Upon request by @GiallorossiYank , maybe its time to start evaluating the career path's of the most recent U-20 group. Its a good cycle if a few of these guys are regular contributors to the National Team. Just my take on this. Chime in with yours. Almost Certainly Regular NT contributors: Miazga, Rubin, Arriola Potentially Regular NT contributors: Steffen, Carter-Vickers, Palmer-Brown, Payne, Zelalem Probably a cap or two with the NT: Hyndman, Acosta, Delgado Unknowns: Olsen (haven't seen him play) Long shots to get a single NT cap: Sonora, Jamieson IV, Thompson, Tall, Allen Might be out of the sport in five years: Caldwell, Moore, Donovan, Requejo What does everyone else think?
Just to give everyone an idea of what could happen: 2005 team: 5 no longer playing, 2 maybe current regular NT players, 8 others with caps 2007 team: 8 no longer playing, 2 current regular NT players, 6 others with caps 2009 team: 2 no longer playing, 3 current regular NT players, 1 other with a cap 2011 team (qualifying, didn't make it to WC): 3 no longer playing, 3 current regular NT players, 2 others with caps 2013 team: 0 no longer players, 1 current regular NT player, 2 others with caps
My man, who knows? And why even try and conjecture? Fun as a time capsule I guess.... You should fix the apostrophe in your subject line. Hard to focus on your question with that there.
Barring no career threatening injuries.... In my opinion: Certain to contribute: Zelalem (rare attributes for his position in our pool), Payne (not much quality depth at his position), Carter-Vickers, Miazga (these guys really stand out, even though we have some talent at that position already), Arriola (promising attributes at a critical position of need for the US), Jamieson IV (Dempsey won't be around forever, and there's no telling when/if Jozy will recapture his form) Everybody else in my opinion are mid to long shots to be relevant long enough to break through on the NT. They can all end up being very good players, but there's only so many spots on the team. Time will tell...
Interested to see what career path Ethan Horvath is going to take. He's getting minutes at a pretttttttty successful club in Norway although they aren't as good as last year. Edit - forgot he wasn't even on the team lol
I know CCV is very young to put in the 'almost certainly' bucket but I'm pretty much willing to go there with him at this point. Rough for Hyndman to be slotted in 'probably a cap or two' given that he got a cap at 18 years old. I just think he's in a shitty situation right now and once he works out of it he'll be a solid CONCACAF region player. I don't think he has a particularly high ceiling though.
This prediction game is fun, but its essentially impossible to know............................. We've had kids in the "lock" category in the past who completely fell off the map [See Szetela and others] And we've had kids we thought were fringe prospects on U20 teams end up being star USMNTers. And you can make "mystery kid on the fringes of the US U20s" as a lock for USMNT regular. Usually those end up being NCAA players that weren't considered. A Jake Ronzhansky or an Arun Basuljevic-type of player. [A Kyle Beckerman type from the past. I'm not sure he had a single U20 cap.]
I'd prefer this thread be a mix between postings of new career highs and lows with random speculation. If we keep both balanced it should be fine.
Kyle Beckerman was a mystery kid? He was on the most successful U17 team we ever had, and was already in MLS by 2001. (With that said, more to your point, I don't know if he ever got a look with that U20 group. I only have rosters for the finals, qualifying, and two post-qualifying camps, and he wasn't on any of those.) That 81/82 team also missed on Herc Gomez and Clarence Goodson, who both went on to make World Cup rosters. (So did Jermaine Jones, but he hadn't committed to us at the time.) And I sure did think Ricky Davis was going to have more of a career than he did...
Of course he was with the U17s, however those of us who were around these boards at the time weren't talking about Kyle Beckerman as a "future World Cup starter." He went to the NCAAs and was a little "out of sight, out of mind" for a couple of years. THen he went to the Fusion and only played in something like 15 games in his first three seasons [partly due to injury.] In fact, when the "dispersal draft" happened after the contraction of the Fusion and Mutiny...................Beckerman was selected in the second round. Clubs passed rather than taking Beckerman. Maybe a player like that could be Chris Lema of Georgetown could be comparable. U17 World Cup starter, off the grid for the U20s, but has enough talent to advance in the future with the right guidance. All I was implying in my post that a very large portion of players who'll be USMNT "regulars" in the future weren't on this team. For a multitude of reasons. That really isn't that interesting of a comment. Its fact. I bet that if we look at our roster for the 2014 World Cup, a majority of the players on that team never played in a U20 World Cup game. So all I'm saying is the exercise of projecting these kids is fun and entertaining. But we're 99% assured of being completely wrong about most players. We can see talent, but Danny Szetela had talent. His performance at the U20 World Cup got him a move to La Liga. It didn't mean a damn thing. And that's because we can't measure heart, work ethic, and desire.
Beckerman went pro right out of high school. He did so at a time when it would've been tough to half-fill a decent-sized U20 pool with American pro prospects, as we can now. It's difficult to imagine that he wasn't considered an elite prospect at the time. I suppose it's possible that he fell off the radar between his U17 campaign and the 2001 tournament, but I tend to doubt it. He was badly hurt in 2001 (broken leg), which is presumably most of the reason he wasn't heavily involved with his U20 group, as well perhaps as why he fell all the way to 11 in the dispersal draft the very next season. (Though, looking over the first round picks from that draft... whoops! The Quakes didn't even pick.) I don't disagree with your overall thesis that projecting long-term careers for 19-year-olds is hard. If it were easier, fewer misjudgments might happen. I just think Beckerman is an odd example of a "mystery kid."
Almost Certainly Regular NT contributors: Miazga, Rubin, Zelalem, Carter-Vickers Potentially Regular NT contributors: , Arriola, Hyndman, Acosta, Jamieson IV Probably a cap or two with the NT: , Delgado, Steffen, Payne, Palmer-Brown, Sonora Unknowns: Olsen (haven't seen him play) Long shots to get a single NT cap: , Thompson, Tall, Allen, Requejo Might be out of the sport in five years: Caldwell, Moore, Donovan What does everyone else think?
My only quibble is Steffen cap or two? Zach Thorton has 8, Marcus Hanneman 9,. Steffen may be our next Tim Howard... if not he's still getting more than 2 caps.
yeah i think he probably will have more than 2 caps, but being a goalie he might not be a regular, because my guess is Hamid and Horvath will get the chances
I prefer Horvath to Steffen as well, although I think they will both probably get 50+ caps, but Steffen might be Guzan territory for caps if he backs up Horvath in the way that Guzan has backed up Howard for years. I think Horvath will be the #1 for the NT as soon as next cycle.
Regardless of what Klinsmann said, typically our top young talent becomes a starter much earlier when they are in MLS. That said I had a bit more hopes for this group but I think they are also trying their luck in much bigger teams. In 2013 a huge chunk of the team was MLS.
Hey, this was pretty good! Steffan looks underrated, Rubin overrated, and Moore will last 5 years. Acosta did better, maybe Delgado. But if you split the list at Olsen, with those above having possible impact and those below not, only Moore might be an error. Might. Tall is still out there.