I haven't seen it, but all reports are that Pomykal has taken a clear step forward. He could be on the Tyler Adams track from 2017. A strong U20 WC (just cracking the starting lineup would be something) and then a strong playoff push and he will be ripe for a sale to the Bundesliga in December. He is playing better than Adams did in the Spring of 2017 actually; if reports are to be believed.
It does seem like Sands is going to be that player we all think was Ramos's biggest roster mistake not too long from now...
Pretty amazing numbers for teenagers players so far this year in MLS. Based on the number of teens that are part of first teams and still haven't played, I suspect we're going to get to the Bundesliga number. I can tell ya that on FCD its highly likely they'll have at least two more teams getting playing time. Both Servania and Roberts could play this upcoming weekend. We know Lindsey of SKC, Bello of Altanta, Real and Fontana of Philly, and others.......will get into games this season. More teenagers have now played in MLS this season than La Liga, Premier League, & Serie A. 4 debuts this week.🇦🇷Argentina- 57🇳🇱Netherlands- 48🇫🇷France- 37🇩🇪Germany- 28🇨🇦🇺🇸MLS- 18 (after 3 weeks)🇪🇸Spain- 17🇮🇹Italy- 17🏴England- 17🇷🇺Russia- 15🇹🇷Turkey- 12🇵🇹Portugal- 9 pic.twitter.com/wpXVThqbeT— MLS Buzz (@MLS_Buzz) March 18, 2019
Speculation is that this is because of a behind the scenes edict from HQ. We will see if it lasts through the Summer. MLS has 33% more teams than the Bundesliga, so they would have to exceed 37 to be equivalent.
Well by percentage of minutes, they are still doing pretty well so far: Percentage of minutes played by current players under the age of 20 in leagues where I could find data.. Eredivisie 4.5% Bundesliga 3% Ligue 1 2.4% MLS 2.0% La Liga 1.3% Premier League 1.2% Serie A 1.1% Super Lig 1.1% Liga NOS 0.6%
With the number of teams and the lack or relegation and 14 teams making the playoffs, the number should approach Argentina. Comparing to La Liga or the EPL is a red herring. The BL is an interesting comparison and they should get there at least. But until they are near Argentina or at least above Holland, it is not good enough. Lots of kids played in March last year never to be seen again. Mines, Fontana, actually scored in games and have never been back. Hopefully, the number rises throughout the season. That would be different.
Argentina would likely be a poor equivalent, as more than 2700 Argentine ply their trade overseas due to higher salaries (more than any other countries), financial scandals and corruption, dangers of crowd violence, etc have made it very attractive for older players to leave the country and play elsewhere. We literally get some of their best players now coming to MLS, so yeah that is not an apples to apples comparison either... or is also a "red herring".
I randomly stumbled across these on YouTube. They might be Shaft's every touch videos. Paxton Pomykal vs. the Crew Brendan Aaronson vs. ATL UTD (1 goal, could've easily had 2 or more assists) Miles Robinson vs. Rayados All 3 of them look like they could be "breakout youngsters," but these are admittedly small sample sizes.
I've been high on all three of the players in the post by @PalmettoSpur above. My brief thoughts: Pax looks more impactful to me this year and seems to have carried over his high quality play from U20 qualifying. Nice mix of skill and workrate from him thus far. Seems to have a bit more burst as well - physically maturing, maybe? Last year, he was hampered by injury problems and unfortunately looked Luis Gill-ish at times. I thought Aaronson looked good in the few times I saw him in USL last year. He had a great first MLS game last weekend and looked like one of the most skillful players out there for either team. Not sure of just how good an athlete he will end up being, but he showed some nice quickness at times and I saw nothing to suggest that his athleticism would ever be a problem. I also really like young players like him who make the most of their early opportunities and who aren't intimidated by the moment. I'm not going to get on Tata too much given his results, but it's difficult to believe that Miles Robinson couldn't have been given a bigger role the past two years. He's a very good athlete and his passing has looked decent enough for me to question why FDB called it out recently. He's in a good environment with a coach that believes in him and has had a stellar start to the season in which he's been consistently excellent against top notch strikers. He's also got a clear path to the senior team and needs only to keep it up at the club level and perform well with the u23s. And btw, this is the new normal. Our improved developmental environment should absolutely continue to churn out better and better players in greater and greater numbers. Some will emerge early and others later, but all will be setup for success to a much greater extent than ever before.
MLS is a carefully cultivated economic system. The league has been working bit by bit to make themselves a selling league. Now that we've had multiple youngsters sold the baseline is well established. From this point teams can sort of of say, well this young guy looks like an Adams, or a Tabla and then suddenly have more than a million reasons to play them.
I don't think it is that careful. I think they lurch from place to place and there are different camps among the ownership who want to do things differently. They thought they needed to have all the best American players in the league and paid huge sums to bring them all back. But then one focus group and they turned on a dime and introduced TAM and elevated CCL in an effort to come up to par with LigaMX. Whether they saw the Adams/Davies example and are trying to copy it or HQ told them to, doesn't really matter. But it is interesting that coaches had to be moved out of the way (Pareja, Tata) or placated (Vermes) for these young players to get a chance. BTW, Pomykal is certainly throwing his name in the ring for this thread.
"Since Adams moved into the starting lineup for the second game after the winter break, Leipzig has played nine league games, won six and tied three with a goal difference of 18-2. Leipzig has allowed only one goal with Adams on the field and none from the run of play." https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...ms-draws-rave-review-from-his-rb-leipzig.html
Here is a copy of what I posted in the MNT Thread. Adams had an incredible game this last weekend. The assist was simply amazing. At any rate... here is a copy of said post: For those of you who missed Tyler Adams dominate again against Berlin this past weekend.... here is a video of his amazing 75 yard assist: https://the18.com/soccer-news/tyler-adams-assist-vs-hertha-berlin They also list several of the advanced stats that are finally being used around the league to describe players that are not strikers. Perhaps the most important... RB Leipzig is undefeated with Adams in the lineup. 7 wins and 3 draws since the end of January when Adams broke into the starting 11. Here are the stats: 1 assist 85 touches 67/76 (88%) passes 4/8 long balls 7/9 duels won 3 aerials won 8 recoveries 3 tackles 1 interception 11.39 kM distance covered 26 sprints#RBLeipzig still unbeaten with him in the lineup. #RBNY still struggling without him.#USMNT Adams is the best American player in the world right now. You should watch him play on Tuesday on ESPN News in the German Cup Quarter Finals.
What is amazing about Adams is that he is still thread eligible. He is certainly young enough and only had 9 caps when the year began. Meteoric is putting it lightly. A big part of that is NYRB not delaying anything. It is hard to think of another MLS team moving the team captain to move a 18 yo into central midfield (a player that was doing well on the wing) and then to sell him before his contract was up only a year after that.
Yup... still young enough to be eligible in this thread... but that will likely go out the window next season. In short, Adams has arrived. I wouldn't be surprised if he is getting attention from the EPL soon. Pulisic had a meteoric rise as well but injuries and Sancho have curtailed it. I still think he has the potential to be fantastic.... but he has to find a way to stay on the pitch. I think some of his lackluster play just has to do with not playing every game. He started to get hot this last month after getting opportunities to play... and then... another muscle injury. Life in the EPL will be a lot tougher than the Bundisliga physically and mentally. Right now I am not questioning either for Adams. Kid just looks the part. So calm, so collected and so talented.
I don't think it really has anything to do with a leaguewide mandate from MLS HQ. This is each individual club making their own decisions about their franchise. While they're some clubs that are "all in" on youth and player development, there are some clubs that don't have a single US U23-eligible player on their roster. And that's OK, by the way. Its the same in every league around the world. To be honest, I think a lot of it has to do with the talent level and MLS-readiness of kids increasing year by year. That has to do with the continued growth of the DA and USL as a pathway to first teams. As much as we wanted FCD to play Danny Garcia, Coy Craft and other youth...................those kids were nowhere near as talented as Paxton Pomykal and Jesus Ferreira. They just weren't. FC Dallas median age is insane. Here were starting XIs for their MLS and USL games this past weekend. They won both games and did so fairly easily (red card in the RSL game surely helped). "Soccer is a young man's game." - Mike Renshaw Dallas Tornado great.#FCDallas & #NTXSC lineups from this weekend with age. pic.twitter.com/KhzAayrmZ4— 3rd Degree (@3rdDegreeNet) March 31, 2019 Lots of people are noticing Pomykal. I'll just post one comment from a former USMNT head coach. FOr those of us that think Tyler Adams is ineligible for our hypothetical award as they've awarded it to him last season.................Pomykal is now one of the leading contenders. Weah and Sargent haven't been getting opportunities lately. #FCDallas, @PaxiPomy Paxton Pomykal is very special. I predict he will be on the full US National team very soon. He eventually will run the midfield. Nice to see homegrown players getting their shot.— Steve Sampson (@stevesampsonusa) March 31, 2019
Adams/Pomykal manning the defensive/offensive center mid-field for the 2022 WC run? I could see Pulisic on the left and Weston on the right with Weah and Sargent striking. I would certainly pay to see that lineup.
Maybe. Adams, Pulisic, and McKennie (all US U23 eligible) are current locks for the USMNT. Weah, Sargent, Pomykal, and a plethora of others that are about to emerge are fast followers. What's exciting for USMNT fans is that Pulisic/McKennie were just the start of a wave. Not isolated incidents. Look for Uly Llanez of the US U20s (and formerly of the Galaxy academy) to be officially announced at Wolfsburg within a couple of weeks. [His 18th birthday is TODAY]
I said within two weeks, and its possible that this is already done.......... Ulysses Llanez turns 18 today and is now officially under contract with Wolfsburg, where he has been training for several weeks now. pic.twitter.com/fQlgfbsEUo— USMNT Only (@usmntonly) April 2, 2019
All good stuff. Still a long way to go, but Pomykal has been great. But what NYRB do that nobody else has done is move players on. This is the major failing of RSL and maybe Philly. You develop a player, then you let him sit in your lineup. Great, but he is clogging up a position for other young players. You have to sell when the time is ripe. For Pomykal, that could be this Summer. EPB is a big example of not clearing room for a young talent. But K. Acosta is FCD's big example of getting a player playing time but not selling when the market was there (I know, nothing public but there was buzz post Azteca). We will see if FCD and SKC and even Seattle have the cojones to move the player when the player, not the team, is ready. Fun stuff!
Well FCD just sold Chris Richards to Bayern before he'd ever played a game for them. That was a pretty big signal on their intentions there...…..……………... NYRB is interesting. Their academy is looking pretty sparse right now, and there's been turmoil amongst the leadership there over the past couple of years. I don't see another Miazga or Adams on the near horizon. In fact, I'd much, much, much rather have NYCFC's young crop.
This. RSL has yet to figure this out, and have lost their best youth players to other clubs with no ROI. Philly will figure it out now with Ernst Tanner in charge. He was the head of Red Bull Salzburg's Academy prior to coming to the Union. I wouldn't be shocked if either or both of Trusty and McKenzie are sold by years' end. Philly was awful at this in the past: see Zack Steffen and CJ Dos Santos as prime examples. Though to be fair, that had more to do the FO at that point in time and the lack of leadership, direction & a plan.
This is nitpicking but using EPB as an example of "wrongdoing" is not really legitimate.As I remember the details, EPB went on loan to Porto and SKC thought they would have a sale on their hands. The sale fell through and they were stuck with a player with one year on his contract. They had a top level MLS defense at the time. Should they have immediately inserted EPB into the iineup? I know some feel they should but they have to do what is best for them. What happens after one year and EPB still leaves on a free but they have dismantled their defense to make room for a player that left? If anything, it isn't an argument against failing to provide a spot for a young player but an argument for having a plan b or an argument for doing credit checks before loaning out players with two years on their contracts.