Agreed and I still think Pomykal or Ledezma would see time there before Dest. OTOH, I guess I could see Dest there late in a game to close out a win.
I think he was just saying Dest and Gloster as fullbacks, but you do have a point. Both of them do have some experience playing on the wing.
For anyone concerned about Paxton Pomykal's status for the U20 World Cup, I asked him before he left about his hamstring. Here's what he said #FCDallas #U20WC pic.twitter.com/nOJKDB0u9U— Arman Kafai (@ArmanKafai) May 21, 2019
Glad to here this. Wish he or someone else would ask each player coming back from injury the same question.
Here's the official announcement on Araujo replacing Akinola: NEWS: Julian Araujo will replace Ayo Akinola on U.S. #U20WC roster due to injury >> https://t.co/h5WmMXKzUF pic.twitter.com/5uceM9WGST— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) May 22, 2019
Soccer being what it is, this could cut either way, but Araujo's inclusion could be just what the doctor ordered.
It seems like just yesterday that Ramos called in 35 guys for the first camp of the cycle in January 2018: Durkin Chris McKenzie Mark Pomykal Paxton Real Matthew Rennicks Justin Scott Brady Servania Brandon Amon Jonathan Becher Simon Brewer Shaft Cappis Christian Carleton Andrew Carranza Jose Davis Gideon Dorsey Griffin Fontana Anthony Lindsey Jaylin Lopez Eric Maher Jack Marks George McMaster Justin Mendoza Glademir Muse Trey Nicola Chris Perez Brian Perez Emmanuel "Manny" Perry Nebiyou Sands James Stanley Aedan Torres Juan Pablo Tracey Greg Uribe Angel Verhoeven Noah Vines Sam Vom Steeg Carson
Of those 35, only 6 made the final roster; that's crazy. Some of these names I presumably had opinions about and now can't even recognize. Some of them are in college. Some of them are out of the game entirely (Carranza). A lot can change in a year and a half.
What do folks think of Ayo Akinola's injury as it relates to our prospects as a team? Was Akinola a candidate to start on the wing or up front for the team? My take is that Araujo should have been included from the start, but it does seem a bit odd to replace an attacker with a defender. I'm wondering if Tab Ramos is confident with Sebastian Soto as the #9, with Tim Weah and one of Konrad de la Fuente or Uly Llanez on the wings? Or perhaps Paxton Pomykal will play on the wing to make room for more of Durkin/Mendez/Ledezma/Cerrillo/Servania in central midfield? What do folks closer to the team than me think of this?
Seems like a good move. We were carrying 1 forward heavy imo and 1 defender short. Call it luck how this worked out
The right wing spot is probably going to go to Konrad or Pomykal. They each have positives and negatives and I can't really predict what Tab will do My personal opinion is that a front line of Llanez-Weah-RW is better than a lineup of Weah-Soto-RW. I think Weah is a better CF than LW, and the dropoff from Weah to Soto is greater than the dropoff from Weah to Llanez on the left.
Yeah, it seems like we might see Weah at striker a bit more now, along with Soto of course. Though there's Rennicks, too.
The one downside of losing Ayo is he and Weah had a ton of chemistry together and worked off of each other very well. Weah made Ayo better. I think Konrad May be in line to start now but whereas Ayo would look for Weah’s runs, as well as make some runs himself, Konrad seems more likely to want to be isolated so he can beat his man 1v1. I think Weah, Soto, Ledezma, Konrad, Uly, and Pomykal will all see some time at the three forward positions and the challenge is going to be finding the right combination who can work together. All of them are very talented and all of them have strengths and weaknesses.
The last time when Soto and Rennicks were on the team it wasn't in Europe and Rennicks wasn't after injury, but Rennicks was much better than Soto. I hope Weah starts as a striker, with Pomykal and Mendez are must starters and the rest of attackers are build around that.
Sorry to hear about Akinola's injury, but otherwise that's fantastic news for roster balance and future prospects. It should have happened from the beginning. But what happened to the glaring omissions taking part in Gregg's camp instead? So they'd have an excuse now for Araujo being excluded. However, what about Sands or Aaronson. A couple of them were reportedly supposed to be included. Now it just appears that was damage control like the false Tillman acquisition report after the fed lost Jonathan Gonzalez. This squad still badly misses Sands. The Aboubacar era sounds as if it's off to the expected flying start.
I never saw why Philly or NYC would release either for a camp when they have MLS matches going on during the same time.
Yeah but that’s a problem that’s not going away... there are always MLS games going on during these camps. You have to be involved in the camps if you want to have a chance at the roster. Would they just not allow the players to take part in the Olympics? That seems like a good way to piss off the players. Maybe they didn’t release them, but the Fed looks pretty bad for not calling those players into any of the 3 teams they could’ve been called in for.
Philly has 3 matches in a week. I’d be pissed if I were a Philly fan and they let Aaronson miss those matches to participate in this camp. The domestics called into the U23 camp are the ones not even seeing much time in MLS.
I get it, but the way the US has done things, the players not called into this camp are a step behind the rest of the players and may just be forgotten completely. It’s just a terrible setup
The mention of Tillman made me think back to the tournament that ended his U20 cycle -- which is really pretty amazing in retrospect. Tillman had already been "cup-tied" (that is, he couldn't play for anyone else at the U20s as far as I know) during the group stage of UEFA U19 qualifying in October 2017. That, by the way, was before the Ramos comments to Goal.com, but that's another story. That advanced Germany to the Elite Round, the precursor to the finals. Groups of four teams, three games, one team advances. March 2018. Germany hosts. On the first day out, the Netherlands beats Norway by 5 goals and Germany blanks Scotland. More or less what you'd expect. Tillman doesn't play. But then Norway puts 5 goals past Germany and Scotland beats the Netherlands. Not at all what you'd expect. Tillman doesn't play. That leaves it all to the last game, during which Germany does its job and beats the Netherlands with Tillman getting garbage time. But Norway for some reason decides to score 5 more goals, beating Scotland and taking the group. Germany goes home, Tillman's U20 career ends, and later that year he goes on loan to FCN. Good times.
Eh, Cerillo has never played in a U.S. camp ever. We don’t necessarily know yet what Kreis/Berhalter will value, but I highly doubt Parks and Williamson would be ahead of Yueill on their depth chart. The U23’s in this camp outside of a couple won’t even sniff the Qualifying roster.
Akinola would likely have been a pacy supersub as a winger/forward. Even without him, I think we've got those positions covered. We only had 6 defenders on the roster. Reading the general impressions on this board, we now feel the roster does have a little more balance. We really had no backup in case right back Sergio Dest became unavailable. Araujo provides quality cover there, and can also play CB in case McKenzie or Keita can't go (both have just returned from injury). One suspects that Araujo was the #1 alternate in case any field player couldn't go. A like-for-like alternate would have been Jonathan Amon...……………………. I do think Ramos is confident with Soto as the #9. He could also start Tim Weah at the #9 if he so chooses. Weah will start. We didn't bring him to the U20WC instead of the Gold Cup to sit on the bench. We'll just see if Ramos chooses to play him on the Wing or as the #9.
This has been discussed before in another thread with @Clint Eastwood . Cerrillo has been to at least two camps. They both may have been unannounced by the Federation and thus there are no records of it but he stated so in this interview: https://www.prosoccerusa.com/mls/fc...-dad-with-helping-fuel-his-rapid-rise-in-mls/
Whatever the case, that a player can make a U20 Finals squad based entirely (I doubt whatever previous camps those were had much effect on this selection) on a few months of MLS play is notable -- mainly, I suppose, in context of how Ramos runs the program and team. But still, it's historically unusual.