2013 US U-20 WC Team: Career Outlook's

Several comments:

1) I wouldn't write off Mario Rodriguez, but I guess you have him in the right category. Every time he plays for the U23s, he looks pretty good. He's just "out of sight, out of mind" at Gladbach II. Gladbach being the second best team in the Bundesliga this past season. I have a sneaking suspicion that if he came to MLS he could get playing time. I don't think he's Jack McBean..........................but I don't know!

2) I would move Danny Garcia up from "out of the sport" to the "long shots" category. Danny Garcia is good enough to make a career out of this sport, even if its just as a career squad rotation player. We were all comparing him to Villarreal this past season in terms of skill-set, which I think is accurate. He needs an opening at FC Dallas in terms of playing time and he needs to grab it. They're just loaded in the position he plays. And they're loaded with younger prospects than him at the position he plays...........................

3) I would actually move Trapp down a peg to potential USMNT contributor. That CM group is really tough to break into. Right now, for instance, I wouldn't start Trapp over Perry Kitchen with the USMNT. [Those guys are essentially the same age.] To me Trapp and O'Neill are in the same category. These are potential USMNT contributors, but we don't know yet. It can break either way.

A couple of cycles ago folks were lamenting the number of U20s we had that had disappeared. I then did an analysis of the U20 squads of Argentina and Brazil, and saw the same thing. There was a percentage of those squads that fell off the face of the Earth. Youth talent evaluation and projection is just really tough.

 

I think you pretty much nailed it. Alonso Hernandez is undergoing development as a soccer player, he's changed the way he plays pretty significantly since I've last seen him in 2013.

I really liked the categories as well.

Shane O'Neill has been meh this year in COL and at Toulon. I have high hopes for the kid, but he needs pro minutes.

And yeah, hopefully Cropper and Stanko can contribute to the NT, but who knows.

 

Goals are one of the most telling things. Many of us can be fooled by simple goals scored at a major tournament level into thinking a player is legit. Years and years ago I loved a forward prospect, can't even remember his name anymore, but he was a speed guy, associated with our youth teams, I think he played on the right wing of our 4-3-3 a decade or more ago, i saw enough positive plays to abandon judgment and think uncritically that he had stardom written all over him.

Two recent examples of that, tied to major tournament goals were Zizo, and Cuevas. Sal scored a beautiful goal in the '07 tournament and quite a few argued themselves into thinking he was something more than the unathletic, robotic middling player he was. I felt similarly when Cuevas scored a composed garbage goal to generate a shock result in the '13 tournament. That team was god awful and he was a non-entity in terms of a prospect but that goal created the illusion of a future that seemed highly unlikely to me, and the ensuing two years have borne that out as he's faded from the scene almost entirely. Some guys crashing and burning surprise me a bit, like Szetela who appeared to have awful mental make up but plenty of talent, or Adu who had somewhat similar issues, but Cuevas and Zizzo always struck me as guys who would never get a senior cap, and just had nice moments in youth tournaments (Barrett in '05 getting that shock winner against Argentina was another example).

Historically it seems that about 2 guys per team may end up mattering, sometimes a little more, that's why the '15 edition is so interesting to me. I feel like this team is stuffed to the gills with guys that might matter, I'm interested in five or six midfielders, a forward, and at least 2 guys on the defensive end. I would be shocked if we don't pull at least 4-5 future starters or legit contributors out of this bunch. That's partly the reason why I've been so disappointed with how they've played under Tab. They should be better than this, but they aren't, and after watching Mali, and Serbia, and Brazil and Nigeria, and more, I just get depressed watching the team play, it's awful viewing and terrible soccer. I listened to the Men in Blazers podcast interview with Ramos friday and it just reinforced the sense that Ramos is not the right guy for the team, interesting, but not the right guy. Happy for the future, but will be very happy when we dump all these player coaches and actually hire talented coaches.

 

Bingo x100000.


Also, I am of the opinion really that a U-20 player is not a bust if he has a nice pro career but doesn't get caps for the USMNT.

It's not ideal and you want the U-20 team to be a good feeder. But if 3-4 become useful USMNT players, 2-3 become fringe guys and 5-6 have good careers but short of the USMNT, that is an outstanding class.

There are always going to be U-20 players who flame out and are out of the game or playing at very low levels. But, again, those are useful learning experiences.

A good example is Gabe Ferrari who excited a lot of people when he made the bench a bunch of times in 2007 for Sampdoria in Serie A and even played in the Coppa Italia. That's understandable because I think an 18 year old American making the Serie A bench would get a lot of people excited in 2015. Ferrari was fast-tracked onto the 2007 U-20 team as a result and it wasn't long before his career became a total non-factor.

Even better learning examples is to look at players who later turn out to do very well but were never on the U-20 radar. Then you compare them to the guys who flame out.

 

There are also guys in each cycle who weren't released (Novakovich this time) or injured for the World Cup (Boxi Yomba this cycle. More in the 2013 cycle like Pelosi and Packwood), and guys who just missed out on squads due to depth at that position (Roldan, Flores this time). There are also guys with "tweener birthdays" like Jordan Morris that don't get selected. Then there are the foreign players that haven't committed in time. A player like John Anthony Brooks would have played in this 2013 cycle, for instance.

You don't really get an accurate reflection of a cycle or pool based solely on the U20 WC roster. After all, this is just one coach's selected squad from a small sliver of the player pool at one period in time. It's an analysis that's worth doing and enjoyable to do, but tells a partial story.

 

As of today if I'm choosing between Gill and Villareal I'm taking Villareal, and that's not even close.

 

You are missing the big fish on top, I'll give you a hint, he is not playing with the U20.

 

Villarreal is a potential NT regular imo I was ready to write him him off last year but when he's been healthy this year he's been one of the Galaxys best players. Getting a lot of praise from MLS Analyst. Other youyou categorized are probably right

 

No, I was thinking of Novakovich. I truly think this kid has all the tools to be top of this U20 class, yes, higher than Rubin.

 

Too early to write off a player of Rodriguez's caliber at just 21 years old. He had a nice season with the BMGIIs after returning from injury. If he doesn't break into the first team for at least a few minutes this coming season, maybe some concern is warranted.

 

It's good to track, but the quality of the Finals roster arguably says as much about the specific desires of a specific coach under specific circumstances (a very broad consideration) at a specific point in time as it does the overall quality of the players in that cycle. If you combine the 2005, '7 and '9 cycles, you have:

Guys on the Finals roster with caps: 26
with WC qualifying appearances: 15
on WC rosters: 4

Guys in the pool but not on the Finals roster with caps: 16
with WC qualifying appearances: 7
on WC rosters: 4​

The second category does not count the 10 guys who made WC rosters during those periods who weren't members of their U20 pool at any time.

 

the difference with this cycle is that alot of players are playing FT football, and past the visual test. Last u-20 WC only 1 person looked technical enough and that was gil. Yedlin was really fast, but he worked hard and now is becoming a beast. The rest of the players outside of Cropper were meh. I was surprised Villarreal didnt do well, but he always looked good. Also im not sure but i think only gil was getting FT minutes.

 

If we expand this to include all World Cup players born 1975-, I believe that we get:

On U20 roster (41 total WC squad appearances) : Howard, Yedlin, Bradley, Beasley, Dempsey, Davis, Diskerud, Altidore, Rimando, Spector, Bocanegra, Onyewu, Cherundolo, Donovan, Clark, Buddle, Feilhaber, Albright, O'Brien, E.Johnson, Olsen, Convey, Wolff, Mathis

In U20 camp but not on roster (5 total WC squad appearances): Gonzalez, Besler, Beckerman, Bornstein, Holden

Not in U20 camp (21 total WC squad appearances): Johannsson, Bedoya, Guzan, Jones, Green, Cameron, Wondo, Zusi, Chandler, F.Johnson, Gomez, DeMerit, Torres, Edu, Findley, Goodson, Mastroeni, Ching, Conrad

Not sure: Brooks

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Notes: My numbers for 05, 07, 09 differ slightly from Dave's.

Also, the populations for the different groups are quite different from one another. Many more players are in U20 camps than make the roster, and many more players are omitted from U20 camps.

 

I don't think Gil has what it takes to be a NT regular. He's not a 10 and hasn't progressed as an 8. RSL playing him more at RM than centrally hasn't helped much either but his athleticism and the lack there of is an impediment when considering a full international future. His best position IMO would be as an 8, which leads me to the same problem Trapp will face.

As a potential international, I don't see much upside for Trapp as a 6. Kitchen is a superior 6, then we've also got Williams who's still somewhat young at 26. I don't see him jumping either of those two, then there's Stanko who's a wildcard but if not for his injury was slated for Bund mins this past season. I believe Trapp's higher ceiling is as an 8 and the problem there is a) the Crew aren't playing him there and b) that's an area where there's a helluva lot of competition. Nagbe probably plugs in there when he gets his papers, then we've already got Mix/Bradley who can play there on top of a prospect like Hyndman. And depending on the formation, Zelalem is also a high end prospect there.

Unless something changes in the next couple years and Gil/Trapp are played regularly as 8's for their clubs and excel, I think their NT futures are quite limited.

I think the current U20s have more top end talent who'll transition to the full NT. Guys in that age group, Rubin, Hyndman, Novakovich, Zelalem, Maki and Green would be my bets, with Green obviously playing up with the U23s but I consider him part of this U20 group.

 

It's possible I've got errors in my spreadsheets. Would you care to highlight a few of the differences so I can try to reconcile?

Generally, as I think about this more, it does feel like I need to add more detail on caps and WCQs for guys who weren't part of their pool, even if they didn't make WC rosters. It's not perfect, but a minimum of a single US cap does seem like a reasonably objective starting point for a measure of whether a guy "made it to the next level." A camp invite would be more inclusive, I suppose...

 

Just that I could only find three players from 05-07-09 who had been on WC rosters and gotten U20 call-ups but not made a U20 roster.

Afraid this is unhelpful, but it strikes me that there are a lot of Zizzo/Szetela/Agbossoumonde types who get a US cap before they've accomplished anything above the U20 level.

 

Hmm, OK. Who are they?

I agree, which is (kind of) why I added the WCQ column to find something between a cap and a WC roster that was relatively easy to check and seemed meaningful. I suppose widening that to some minimum number of caps (which would be arbitrary) or include pre-qualifier camp invites (which might not add too many more players) could be useful. Maybe something else -- caps in multiple WC cycles maybe?

The downside of that stuff is it takes time to look up and they don't pay me to do this.

 

The ones I got are Holden, Besler, Omar.

Understood - ideally, I think it'd be nice to cut from World Cup qualifiers down to meaningful World Cup qualifiers, but there's no way I'm paying your hourly rate.

 

Will check against those names tomorrow. As to your suggestion, I could create a category for Hex-matches only as shorthand for your suggestion. Still probably more work than I'm liable to take on anytime soon, though. Anybody feel like an unpaid YNT research internship?

 

Thanks for sharing that second piece, I'm very curious about it, and it's definitely of importance and value for obvious reasons, not only for interpreting how successful a generation was, but also how thoughtful a coach was in evaluating available talent. You never know things play out, for instance, considering basketball's rapidly growing popularity throughout the second half of the eighties and nineties, why the heck were the American classes born between '78-'82 almost uniformally god awful at the next level? They would have been watching the NBA primarily from around 1987-till their draft years, basically the tail end of the Bird-Magic years, the Bad Boys era, and Jordan's dominant run (with the double from Olajuwon mixed in). What in the heck happened? The 2000 draft is uniformally regarded as the worst NBA draft ever, and yet these were the kids that got into the game watching those greats, why were they so gosh darn bad? The '01 and '02 classes were nearly as bad, both classes top players being internationals, it wasn't until '03's epic class that the American market started pumping out elite talents again (Wade was an '82, Lebron, Bosh and Anthony were '84's). But I guess that's the way it goes, you never truly know why, it just is, the same way the '06-'14 NFL draft classes produced no elite franchise QB prospects other than Stafford, Ryan, Wilson, and Luck (with Cutler, Flacco and Newton being a bit borderline)).

 

The '13 class was awful. Feels like the great lost class was '11, supposed to be built around the twin beasts Gyau, and Renken, along with Boss, Lletget, and tertiary guys like Wood, and and Salgado. Renken failed by injury, the rest imploded in qualification, and then a year later the disaster in U-23 qualifying for the olympics. After that heartbreak watching the '13 class was just crushing, just a game or two of watching them and it was obvious we weren't getting anything out of that group other than the bare minimum (a 1-2 player crop). Really depressing, and then it was compounded by the god awful coaching, and landing the ultimate group of death.

 

We'll see 3-4 from that team will turn out to be top quality players it was a better team than the 11' you mention that team sucked hard. Both were missing guys through injury or club commitments though. This cycle will be like 5-6 a lil better could be more but coaching decisions, club commitments, injuries are the problem