Perhaps I should add, that the first half of the Danish Superliga season is finished, top-6 is playing for the Championship while Hobro and Sabbi finished among the 8 teams fighting against relegation or at best an Europa League spot ... Hobro is still narrowly leading relegation group A, but obviously lost their first game at home to AGF Aarhus : https://us.soccerway.com/national/denmark/superliga/20172018/relegation-round/r42370/
its little early to give up on this kid I mean he is 20 the u17 qualifiers were a year ago. A lot can change for a kid at that age especially if he can get in the right situation on the right team. people expect too much of young kids not everyone that will be a good player are studs at 18/19.
This was the first game of the group and they play home and away, so 5 more games in the relegation group stage. If they finish in top two in group A, they will then be playing Europa League play-off Quarter-finals home and away against a team from group B, so that would be a minimum 2 more games, or upto 5 more games if they go all the way to the Final. If they on the other hand finish bottom two in group A, they go to the relegation play-off first round against a team from Group B and then to either the winners or losers' play-off round, so that is a minimum 4 games, but could be 6, if they lose the winners' play-off and then have to face the 3rd best team from the Danish 1. Division in a final play-off ... or if they win the losers' play-off and have to face the 2nd best team from the Danish 1. Division for a spot in the Superliga... it looked like this last season . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016–17_Danish_Superliga#Relegation_play-offs
What f*** shame. Ugh. Pomykal just had surgery for a meniscus tear. Luckily not nearly as invasive as an acknowledged procedure and long term outcome is much better. Pax wil be back in 4-6 weeks
Joel Soñora back in Argentina with second place side Talleres. Has been very good for the reserves but has stayed on the bench recently and yet to make his debut. Apparently he is close to debuting though
I'm watching the Union play SJ Earthquakes. In this game, I get to see Auston Trusty, Fafa Picault, Matt Real for the Union and Nick Lima from SJ. Trusty composed as always, Picault has speed but can't finish or make the final cross. Matt Real looks solid, he needs to find his space when linking in the attack, he knows what to do near the touchline but doesn't see the open space inside fast enough to receive the ball. Nick Lima looks to be a solid MLS player nothing outstanding but nothing detrimental for his team. Second half coming up..
Nick LIma is very good defending, doesn't give you much in the attack. Union took out Accam (yellow) and moved Picault to the left wing and he went to work, Picault has to be one of the fastest players in MLS and Lima kept him honest most of the second half. Picault did have an assist on a nice cross but I'm not sure if Nick Lima was guarding him. My rating: Trusty - B+ wasn't tested much, SJ stayed away from him. Picault = A got an assist was dangerous most of the night. he is LW, not a RW Real - C too green for MNT talk, needs at least another year. Lima - B+ good man-to-man defender, needs to work on his offensive game.
Respectfully, I think this is quite a stretch. The last youth player who went over was Miazga who was lighting up the league and he needed at least a year to acclimate and I think the bar is higher for a midfielder than defender. I really hope he moves asap for his career. The faster he proves himself, the faster MLS will (vastly) overpay to bring him back.....
Yeah... my fear is he’ll stick around and stagnate. It’d be cool if Miazga got Chelsea/Vitesse to be involved.
Another player who should start hedging his bets, in my opinion, is Justen Glad. I’d say for him to finish the season then find a bigger club to take him on in the winter, and push for a loan in the summer.
I said one of the top four leagues. Chelsea is in a top four league but I would guess that there are other teams for which Miazga might have gotten a sooner look. Maybe There is a great deal of variation within the top four leagues. McKennie is currently a regular contributor to Shalke on the second place team in B1. I would guess that there are several teams within B1 for which he would be an almost auto starter. It is hard to tell exactly how Adams compares to McKennie right now but I would guess that, at the very least, there are several teams for which Adams could be a regular contributor. (That would put Adams a step or two below McKennie). What are the top four leagues? England, Germany, Spain, Italy? France #5? I find it hard to believe that Adams couldn't find a team for which he can contribute regularly. Would he contribute regularly for Chelsea, Man U, Man City, Barca, Real Madrid, Bayern, Shalke, Dortmund, etc? probably not. Again, Miazga was at Chelsea....a top team that is NOT known for developing players. A pretty good chance that Pulisic would have been loaned out if he had chosen Chelsea. I personally believe that Adams is underrated by some on this board because he is in MLS. Hard to tell if my rating of Adams is overly optimistic or conservative. Either way, I hope he will move to Europe and find a team where he can progress to the next level.
Hard to agree with, "Miazga who was lighting up the league. ..". He played well, but not great. Had a few caps where he didn't do much. Adams is influencing games, even dominating them. Not MLS mid-summer snoozers either, but Cup finals, Playoffs against TFC, and now CCL games. Plus his latest USA NT game. Adams is performing at a very high level lately. Hard for 18 year olds to stay consistent of course. But his development has been parabolic over the past 9 months.
One comparative measure is that Miazga in his first full breakout MSL season played 30 matches, 28 starts with a Whoscored 7.46 and 4 MOTM. That got him sold to Chelsea. Adams last year, had 27 matches, 25 starts with a Whoscored 7.03 and 2 MOTM. Both are excellent accomplishments for a 20 yo and a 18yo but Miazga's breakout was certainly more compelling. Two very exciting prospects with the athletic raw material to be elite internationals. We need to find 10 to 15 more like them!
What Miazga showed me was that even MLS rising stars need significant work on parts of their game: for MM, it was his passing and vision that were significantly below that required in the major leagues. To his credit, he vastly improved that over the past two years. I think the same is in store for Adams in that he'd need substantial work in the non-athletic part of the game but would be happy to be wrong. Along the same line of this discussion is a poster who thinks that Hyndman wouldn't be a starter in MLS because he couldn't make the roster for an EPL team and therefore has moved below several of his U-17 and U-20 teammates who stayed in the minors.
You may be right. All I can do at this point is speculate. I think a big issue will also be when he moves (summer or winter). Moving to another league often takes time to adjust (regardless of whether they started in MLS or somewhere else), so who knows what will happen. Taking one or a few players as an example is not enough of a sample to draw real conclusions. If it was, than we could conclude from McKennie's success that the US youth development system is sufficient to prepare young Americans for big time soccer in Europe. As HHF pointed out, MIazga and Adams had similar breakout years (statwise) but Adams appears to me to have taken it to a level beyond where he was last year. As far as Hyndman is concerned, I am not as familiar with him as many but (with that qualification) I am not as impressed by him as some others. I have no doubt, however, that he is good enough to be a starter in MLS. I am not so sure he would be a star player in the league but that is another conversation entirely.
I'm not exactly sure how long WM was in Schalke's youth system but I think it was about a year or so before his first start with the seniors? that should be the amount of seasoning that i'd hope Adams requires to elevate the more subtle aspects of his game.
He signed in August 2016 and made his first-team debut on May 20, 2017. So less than a year in the academy.
Yup. This article has a good description of the timing of events and what led Weston to Schalke. The FCD academy built Weston up with a substantial foundation, and then Weston clearly improved significantly over the year with Schalke. From Dallas to Schalke: Weston McKennie's rise to the USMNT https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/feat...-schalke-first-team-usmnt-youth-united-states
I think it’s silly and ignorant to think that FCD/MLS/US local development doesn’t deserve a huge portion of the success of WM. It’s equally important to acknowledge that he grew quadratically in his time with Schalke. This is the path to USMNT success IMO and I hope dozens follow WM. There will still be hundreds of players who will stay in MLS.
The thing that many lose sight of is that development can only help you reach your full potential. The athlete still has to have the built-in raw attributes that can be refined and developed to be an elite player. Look at the YA's that Schalke have gone after; Weston McKennie, Zyen Jones, Chris Gloster, Haji Wright, Nick Taitague. The all have elite level attributes.
That's the thing, though-- certain attributes are much more emphasized in Europe than in the US, and these things should be treated case-by-case and depend a lot on the players position. Miazga had a lot of the defensive ability already, and the athleticism that made him a worthwhile prospect, and Vitesse was able to dramatically improve his play with the ball, which is something that matters a heck of a lot more in Europe. However, a center back in Europe's primary job is still to defend and their passing just needs to be, well, passable, so he was fine at switching to Europe. Same thing for Wes. He was extremely athletic and a really good passer already when he went over. All Schalke wanted to do was make him learn how to become the Lieblingspanzer that he has become, but that's easy when he's already the most athletic guy on the field. Once he had that down, he became the box-to-box we all know and love. That's the issue with Adams, though. He's really athletic and a great ball winner, but he's not a great passer, and if you want to play in midfield in Europe, you better be picking apart MLS defenses. The crux of the argument for him at right back has nothing to do with how good he is comparatively to the rest of our midfield right now. In fact, he probably deserves to start. The main reason I support Adams -> RB/RWB is that I'd be willing to wager he can fit in at a better club at right back than he can playing midfield. He's a good athlete, wins 50/50s like no ones business, and is an absolutely elite 1v1 defender. His crossing is kinda wonky, but he can fix that, and he's alright 1v1 with the ball, but he's really good at combining on the right sideline. I've always thought it made sense.