I don't think he is an attacking mid at all. He is maybe a second striker. He doesn't have the touch or ability to operate in central midfield yet. He played there for the U17 team, but that was one of the reasons the team was so poor. He is not a winger, not a #9, not a midfielder. He is a guy with a lot of MLS minutes at a young age. Not sure what he will become. I would start Booth at CAM before him. He obviously has something to break into MLS. Super curious to see what happens. Maybe a Zardes type #9 someday.
I haven't seen most of those kids, so I can only compare those I've seen. Reyna is obviously the superior talent (even before accounting for his latest strides), but I don't see anything that makes me say Thomas Roberts is ahead of him. I think Nyeman is more skilled, but he's still very young and I suspect would get bullied at the U20 level right now. The whole "only scored b/c terrible defense" is a pretty ridiculous comment -- it's what people say when they don't have a better argument. He scored and was pretty productive at the MLS level at 16, playing for Peter Vermes. I'm sure the level of defense dropped shockingly just for Busio. It's hard to argue with comments like elite since there's no formal definition, though I'd ask if all of the guys you'd prefer over him have elite skills in your mind. He has a very good first touch, has very nice vision and passing skills. He's not super fast or going to take guys one on one with his dribble. And he's not really a CAM right now. So I get that. But he's 17, highly skilled, well rounded ... I just think there's a decent chance he breaks out.
I don't have Busio in the best U-20 team at the moment. The best U-20 team I have right now is. Ochoa Las Araujo Hoffmann Otasowie Sepulveda Akanyirige Richie Flach Cardoso/Morris/Kayo Booth Roberts Bassett Miljevic Harper de la Fuete Reyna Llanez Vassilev Kelman Before everyone starts picking it apart, this is still very fluid and I am shooting from the hip a bit. I could be off here and there (particularly in central defense and at left back) but so many of these names in the midfield, wings, and forwards, pick themselves. Then you have to come down to which players are getting released by their clubs, which players (if any) are with the Olympic team/ full NT, etc. But with qualifying in the summer, releases won't be too tough to come by. The ones most in jeopardy are Otasowie, Reyna, KDLF, and Vassilev. But once injuries, release issues, and U-23/USMNT commitments come into play, then you go into a different range of players. Ritaccio, Busio, Bello, Pepi, AOC, Hernandez-Foster, Sousa, Hoppe, Odunze, Scally, Palomino, Sealy, Tessmann.
If you want to parse words, you can, but I don’t disagree with the idea that he’s not on a full strength U-20 roster.
When a defender decides to dribble across his box with three other defenders on the 18 and directly dribbles into Busio without him really moving to make a defensive play I would call that terrible defense. When another goal happens because a defender decides to not talk to his keeper and neither end up clearing the ball and then both players trip over each other leaving Busio the only one there with an open net I would also call that terrible defense. Those goals wouldn't even happen in the DA 9.9 times out of 10. Go watch the clips they're down right embarrassing for the defenders... i am pretty sure both made the worst defense highlight reel for the MLS in 2019.
The only one's I really disagree with are Richie and Flach over Kobe and Sousa. Even if both had a good camp Kobe and Sousa are locks.
For qualifying, the manager will have to take his best estimation of our top available squad. That estimation will undoubtedly be rough around the edges because the manager is new, qualifying is early, and there's been very little time to do a thorough and proper evaluation of the player pool. Hudson (or anyone else) will have a tough time feeling totally confident that he's taken the absolute best possible squad under the circumstances. Fortunately, we appear to be fairly deep. Should we qualify, there will be an abnormally long gap between qualifying and the WC. At that time, there should be a lot of time for evaluation, roster refinement, and a chance for more '02s and other late bloomers to take a run at the roster.
I would like to remind people that it’s generally a bad practice to completely judge a player’s career potential when he’s 17, especially if he’s already getting first team minutes. 2 years ago I would have bet you that Indiana Vassilev had absolutely no pro potential at all. with that being said, I don’t rate Busio at all right now either. I just believe the actual ‘21 u20 roster will be vastly different from what we have on paper now and the reason is because it is impossible to predict who will take the steps forward and improve enough to play at the highest level. I can see a scenario where Busio is at that level.
Maybe Richie gets bumped for either Sousa, Bello, or Kobe. I admit I don't have a feel for Richie yet. Based on everything I heard in this camp, I am leaning heavily towards Flach being on the team for March and in qualifying. As @Balerion correctly points out, there will be a lot more time to sort through the pool AFTER qualifying. This isn't a typical U-20 cycle with regards to timing (although it might become the norm moving forwards since CONCACAF wants a time that ensures the best U-20 players will play and that likely means the summer before the U-20 WC). But for now, with just a January camp and a March camp before qualifying, players who take advantage of these times with the U-20 team and play well are going to be given more deference. So advantage Flach
It's ridiculous that concacaf through this curveball at us but the nice part is that after we walk through qualifying again we'll have even more time to integrate the other players and 2003's like Nyeman, Gomes, and Chifamba. I'm expecting March to be a pretty Euro heavy camp.
The March camp is going to very closely resemble the qualifying team. The key MLS players will still be there
My hope is that guys like Jose Gallegos and other USL players will not get over looked because they aren't at MLS clubs or in Europe.
I think it helps us. We have a bigger chunk of our U20 pool at foreign clubs than any other CONCACAF nation.
Still he was one of two underaged players (another was Booth) on U-17 WC team, which was the best U-17 team in a very long time.
He’ll be playing against mostly older players than that this season with Loudon. So we’ll see how he holds up.
He played with Loudoun last season, so we already know how he plays against older players. I also wouldn't rule out that he might play for DC United instead of Loudoun. That roster does not have many players in his positions, and if given a real chance to earn minutes, I think he's good enough to do so.
Honduras Será la Sede del Campeonato Sub-20 de Concacaf 2020🗞 >> https://t.co/FySrtDuYv3— Concacaf (@Concacaf) January 23, 2020 U20 Tournament to be held on June-July in Honduras.