the pass to Reyna who wasn't able to cross to wide open Pepi and the blocked shot) went through him.
No worries..I didn't think you thought he was a scrub. I actually thought Reyna looked decent today considering.
The Las armor has some chinks in it. I didn’t think he played any of the goals well and the 2nd and 4th were poorly played. HAS to sweeper keeper the second goal and clear it. Also doesn’t position himself or react correctly to the set piece goal.
I don't blame most individuals as this is just an U17 match. What really I want to see is what type of soccer US soccer are applying, which does affect how we develop future players. I don't like it. Making sharp run, playing risk ball forward with creativity and confidence, tough challenge, even use tactical foul to slow down opponents, that is what I want to see. Instead, I found US Soccer senior and youth teams always tried too many back passes and slow build up play that waste time to catch opponent's position weakness to break through; defensively too polite without bite, too cautious to use physical challenge and don't know how to execute tactical foul; everyone's offensive position is so static and lack of sharp runs and overlaps. In one word I thought they played a very slow, boring possession ball that cannot create chances. This tournament is a good experience not only for our playes but also for US soccer program planners and managers (if they are not arrogant). Our first opponent is a physically superior team, the next one Japan is a super organized, passing-moving team, and the last one Netherlands is a super power that balanced on every aspect. So it's really can tell a lot. If we cannot handle the physical play and also cannot complete technically / tactically, does our program leaders know how to improve or change?
I mean some of the mistakes can be put down as 16/17 year olds playing soccer. Which is fine. I promise that Las comes out and grabs that ball for the second goal if he's ever in that position again. Could honestly be the first time in a game setting he's had to think to make that decision. What I'm troubled about is that this game was too much like a mirroring of the game against Brazil. Which you have to attribute to coaching. We came out pressed hard, got an early goal *like Brazil*. Then once our opponent realized that we were going to possess the ball and work it through our wings, with pretty much no play through the middle, it allowed them to bunker with their FBs pressing high, and their center mids playing low to offer support on the wings. Their midfielders can effectively cheat overcommiting because we won't punish them by moving the ball inside before we get to the final third. Then it allows their attacking players to really cheat on the counter because we pretty much always give the ball away. I find it hard to even criticize our CMs, because the balls aren't even being played to them. Pepi received zero service in both games. I find it hard to be critical of him, because the way that we are playing....what can he do? If you play possession based and you can't get the ball into the final third, how can you be mad at the lone striker? Pepi would have thrived if he was playing for Senegal today. So is this concerning for the program long term? Not really. If you look at any U-17 national team for any country as the players get older at this level, the best teams are going to generate 1 national team mainstay 60-85 plus caps depending on full national team quality and maybe two to four others that get featured at that level. The teams that are really good are going to be able to surround that cream of the crop talent with players that will be able to make a career playing professional football at some level. Sometimes you just won't be able to surround your U-17 stars with a team and tactics that get you to win at this level. Now if we go three and out that says something about our stars, because there does seem to be a slight correlation between results and the number of national teamers you generate across all countries. It's why Mexico has begun to try and poach a bunch of dual USA-Mexican youth talent. They have flat out stunk recently at the U-17/U-20 level. Take the 2017 England U-17 team squad that absolutely dominated. You've got Jaden Sancho and Callum Hudson-Odoi who look like stars. Phil Foden who is tipped to be a star and has been playing EPL football. Then you have guys like Rhiann Brewster, Steven Sessegnon, and Morgan Gibbs-White that look like they are going to be solid professionals, with some other names from that roster probably added to that list. If you look at our roster from the same World Cup: Josh Sargent, Timo Weah, and Serginio Dest have been capped. Sands and Gloster look like they have bright futures as professionals. And then you have a mixed bag of Carelton, Durkin, Taylor Booth, Indiana Vassilev, Akinola, and Jaylin Lindsey. They are still very much in the solid professionals/flame outs list, but time will tell if any of them are ever good enough to receive caps.
Other players that were eligible but didn't make the team, Soto, Ledesma, Mendez and Llanez, look like they are gonna be a part of the national team as well. Our main problem has been the coaching.
Completely agree on Leyva. He was mostly useless. I can guarantee that's not the first time for Las, that happens all the time, especially in youth soccer when it's a lot of long balls. It seemed like part of a common theme today where a lot of our players were timid all over the field. I also completely disagree on the CMs. They were so outmatched that they were never open. Gray and Kobe are both above average passers at centerback - if the midfielders were ever open they would have found them. Instead, Leyva and Saldana were being tactically and athletically taken out of the game completely. I think a lot of it was just being soft.
It’s pretty simple for me. In our burning desire to become a nation that plays beautiful, sexy football, we have lost all of the fight, passion and athleticism that enabled us to compete in the past.
It’s worth noting that Senegal beat Japan in the warmup games. With the way Japan is handling the Netherlands, maybe we just underestimated them. Overall the performance was a massive let down but the cracks were there for a long time. Hopefully we see rotation in most of the outfield positions. Japan is putting on a clinic right now, aggressively pressing and looking dangerous in possession. Unless we find a second gear there’s no way we’re getting points.
It’s fundamentally slow, which can equate to soft when playing a match with a pace that’s unfamiliar.
Watching how Japan U17 play against Netherlands at the moment, I think we really got into a wrong path to immerse in useless possession. Japanese soccer is always focus on possession, but now they are more forward thought, willing to try risky and creative pass, tear apart opponent's defense via smart move and passes. It's like a clinic. US soccer as an entire program, seems lost bite and pace, but added little of real things we missed, played a very slow and ineffective possession ball. We'd better beat Japan every way we can, please.