Sorry for not being up to date in here but are these games friendlies or qualifying games for the U17 WC?
AY the game today against costa rica is actually streamed! hoorah Looks like it'll be at 12 est against Costa Rica The U-17 #USMNT kick off their 3rd international friendly in five days vs. 🇨🇷. Watch live at 12 p.m. ET: https://t.co/zN5U3Jzyep pic.twitter.com/oSFiAehg7s— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) August 10, 2018
The next coach is going to have to make some changes. Having watched 3 halves so far of this second string (and I've also seen most of these players play prior), there are only a handful or so of players in this second string who are good enough to play for this team. We've heard how getting rid of Bradenton would amount to more roster turnover, and better rosters for the big tournaments. Hopefully thats what we see because I'm not seeing it yet, and I think this cycle isn't looking so good right now.
I thought we played well today. We also brought in a lot of the starters in the second half, so that titled the game even more. Among the back ups, I liked Gray once again. I actually think he might be the best CB in the '02 year. Should definitely be pushing Judge and Alejandre for a starting spot or we could try out a 3 CB formation. A. Lopez showed decently in two games. He looks like a fringe option, but I haven't even seen fringe options beyond the top 3 CB's, so he might be the 4th best. Barragan was very steady at RB. Very few mistakes over his two appearances, but nothing going forward. I'd like to see the top two '03 RB's given a chance. I think they are better players. Forbes was somewhat decent. Made nice reads defensively, showed athleticism and some composure on the ball. I want to see more, but he might be in the queue fighting for Bello's back up with Hernandez-Foster, Tolkin, Gomez, Sorensen. Odunze might or might not be the second best keeper. Better performance today. Made a couple of saves, no errors. We definitely do have some keepers behind the starter that have potential, whether its Odunze, Cervantes, Harms, Wady, Oladapo, Jaeger, Krenecki, Jones, etc. If any of them ever need to play an important game this cycle, this team is in big trouble. So thats the rub. Stroud was about average. Fringe option, but I like what I've seen recently more than his play a year or so ago. Fuentes looked pretty bad. I'm just not a fan of his game. I don't see what he does particularly well other than control the football. Fringe option (at best) IMO, even though I know my opinion is in the minority on that. Same with Serrano. What does he do well? Another fringe option at best. Redzic caused havoc, like he usually does, but his left foot is a problem for him playing on the left. With the way he plays (and no left foot), he should be playing RW. I don't think he can competently play LW. He lost the team two goals today because he has no left foot. There's definitely ability there though. A poor man's Pulisic is what I see in his game. Freeman was quieter today, but still had a lot of the same sequences of skill that make him a top level prospect in the '03 year. He belongs at this level, and should keep getting call ups to this age group. Enough with the mediocre 02's taking precedent over the better 03's. D. Lopez was very good today. He was too big and physical for the Costa Rican defenders to deal with. I'm not sure his minute to minute play is all that impressive. I don't see much involvement from him, but he's good in and around the box, along with being a target presence. Not a terrible back up, although there might be better options. Among the starters, Reyna played the whole second half, and I thought he did very well. He set up the second goal, and was the best player on the field in that half. Ocampo-Chavez wasted some opportunities, but he's really impressive to watch. For a CF, he has so much skill, intelligence, pace to go along with goal scoring and a good work rate. He's a handful for defenders anytime he's on the pitch.
Thanks for the report @ussoccer97531. I really value these types of game-specific player assessment posts and you contribute more of them than anyone on the youth boards.
The preceding quote is representative of why I'm extremely bullish on the US program in the mid- to long-term. And you're reading about these types of things over and over now, including in the recent article on Bello. The ability for players to play-up in USL/MLS, train with the first team and generally be exposed to a higher level of training and competition (and held to a higher standard of professionalism) is far superior to what used to be available. And given that the "old system" produced a reasonable amount of talent that competed admirably, I fully expect the new and improved system to produce multiples of higher level prospects. Now we can all quibble about necessary improvements, which is reasonable, but things are improving and will continue to improve and that bodes well for the future.
The 2 goals - Diego Lopez with the brace in a 2-1 win for the @ussoccer_ynt U-17s over Costa Rica! 🇺🇸⚽️🔥 pic.twitter.com/W7mE6mJ9RL— ATLUTD Academy (@AcademyATLUTD) August 10, 2018
Mexico won, 2-1. USA was up 1-0 through Ocampo-Chavez off of a great run on the left side by Kobe Hernandez. Mexico made 9 subs in the final 20 minutes. USA made 3 all match. Mexico were given what was called a very soft penalty call on Scally. Efra Alvarez converts it, 1-1. Mexico scored the second on what was called a double deflected rebound. This is all according to a player’s father who is there in Costa Rica watching.
This father is adamant Alvarez didn’t get an assist. He’s letting anyone on social media know that it wasn’t his assist haha.
It’s Diego Lopez’s father. He told me the US dominated for long stretches but the 9 subs Mexico made when the US was up 1-0 were was turned the match. Got the PK call with 15 mins left. As for whether or not Alvarez got an assist, Alvarez took a shot, Las parried it, the ball bounced off of two US players, wildly changing directions on the second one, and fell to a Mexico player in the dying minutes. If people want to count that as an assist, that’s fine. I would have a hard time giving an assist to someone where the ball touched 3 other players while completely changing directions. But it’s not like he sliced the US w/ a world class through ball. He said heavy legs were obvious and that was the difference as Mexico had a good final 10 minutes.
Since some of you (and I) have been wondering, I looked up U17 callups from this cycle and the last one to see whether ending Bradenton had any effect on the size of the pool. At this point, it looks like it pretty clearly has. After six camps, the program has already called in 58 players this cycle. It called in 62 all of last cycle. We'll see how it ends up, but it seems like it's trending in the direction we might have expected. I should add the caveat that last cycle's numbers are a bit of an odd comparison since they obviously included residency rosters, but the program obviously called in non-residency players alongside residency ones at various times. I figure that my numbers probably also miss an odd roster/callup change that I didn't catch. Obviously, feel free to look the info over and correct/critique. Also maybe interesting as data here is that the U.S. only gave five guys "just one look" last cycle. (Whatever happened to Bryan Perez?) It's happened more than 20 times so far this time, though of course it's early and we'll see how that number finishes. A natural side effect of a wider net should be more guys getting brought in one (or maybe two times -- you'd like them to be good enough to get another chance, I suppose). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a3vgwj19yp3KgCTIQ9gfBUaOfJ3IMCSigjcnv-hY-6U/edit?usp=sharing
This was the lineup for the second match against Mexico. Same as the first match except Arce was in place of Serrano.