Already true. Doubt anyone saw a failure to make the World Cup in 2018 and 14 months with a non-qualified coach picking who gets caps, but still nice job.
People loved Rubin... This is not as good as Zelalem probably is not coming good and CCV will probably be depth. Jamieson IV is not NT caliber. Sonora, Payne are probably not in the picture. Moore has two caps.
Yeah, I whiffed here on Rubin, Moore and Payne. Rubin had a great tournament here and his game was trending really well, but he hasn't developed since. I think injuries hurt his development, so it wasn't all about him not being good enough. In hindsight, I put too much stock in Moore's play in this tournament compared to what I had seen prior. He was awful in this tournament, but wasn't so bad when I had seen him play prior. I'm still not the biggest fan of his game, but he might find himself on the fringe of the NT during his career. Payne was great for the U-20's, and then he showed nothing after that. I don't know if I just hadn't seen enough of his game or if his game fell off eventually. Smaller errors include overrating Arriola. I was worried about his skill back then, but didn't place enough emphasis on that. I liked that he played well on both sides of the game, and I overrated his grittiness and athleticism. He's more of a fringe NT guy, IMO, regardless of the caps he's gotten. I might've overrated Zelalem, but I think the "error" here is not anticipating injuries, which I don't do. I'm not going to predict injuries for a player. In hindsight, I also should've placed Palmer-Brown and maybe Steffen in the above category. Palmer-Brown didn't play much in this tournament, but he was playing up a cycle, and he had the best skill-set on the team. I put too much stock here into who was playing instead of how each player projected. It's hard to put a goalie in the first category because they are more unpredictable, but Steffen was maybe our best player in this tournament and has done very well since.
Rubin went from this tournament and then lit up Holland, didn't he? Then he just stopped scoring, stopped playing, and is now a sub in Mexico. It is crazy the trajectory these players can take. We all take our current 19-21 yr olds as on an upward slope but they could disappear just like Rubin or Adu. Scary.
I remember Rubin (like all of our attackers) being poor in this World Cup. And didn't he just score a couple of goals in Holland? I've always wondered what the hype was about, but maybe it was pre-WC since I didn't see any of those games.
This cycle was so much better than the previous ones. Tragically, too many of the shining lights look like they will not amount to much. Thompson, Rubin and Hyndman promised so much but have yet to deliver. Since I look at age groups more than the team itself I would count Green and not Zelalem but it's much the same story for them. We still got some solid players that are already contributing heavily to the NT in Steffen, Miazga and Acosta. There are other players who have looked useful and may become contributors in later years. Horvath, Arriola, Delgado and Moore. A solid contribution but it feels like a hollow victory when I think about the more technical, imaginative players that have not fulfilled their promise.
In 2014/2015 he was a young American attacker seeing significant playing time in Europe. Not a common thing. He made over 30 appearances for Utrecht that year across all competitions. And he showed versatility as they played him as a forward, as a winger, and as a #10. Had more assists than goals I believe................ But then he had some sort of significant injury that kept him out of much of the 2015/2016 season. Some type of foot injury if my memory serves me correctly. That completely stalled all momentum in his club career. And from a playing perspective, has never appeared to be the same dynamic player.
I liked Rubin quite a lot but the most I could have imagined for him was a Bobby Woods like career. The one that hurts me most is Tom Thom. That boy seemed to me to have a limitless technical capability. I visualized a Dempsey like career at a minimum. But the truth is that he has only scored 1 goal in five years at MLS.
Foot injuries may be worse than other more serious sounding injuries. Brek Shea also had a bad foot injury and IMHO was never the same afterwards. Bradley had the ankle injury so not being able to navigate at 100% must be devastating.