I wonder what this game would’ve looked like if Edelman, Sarver, and Freeman started on the bench. They were all out matched and bad in this game. Once they all came off, the game became much more even and it allowed us to play as well as we did in the end. You cant really blame Sunderland for his lineup because he probably had about 3 days with these players, but Casas, Paredes, and Gutierrez should start the next match.
1-0 U.S. FT. Turkey unlucky not to equalize. The U.S. had very little in the attack in the 2nd half (they often had trouble just advancing into Turkey's half), while Turkey had several dangerous forays. My conclusion: we suck.
Yeah, this is a group of players that has essentially never played with each other before. We don't need to over-react here..................
The u16's are still missing three of the age group's top wingers in Patrick Bohui, Cade Cowell, and and Jonathan Perez. The u16 standouts were Gomez, Cuevas, Slonina (an 04), Paredes, and Sealy. The u17 standouts were Noah Jones, Tucker Lepley and Jack Imperato also showed flashes of quality when he came on. Fuentes would make a good play and then follow it up with a very bad turnover. Pynadath showed a couple moments of flash but that was it...outside of that he disappeared in a game against 2003's where a player that many regard highly should be dominant. Pynadath needs to polish his end product and his involvement off the ball, if you watch a Ajax u19 or Jong game he's in you'll see the exact same thing which is why he is not progressing there as we may have hoped. Bailey Sparks showed some flair but needs to calm down when he's out there, he was nervous and you could tell.
U-16’s: The result was very fluky. We were significantly outplayed, but results in a tournament like this don’t matter much. What matters more is what the individual players show, and I think we saw some good things, but there were too many non-prospects in the team that hurt the ability of the team to play well. My first thought watching this game is that our YNT’s are very poorly picked, and it makes me question if there’s also a scouting shortage, along with the coaching shortage. I can’t remember a period of time where there were so many shocking call ins to YNT’s. The level of scouting has dropped off from USSF. That much is evident. As to this game, I thought we struggled because the spine defensively was out of place. Kitihara and Edelman don’t belong. I thought that would probably be the case with Kinzner as well, but he at least is borderline with what he shows in the DA. I think we now see that he needs to be phased out. You can’t play like that. It’s an unacceptable level of play in the US shirt. Huckaby didn’t show as bad as those others, but he’s very raw and can’t yet steady chaos around him. That made the attackers in the first half mostly invisible. Sarver had no chance. Nothing to even say there. I wouldn’t blame Nyeman, but a little disappointing that he wasn’t demanding the ball more often and initiating play deeper. Freeman has talent, but his soccer IQ ruins his talent right now. He looks primed to bust. I hope he turns it around because there is talent there. Sealy had his one visible game in ten. I would caution not to be fooled. Even when he has a game like this, you can see the IQ and tunnel vision problems. I’m not writing the kid off because there’s some semblance of talent, but he needs to play well a lot more often. I thought Slonina didn’t hurt his stock. He didn’t do anything great, but he held his own playing up a year. The two main standouts were the fullbacks, and these two kids are great players, which we already knew. Cuevas defended admirably, combined well and his assist to Gomez was purposeful and an excellent pass. I’m hoping he snubs the Galaxy and signs in Europe. It’d be ironic if a real RB punished them for how they’ve used Araujo. Gomez was great and I thought our best player. He struck the ball incredibly well on the goal, and he constantly made plays on both sides of the ball. I don’t know that Dallas is going to want to pay the HG salary I think he’ll command. I hope he doesn’t sign with too big of a club that won’t allow him to break through from the academy. Paredes showed well off the bench once he was moved to RW. I don’t know why anyone would use him as a LW. Did the coach not know he’s RW-only? On this roster, Paredes and Sealy both can only play RW. They should be replacing each other. Paredes once again showed that he has a lot of talent, but is a little too inconsistent. Let’s see how that develops over the next year. The rest of the subs weren’t very impactful. I thought Casas was noticeably better than Edelman, but it’s not a high bar. U-17’s: The result was good, but they were very average. I think they were about what we’d expect. There’s just not going to be great football or that many standouts with this group. It’s hard to complain with this team getting a result though. I would’ve expected them to lose all three games. I thought Wilson played well. His pro readiness puts most of the keepers in this age group to shame. You can see the difference between a player like him and Odunze, whose good for a calamitous decision every 30 minutes. You don’t need to use the potential guise with his game. He’s presently very good. Hopefully we see him regularly with the U-20 NT because the kid has earned it. Ramsey doesn’t make the game look good aesthetically, but he gets the job done. I think he has an excellent read of the game defensively. The other three defenders weren’t bad. Lepley isn’t a #6, but did well enough in the role mostly due to the poor play of Turkey. Fuentes and Sparks were invisible. Bad games from both of them. De Vries had an assist, but I didn’t think he was very effective. I can appreciate that Pynadath tried to make plays, but he’s just not very talented. Being able to do 20 step overs does nothing if that’s all there is to your game. Jones finished his goal well, but didn’t add much aside from that. Of the subs, I thought Garcia was good. He’s a talented player, but very inconsistent. He needs to clean that up, but is at a good club to do so. Imperato showed well in his brief appearance. I’d like to see him from the start in the next game.
Agree with everything except Pynadath, he looks like super talented 15 years old. It seems that Ajax people are betting that he is very late developer. Are you sure that Gomez assist wasn't from Sealey?
I know, and I remember this discussion in the past, but I doubt they are going to force the kid into playing for them, if he doesn’t want to. Besides, this kid sees all the best players in his age group signing first team contracts and he’s only on a reserve team contract. He probably considers himself as good as these players. Even if he wants to stay with LAG, I suspect he’s going to tell them he needs a first team contract for the upcoming season
89' | Twice as nice!Moses Nyeman puts the U16's up 2-0 with this late goal pic.twitter.com/gSHpCxnumk— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) November 17, 2019
Overall the 16’s looked like the better functioning team, structure in the midfield for buildup providing ball access, showing for teammates, reading pressure (both as the man on the ball and off). Not exactly prolific in the final third. Nyeman is great playing on instinct, avoiding pressure, winning duels by coming out with the ball or getting low and using his body. When he has some time or needs to see a couple steps ahead on the outer edges of his field vision he could do better as a deep distributor. Maybe holding him to a Xabi-like standard in this is unrealistic but a man can dream. Sealy got his chances played in behind but didn’t finish. Hit two very long switches from right to left on the money and under-hit, with his right, a hooked throughball when there was space. A couple times he was able to beat his man around the edge into the box going to his right. Not much productive service though, from or to him. If he wants to make it he has to do better checking to the ball. He’s good 1v1 but turns into pressure, doesn’t read/account for the double team, and holds too long. The other major weakness was in buildup in midfield, he just couldn’t play forward, wide or inside. Based on the last fact it’d be logical to conclude that combo play around the box could also use work, but he’s a bit better there because he can go 1v1 or shoot. I suspect movement needs refinement but some promising signs on the timing of runs in behind. Won possession back, got to some lose balls. Parades had some moments of class in combination play but fewer in and around the box. Fullbacks were a bright spot, especially Gomez. It’d be nice to use him more, looked like he made a good number of runs from the attacking edge of the middle third that weren’t rewarded. The LCB also looked like he had some ideas on the ball. Kitahara and Monis had a couple moments, Kitihara had more of them on a per minute basis. Due to all of the above I would shade buildup to the left and then when going right have Neyman slide out in midfield and push Sealy high and wide, if he’s at RW and not ST, occasionally he’d have to move into more central spaces in buildup but I’d want to start him high. On the left have Paredes move into the half-space and let Gomez run beyond. I’d be a little more open to crosses but there need to be more runs/numbers, that seemed to suffer from not being able to anticipate likely service, which discourages decisive runs when the defense might be leaving a little space in behind. On the 17’s Tolkin and Fuentes, then, somewhat, De vries, showed some things.
The U-16's were the better team, and deserved the win. The U-16's were much better the first 30 minutes, the U-17's played the U-16's pretty even the next 30 minutes, and then the U-16's were very good the last 30 minutes. From the U-17's, I thought the keeper Dowd made a few nice saves. Garcia didn't play bad, neither did Lopez. Imperato had a few nice passages. Aside from that, the starters weren't very good. Off the bench, I thought Fuentes, Van Hees and De Vries were among the better U-17's in the second half. No one was all that good though. Picking out standouts from this team would be hard. From the U-16's, I thought the best player was Walls. Excellent performance. Very good passing from the back, and barely put a foot wrong defensively. Cuevas did well at LB in the first half before being replaced by Gomez. I thought McGlynn showed some very nice passing in the first half. Casas and Hall weren't bad either, but they played quieter roles. Paredes wasn't as good as the first game, but did show well. I also thought Sealy had a pretty good game. Most of his attacking sequences didn't come off, but he once again was able to make an impact. Off the bench, Gomez and Nyeman were both good. Gomez had a goal called back that I didn't think was offside, Nyeman had a late goal. Both made a lot of simple plays, not many very big plays, but it added up to a good half for both. Sarver showed very well towards the end of the game when the U-17's threw numbers forward.
U16 standouts: Sealy, Nyeman, Paredes, Kitahara Standout u16’s missing: Patrick Bohui, Cade Cowell, Jonathan Perez, Danny Leyva, Ricardo Pepi, Elton Chifamba, and Caden Clark The 2003’s are arguably the most talented year we’ve produced so far. While the 2002’s have around 6 guys who have long term talent. The 2003’s have 15 so far. For me the 15 are: Ricardo Pepi, Danny Leyva, Moses Nyeman, Jonathan Gomez, Mauricio Cuevas, Dante Sealy, Patrick Bohui, Cade Cowell, Elton Chifamba, Jonathan Perez, Caden Clark, Casey Walls, Dante Huckaby, Kevin Paredes, and Sota Kitahara
Jonathan Gómez continues to show his good level @jonathang_42 @gerraze @ClausGoMen @Blanca_Gomez_ pic.twitter.com/y0Hc2LJPrx— César Gómez Cantú (@Chesare_Gomez) November 17, 2019
The key player in this game was easily Sealy. That is not to say that he was great, but the tactics of the game basically revolved around him for the 70 minutes that he played since the 16s mostly were more dynamic and controlled most of the game. In the firsht half, Noah Hall played as an inverted right back, which allowed Sealy to collect the ball on the right flank and influence the game from there with several full field diagonals and his own initiated attacks. Hall was replaced to start the second half, and the new right back stayed wide instead of inverting. That meant Sealy played more central and was given more freedom to move. He assisted the firsht goal from a central high position attacking off the dribble and had a lot of other impactful actions from the middle of the attacking half or in the box. He was mostly good, but his performance would have to be considered mixed bag. Either way, he seems to be progressing very well, and seems much more fluid and consistent than he did as a huge kid. I thought it was interesting that the 16s were able to incorporate this tactical wrinkle, while that is not something that we have seen from this cycle of 17s. That seems symptomatic of what went wrong for them this cycle. There was great talent at the top of the roster, and a good depth of players that have relatively high ceilings, but they lacked talent at huge spots on the field, which limited them tactically significantly. Pynadath was the most influential player for the 17s. His ability is obvious, and he was dangerous throughout. Even though he has a long way to go with his finishing and final ball, he has one of the higher ceilings in the pool. I don't think Fuentes has near the potential of Pynadath, but it is hard to believe that players like Dietz, Yow, Jasson, etc. were taken over these two guys. I don't necessarily think that adding those two gets us out of the group even, but, individually, they just seem like much more capable players at his point. There were a lot of other notable players, but -- wow -- Gomez is ready to be on a professional first team right now. He's a flat out stud. Kitahara is really nice, too -- scored the firsht and created the second while displaying class with just about every touch.
I'm not sold on Sealy. He is too selfish and rather than pass the ball to an open player in the box, he tries to get a shot off instead. I think his best position is as a forward, he lacks the vision and passing skills that a player needs to be a winger.
Is he even a good finisher? I want to compare him to Weah but Tim was one of our best goalscorers when he played for the U17s.
And that might be good as he will as he matures. You've seen plenty of Gomez, probably. Is he really as good as he looks? Because for me, personally, he is on a different level from everyone on that very talented team.