Also, it was Armour that was tracking and stopped, not Kobe. Leyva, Armour, and Saldana were the three deep players who got beat by the punt.
It's not that. Wicky is a good coach and the only better players were either hurt (Peter Stroud) or not eligible due to citizenship (Moses Nyeman). Mendez, Ledezma, and Soto all emerged after the 2017 u17 cycle as player development is not linear. Prospects heat up and cool down as time goes on. The only truly snubbed players were John Tolkin and jonathan Tomikson.
Also this is not a bad age group. A birth year tends to produce 3-5 players in a cycle. Gio Reyna, Kobe Hernandez-Foster, Damian Las, Chituru Odunze, Bryang Kayo, Nico Carerra, and George Bello are all players who have a very good chance to make the USMNT at some point. They have a chance to be better than every other year except the 00's while the age groups after are even better.
...and Pynadath. He's not slow, contrary to what I see you spamming on Twitter every time I search his name for highlights. As a super sub, he's already a problem for Dutch 2nd division defenders. He's getting separation from them thru his quickness and deception. Would have provided much needed creation on the wing for this team. Yes, Tolkin could have helped too. Bello should have started instead of Armour. KHF shouldn't be deployed at cb. Yow shouldn't be starting instead of AOC. He can play 2 fw's to get his best players on the field, have an outlet, and to get more #'s in cm to compensate for being slower than the opposition. But the biggest mistake, like the senior team, is obsessive, gradual build-up out of the back, unless an open player is found for a long ball. And then no adjustments once problems arise for a while. This is a disease handed down from Gregg at the top. So maybe Wicky isn't a bad coach, but he was just following orders from an incompetent leader.
The big problem of Pynadath is that outside of his dribbling (which is a truly special talent) he doesn't offer anything. Full game videos of where he plays tell a different story than the highlights. I don't see him having a USMNT future but he probably could have made this team over Yow or Jasson. But with Gio, Pulisic, Weah, and Uly being in the same spot it isn't looking good for him.
Every touch videos show the positive and negative unlike highlights, and I have seen a couple of his bench appearances w/ Jong Ajax. If he gets the ball in the final 3rd he consistently beats defenders to get off a dangerous shot and cross. And he displays good touch, plus creative interplay, even if it's inconsistent as he falls in love w/ his dribbling. In addition, he's a pest defensively, even though he struggles to win all by himself. There's a reason why he keeps getting subbed in even over the likes of Mendez who some are suggesting should get US senior team call-ups (crazy, but still). Pynadath is a wild card. It doesn't depend on his quickness whether he develops, rather his decision-making and packing on some good weight over time. The AW options or lack there of in the pool helps his case. It's the worst position we have now that there are some promising lb's in the pipeline. This u-17 group is Reyna and a bunch of try-hards. W/ the seniors we're contemplating moving Dest up at times, we were lucky he just committed, and we didn't even develop him. We're banking on a very small group of players practically all panning out.
He slowed up a lot once he beat Leyva and was clear on goal. He started shaping his body for the shot. The Senegal player could’ve touched the ball at 40-45 yards from goal if he needed to be at full speed throughout. I simply don’t agree that Las would’ve definitely gotten there. I don’t want my goalie making a questionable foray to clear the ball against a lightning quick attacker. Those instances usually don’t end well. The last thing we need is him getting red carded. He stood his ground and made the save, to begin with. If anything, place more blame towards him on the third goal. I find it to be way too critical to place any real blame towards the keeper or the recovery defenders. Leyva has to take 90+% of the blame for that goal, IMO.
How are you measuring this? You can say every age group has some good players. This one has comparatively fewer, they get worse results than other age groups, they get dominated usually against good teams. The best players also, for the most part, play a lot of the positions of lesser importance (fullback, keeper, winger). The age group lacks a lot in the spine of the team defensively (CB, CM). I’d argue the depth is weak, as well, outside of GK. We can only measure it at youth level. It’s possible that this age group will produce more NT players than other age groups, but that doesn’t mean the age group was more talented at the time or performed well. I find it very hard to make the argument that it’s a good age group, but someone can go ahead and make it if they want.
Unfortunately, the center back athleticism gets worse as you venture onto the bench. I fear Japan will tear us apart as they did the Dutch back line.
As someone watching on TV, that watches a lot of soccer on TV, I expected the GK to come into the picture at any second and kick that ball away. If you told me that Las was tying his shoe and got caught in his net unexpectedly, I would totally believe it. It was that strange. Maybe you and Las are right, and the attacker was baiting him. But that is not how it looked. If you told me the defenders did not max effort because they expected a GK clearance and throw in, I would believe that too. Not saying it happened, just that the visual evidence, on TV, supports that. These are kids; they make mistakes.
The U17 team looked eerily like the USMNT team against Canada. Senegal might turn out to be better than expected, so the analogy is not perfect. But the lack of midfield defense, the mid block passive defending, the slow possession in attack. GB and ES hired Wicky, all Tab's guys are gone. It is obvious Wicky is playing the same system as Gregg. That is what he should do, just the GB system is garbage. It is Pep-wannabe, over coached, and the passive defense makes American players passive in all phases of the game. Even Busio reminds me of Zardes with the almost random way the ball comes off of him. The way he can look good for 10 minutes and utterly awful and miss easy passes and traps, for 30. If you told me the players struggled with the extra long grass, I'd believe it (except Senegal was not bothered by it and it wasn't extra long). Some routine passes with no pressure, turned into pressured passes because they were hit so softly. It did remind me of the '15 team, but without the bunker. So, progress I guess. I do feel like certain players are on the team for their grit and work rate. Every team needs them. But Saldana and Yow were two of the poorest and softest players out there. That was not the Yow from qualifying. It seems he was playing that right wing, tucked in, position that has made Boyd, Roldan, Baird look horrible. Maybe he grows a few inches and fills out, but he was not ready to be near the middle of the field in this game. Leyva did his Trapp/Bradley/Durkin impression as well as expected. This is a feature of the System, not a bug.
MLS is fundamentally the worst defensive league in the world just about. Defensive formation and 1 on 1 defending are a complete joke. Even a casual observer must see that the quality of MLS defending has dropped from dreadful over the last years to catastrophic.
Remember when Cherundelo was the worst defender in the US (2006) and became the best in 2010? let's hope these kids all follow that trajectory.
In the immortal words of Biggie Smalls: Dead right, if the money right, SUM there e'ry night... until the money goes sideways, nothing will ever change.
I’m not going to just come out and say possession-based soccer is useless. I don’t think it is. However, possession for the sake of possession IS useless. In American football, it would be like a team only trying to keep the ball without scoring a touchdown. Who cares if you win time of possession? I don’t reject possession-based soccer out of hand, but it has to adapt to the modern game. The slow, plodding, Sarri-ball style system isn’t going to work in today’s game. Teams are too athletic and too fast. The US will need to find out how to adapt possession to beat pressure that teams today want to employ.
It's nauseating that Jay's Brother is forcing his shit "system" down our throats at all levels. The only upside is the proof of concept that it doesn't work anywhere. I can't negatively evaluate any player playing in this "system." After all, Jay's Brother managed to make Pulisic look like crap against Canada. Jay's Brother OUT!
Las is normally a very aggressive player but I totally agree. A smart/decisive play there play ends the threat 35 yards up field. I think he could have easily beaten the Senegalese player to the ball if he had been positioned as he should have been. The announcers were even wondering what he was doing and why he didn't come out.
The 2015 U17 team got one point in their group and the 2013 team did not even qualify. The 2011 team only one a single game against Czech Republic before getting squashed in the round of 16. This age group is fine and more players will emerge over the next two years. Only 5 players have carried over from the u17 cycle in 2017 that remain in the USMNT picture now (Sargent, Weah, Dest, Durkin, Gloster). The 02's are a fine age group, stop overreacting.
Three of the players you list are part of our back line. While I think a couple of them have a fair chance to make a living as professional players, I am not so sure about making the USMNT given where they are now and the position they are playing (Kobe). That said, they are just 17 y/o so hard to predict. I do feel this back line is extremely fragile relative to other cycles. While, it could be argued that individually some (Bello, Kobe, Scally) could have a higher ceiling than previous cycles', this back line as a unit is one error away from collapsing any given game and receiving 4 goals like the past three games. With the red card earned yesterday, a new back line will be put to the test that likely has never played together for 90 minutes. This was not the case with previous cycles. Bradenton at least helped previous back lines build some trust among them.
Kobe being a player who's good enough to be a lock starter at his secondary position has an incredibly bright future. He is a much better left back than center back. Like every USA u17 team Center Backs are a weakness which gets sorted out at the u20's typically. Scally realistically needs to become a center back, long term it may suit him better because of his size and physicality. The lack of chemistry in this backline is something that is a very big down side of being the first non residency cycle. The high end prospects in this group are there but the drop off is bigger compared to past cycles. You have elite guys with likely high level euro careers like Gio and Kobe who are starting on the same team as guys like Saldana and Yow who would not have started in 2015 or 2017.
You listed Carrera too, while this forum in general hasn't been too high on him, I am curious to see what makes you see him as having a very good chance for the USMNT in the future.
I'll take a couple of plays from those huighlights over 90 minutes of the whole team in Senegal game. And apparently Axax people disagree with you.
One thing I have not seen yet is a stat on how many goals per set play USA teams give up as opposed to comparable teams. On Scuffed pidcast they said the goal scorer on the winning goal passed the slower Armour like he was standing still.
This is funny because of how completely bizarre it all came to be: 1. A US coach decides to play a very 'pep' style possession, control, distribution system without: 1. any players technically capable of playing it. 2. any player who understands it. 3. any proof that it can work. 2. A US coach builds the system without any international experience in building this system. 3. This Euro centric system, built by a US coach, untested in europe, untested as a system world wide under this coach, used by US players who can't play it...somehow universally becomes our system! It's truly incredible. The imbecility to create and sustain it is just funny. I think everyone, even those deep inside the US soccer dogma womb can agree that ottmar hitzfeld type coach with vast amount of experience coaching up tempo, hunt in packs, high pressing, attacking football is exactly what is needed and wanted by our teams and players and fans. Last time I checked, Pep never won a damn thing internationally without Messi to stand on.