Review: 2011: A year to Forget

Firstly, a slight quibble about what BB "last 7 friendlies" were. schrutebuck's list skipped the Jan 22 match vs Chile (1-1 tie). Technically, that drops the Brazil match from August 2010 "out" of the list of BB's last 7 friendlies.

So, the technically correct last 7 were Poland (2-2), Columbia (0-0), South Africa (1-0), Chile (1-1), Argentina (1-1), Paraguay (0-1), and Spain (0-4). BB's record was 1W-4T-2L with 5 goals scored and 9 allowed. The outlier game was the clobbering by Spain. Every other match was a close, frustrating slog.

JK's 7 friendlies resulted in 2W-1T-4L with 5 goals scored and 7 goals allowed. There were no outlier games, as all 7 were close, frustrating performances.

Goals scored were the same for both managers. Goals allowed favored JK by 2, but that's entirely attributable to the Spain crushing.

BB's schedule was tougher based on quality of opponent. JK had more road games.

My last comment has to do with IndividualEleven's statement that JK was unusually burdened by not having both Donovan and Dempsey together. It is true that Donovan missed 5 of JK's matches and Dempsey missed the other 2. But in BB's last 7 friendly matches, Donovan ALSO missed 5 matches* and Dempsey ALSO missed 2 matches**. Moreover, Dempsey also didn't start two other matches***. BB only had two matches where both played (Argentina and Paraguay), while he also had 2 matches where neither played (South Africa and Chile) and 2 more matches where neither started (Columbia and Spain). So, JK actually got slightly more minutes in this comparison from Donovan and Dempsey than BB did. Bet most will be surprised by that; I was.

Also, BB's 8th friendly, the 0-2 loss to Brazil, missed Dempsey.

So, my point is, we've been spinning our wheels. The performances under JK are basically no different than under BB.


* Donovan missed Poland, Columbia, South Africa, Chile, and Spain.
** Dempsey missed South Africa and Chile.
*** Dempsey didn't start Columbia and Spain.

 

Well, I don't think we've been spinning our wheels at all, though the results haven't quite been there yet.

First off, the Women's Team was a nice story in 2011. Yes, the final was crushing, but the win against Brazil after getting so obviously hosed was magical. The WWC run, I thought, was fantastic. I didn't fancy them to get that far (thinking Brazil and Germany were the class outfits). So losing the final wasn't as bad as if I'd expected them to win from the beginning. Plus, if we had to lose to someone, Japan, with all that nation went through, was the best choice.

OK, I get it, MNT centric wise, it wasn't the best year. But hardly the worst, either. We did make the GC final, and win our WC group. And there have certainly been some positive developments.

1) A real effort at USSF to change the youth setups and get a real plan in place. And doing so publicly.
2) Hiring of Reyna/Ramos/Porter.
3) The integration of some of the Germans, particularly Chandler and Johnson.
4) The return of Gooch to form. That's a huge plus.
5) Bradley and Jones sorting our their club situations.
6) Beasley's resurgence.
7) The emergence of Brek Shea.
8) Buddle's perfromances.
9) Torres' recall.
10) Davies at least returning to the pitch.
11) Altidore's signing in Holland and performances so far.
12) Dempsey's continued great form.
13) JK's hiring.

That's 12, even if one disputes the last. If so, then go with the development of some of are young players abroad (Gatt and Mix particularly) for a Baker's dozen. Yes, there have been some downers, but not nearly so many.

1) GC Final performance.
2) Holden's re-injury.
3) Tim Ream's sophomore slump.
4) Lichaj injury.
5) Freeze out of some of the CB's and attacking mids (hopefully cupcake resolves it).

Personally, I'm fairly optimistic about the direction we are heading.

 

TrueCrew, I'm all for being optimistic. And I am optimistic about some of the changes to the USSF's youth teams and structures. However, if you are going to include those points as positives, don't you have to also include how poorly our US Youth teams have performed in real tournaments recently?

And if you are going to include positive individual club developments for some players, then don't you also have to include some of the negative club developments, like Holden's horrid injury luck, Guzan's on-going bench time, Feilhaber's purgatory in New England, Bedoya's lack of match time for Rangers, Lichaj's injury, etc.?

I don't think 2011 was a disaster. I think it was neutral. That's why I wrote we were spinning wheels. The positives where balanced out by negatives. The concerns at the start of 2011 remain the same now at the end of 2011. The performances at the start are largely the same now as they were when the year began.

Hopefully 2012 will start an upward trajectory.

 

But if you are listing positives and negatives for the USSF's youth teams, which column does failing to qualify or advance from youth tournaments get put? In the positive column?

 

Omar Gonzalez, Rookie of the Year in 2009, All-Star in 2010, and the league's youngest-ever Defender of the Year in 2011

Am i missing something?

 

I disagree, strongly for the U-20s, and still disagree for the U-17s. The importance on results should be for their development over a long period of time. Development occurs at the club level, where the phrase is appropriate for many youth clubs who play way too many games and don't practice enough. Three to six games every two years is not going to be the difference in development for any player.

Youth tournaments like the World Cups are not for development. They are for putting together what you have learned and trying to do what the entire purpose of the sport is, to win. Should we beat and flog the U-20 team for failing to qualify? No. But we should certainly be disappointed with their results and not pass it off as results don't matter.

 

Well, when Mexico keeps winning, and we keep losing, I'd say it also means something about the players we are both developing, no??

The guys on the Youth Nats board who think those results don't matter are protesting too much, methinks.

 

Players who look promising for the Nats and Euroclubs in future.

 

Since this is an NT thread...

Getting destroyed by brazil and not getting called up for fall friendlies.

 

In some thread during the last week or two, when folks were debating JK's contribution to the improved German youth system compared to other German program leaders, didn't someone post some links/quotes that indicated that, among the many things Germany started to revamp in 2000, was the decision to take youth tournaments more seriously and try to win them? That Germany's prior indifference to youth tournaments was retarding the competitve attitude professionals need?

I'm not saying this should be the #1 goal of youth development. But if you are going to bother selecting U17 or U20 squads and bother taking them to international tournaments, why wouldn't advancing in those tournaments or winning them be one of your objectives? Why wouldn't the failure to advance be considered a negative?

I'm not saying these failures are the be-all and end-all, ignoring other potential positives. But I'm not saying the opposite, either. The failures of our top youth players are indeed failures.

 

On the one hand there's the player who needs to learn how to win.
On the other hand there's the coach who if he needs to win, will select certain players over other types of players.

In other words, if winning becomes more important a coach will opt for 'winners' and physically stronger players instead of skillful, creative players who at a youth level aren't strong enough yet to fully exploit their potential.

 

This concern is totally valid with U10's and U12's. I've seen it happen in my 20+ years of youth coaching. Selecting to "win" match outcomes at U10 is a problem when it harms skill development.

But by the time athletes are U20's, most already professionals, selecting to win is a fact of life, the nature of the beast, and one of a number of valid criteria.

Please note that my point is not that winning rules everything. My point began as a counterpoint to an argument that when judging the 2011 year for US soccer, we should only look at the positives on the U20 and U17 side, and ignore negatives like US teams failing in actual events. There were positives and negatives for the USSF youth programs this year, so acknowledge BOTH the positives and the negatives.

 

Once you are at the U20 level, it's about winning. All but one or two of our last U20 cycle were pros, the rest were in college, all of them are past the cuddling stage. Again, three to six games in two years are not the difference between developing players and not.

 

When you are traveling to South America or the Middle East for a tournament, you should be past the orange slices at halftime and participation ribbon mindset.

I know it is no longer PC, but they keep score for a reason....

 

I'm with you on this. I'd rate our U17s and U20s based on how many kids are either with and progressing through the ranks of a major club or are generating serious interest while continuing to improve the level of their game and get closer to the senior division.

As for trophies, I could give a rat's ass. Let Mexico win every single YNT World Cup from here until doomsday if we get our kids fast-tracked to strong clubs where they're seriously pushing the seniors for time, and hence, our own USMNT players for time with the senior squad within a few years' time.

 

The US U-20 program doesn't really have anything to do with moving players to clubs or generating interest.

At best, if you don't want the team to win the games it plays, the only other purpose it serves is to bring in new players and dual nationals who may not have been part of the program before hand.

The U-17s are a bit different since they are basically the Bradenton squad who get together for another tournament.

 

Results do not matter at the U20 level. Whether you are emotionally connected to them or not.

 

Then why do they play the games?

 

It gets you out of the house.

 

To add some more food for thought, extract taken from Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers":

4. The explanation for this is quite simple. It has nothing to do with astrology, nor is there anything magical about the first three months of the year. It's simply that in Canada the eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1. A boy who turns ten on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn't turn ten until the end of the year—and at that age, in preadolescence, a twelve month gap in age represents an enormous difference in physical maturity. This being Canada, the most hockey-crazed country on earth, coaches start to select players for the traveling "rep" squad—the all-star teams—at the age of nine or ten, and of course they are more likely to view as talented the bigger and more coordinated players, who have had the benefit of critical extra months of maturity. And what happens when a player gets chosen for a rep squad? He gets better coaching, and his teammates are better, and he plays fifty or seventy-five games a season instead of twenty games a season like those left behind in the "house" league, and he practices twice as much as, or even three times more than, he would have otherwise. In the beginning, his advantage isn't so much that he is inherently better but only that he is a little older. But by the age of thirteen or fourteen, with the benefit of better coaching and all that extra practice under his belt, he really is better, so he's the one more likely to make it to the Major Junior A league, and from there into the big leagues."" Barnsley argues that these kinds of skewed age dis tributions exist whenever three things happen: selection, streaming, and differentiated experience. If you make a decision about who is good and who is not good at an early age; if you separate the "talented" from the "untalented"; and if you provide the "talented" with a superior experi ence, then you're going to end up giving a huge advantage to that small group of people born closest to the cutoff date. In the United States, football and basketball don't select, stream, and differentiate quite as dramatically. As a result, a child can be a bit behind physically in those sports and still play as much as his or her more mature peers."" But baseball does. The cutoff date for almost all nonschool baseball leagues in the United States is July 31, with the result that more major league players are born in August than in any other month. (The numbers are strik ing: in 2005, among Americans playing major league base ball 505 were born in August versus 313 born in July.) European soccer, similarly, is organized like hockey and baseball—and the birth-date distributions in that sport are heavily skewed as well. In England, the eligibil ity date is September 1, and in the football association's premier league at one point in the 1990s, there were 288 players born between September and November and only 136 players born between June and August. In interna tional soccer, the cutoff date used to be August 1, and in one recent junior world championship tournament, 135 players were born in the three months after August 1, and just 22 were born in May, June, and July. Today the cutoff date for international junior soccer is Janu ary 1. Take a look at the roster of the 2007 Czechoslovakian National Junior soccer team, which made the Junior World Cup finals. Here we go again:

[roster of Czech youth soccer team]

At the national team tryouts, the Czech soccer coaches might as well have told everyone born after midsummer that they should pack their bags and go home.

 

Gladwell's book has been disputed by numerous sources, but even Gladwell himself says it doesn't really apply to the elite players.

Of the last five #1 overall picks, were born April, November, September, February, November.

 

Here's the problem with all who make this argument. It does not matter how pretty you win. 3 points is 3 points. Advancement is advancement. There are no extra style points handed out.