Trying to dig deeper into the pipeline of forwards and also trying to figure out why we don't seem to be creating them domestically, so I pulled together this list based on roster info from ussoccer.com (not as thorough as DMN & others here, but it was a stab...). Here's the list of 18 & 19 year old forwards listed on either the U20 or U18 player pools and where they are right now (as best I can tell): Arreola, Eder Forward 18 UCLA US College Baroush, Orr Forward 18 Tigres (Mexico) Foreign Pro Foxhoven, Zack Forward 18 UCLA US College Hegngi, Chris Forward 18 Ohio State US College Lubahn, Andrew Forward 18 Wake Forest US College Navas Cobo, Francisco Forward 18 Houston Dynamo US Pro Ontiveros, Martin Forward 18 Akron US College Orozco, Emilio Forward 18 Tigres (Mexico) Foreign Pro Wood, Bobby Forward 18 1860 Munich Foreign Pro Akinsanya, Adedoja Forward 19 Boston University US College Bates, Will Forward 19 Virginia US College Bauer, Ryan Forward 19 Dayton US College Bowen, Tristan Forward 19 Los Angeles Gal US Pro Brooks, Marquis Forward 19 LA Galaxy Acad US DAP Finley, Ryan Forward 19 Duke US College Jahn, Adam Forward 19 Stanford US College Kupfer, Zack Forward 19 UNLV US College Madueno, Josue Forward 19 UC Santa Barbara US College Palumbo, Steven Forward 19 UNH US College Picault, Fabrice Forward 19 Cagliari Calcio Foreign Pro Sinclair, Hasani Forward 19 South Florida US College 21 guys the US has invested in heavily, in order to maximize their potential as players. 14 of them have elected to go to college, which many would argue is not the best way to maximize their potential as players and not the best way to prepare themselves for the rigor of day-in day-out training and the mentality of playing top-notch soccer. So, my question is this: is it a bad thing that we're investing time and energy and then seeing these guys go off to school? Should the federation be doing something more to encourage / pave the way for pro careers for these guys? I'm not smart on what the overall investment in the U-18 and U-20 YNT's are, or what % of residency program athletes end up going to college, but I'm curious on that front, as well...
Bobby Wood impressed in his last call-up, I would like to see him again. Plus I haven't heard anything from him for a year.
sighhhhhhhhhh Brian McBride, Clint Dempsey, Charlie Davies, Joe-Max Moore may all disagree with you. College is not necessarily bad, and certainly hasn't stopped players from having success at the national team or even EPL levels. With the exception of Beasley, Donovan, and Bradley, almost all of our best players in every position have at least some college experience. Certainly a team like Maryland provides a very high level of training and very competitive league play.
Sorry to trifle you. Seriously, those are all great players. Were their careers as good as they could have been had they played in the pros instead of going to college? We'll never know. I don't think they'd disagree with my assertions (that "many would argue"), but I would be interested in their thoughts on subject. College will certainly continue to produce good players who may or may not turn into pros. And, it will continue to attract good and great players who want the college experience. But, college won't create an environment of living as a pro, where you have an opportunity to fight every day for potential promotion to a full side or a loan to a different team to get more competitive playing time and different professional coaching exposure. My real point here is that the US Youth National Team system is supposed to be investing in the best of the best of the best, the guys who should be *most able* to pursue a straight to pro path, if desired, but many are pursuing college, a path which (to me) doesn't represent the greatest desire to go pro, the greatest desire to elevate their game, the greatest hunger to prove their skill on the biggest stages possible, against the toughest competition. We aren't talking about Landon going to Leverkusen at 16 or 17 or whatever, we're talking about players at the top of the national player development pool passing on going to full-time soccer careers while some of their peers are enlisting in the military. Maybe we aren't weighing hunger and true demonstrated desire heavily enough? (Not sure how to measure it, other than perhaps focus on going pro early. Devin Barclay managed to find his way back to college, eh?)
I would really like this guy to succeed. It would be good to have an Asian guy on the NT. We're pretty well represented in all other areas.
I don't know if you follow MLS but MLS has no intensive, integrated, formal professional youth development program. So in fact they really have no where else to go. That's just the facts. There is no free youth residential MLS programs, No reserve teams, No way for an elite youth prove themselves so they can move up the ladder to first team professional minutes. It's not up to USSF to develop or judge professional talent it's up to professional teams to determine that. We have it upside down. I have no problems with the DA initiative but at some point early on like 16 or 17 we need an infrastructure to allow them to be passed on to a fully developed MLS youth programs. It's changing slowly but that is a huge gap.
Season ticket holder for the Sounders, past ticket holder for the Quakes... (fyp, hydm) They cannot go overseas? USSF doesn't have a good relationship with overseas scouts? How did Bradley get there? Onyewu? Why do they have to be residential? Many MLS teams are setting up DA programs. Overseas? en Mexico? I thought the whole intent of USSF residency and all of our USSF YNT programs was to develop talent and to build the strongest possible US national team. Maybe I've been misunderstanding that. You make a good point about the DA program. It does go up to U17/U18, but there's really no transition up from there, other than the full side, which is a pretty big leap. It does seem clear that MLS needs reserves, but my points are really about the investment USSF is making and the results of those USSF investments. In general, I don't disagree with you about the importance of MLS in changing the way US players are developed. I'm not really sure, though, of what you think the USSF should be doing with its YNT programs and investments. Are the best (ostensibly) best forwards our country can produce really unable to, or lacking the opportunity and introductions to, break into top league reserve sides?
Brian Leyva, Bill Hamid, Andy Najar, Francisco Navas Cobo, Juan Agudelo, and Tristan Bowen haven't had any professional minutes? I know MLS isn't anywhere close to a perfect development system, but the new academy signing rules does allow for players to move up the ladder. Not all will play in MLS their first year, but there are numerous friendlies, Open Cup, Superliga, and Champions League play that these players will have the opportunity to play in, not to mention practicing every day in a professional environment. Eventually, the reserve league will come back, and guys will get more minutes, but more and more MLS is developing and giving the opportunity to their best academy talent to progress at their clubs. I'd love to have a residential academy, but it's not going to happen for a long time, if at all, and we just have to accept it. For some guys they moving to Europe may be better, some choose to stay close to home to develop in MLS, others choose college, the reality is there's no best route to in our player development(though for now our very,very best talent like Luis Gil may be better served in Europe). Ideally, MLS' academy system will grow to cast a larger umbrella on our best youth players and our coaching will improve enough to develop all of our best talent, we just have to give our system time to develop and MLS teams and their academies to grow.
1-Congratulations. 2-This is about numbers, a few can but quite honestly most aren't good enough in the numbers we need or have too many restrictions. No top country has the majority of their youth trained by other countries. They are good because they have a top domestic development program. 3-I think you're concentrating on the word residential and not the concept of top elite youth playing every day being challeged every day vs. other top youth. At some point they have to live in close proximity. Wouldn't it be residential in Europe that you suggested. 4-Bradenton is falsely believed to be to train our top youth when in fact it was established to do well at the U17 World Cup that's why they limit players to about 40 and all have strict eligibility age requirements. This is no Clairfontaine. They kick good prospects out with no where to go because they are no longer eligible for the U17's. A true training residence has much more ages and many more prospects and have a sophisticated professional transition connections. 5-Thank you 6-They aren't good enough and need to be trained by MLS teams first. We can not only rely on other countries to train our youth professionally. We need to do it ourselves.
You seem to want to disagree with me then you list all the limitations and gaps that I refer to in my post. I guess we do agree. Our main gap that you really don't elaborate on is that we have no typical hierarchy of youth player movement through the ranks. If I'm a 13 yr old what path should I take to increase and improve my odds of becoming a professional player. We need one main path that expedites and improves the process. Our nations top youth are not funnelled to MLS academies. It's a mess what we do to elite players. It's a hob glob of associations, coaches, organizations, teams, bureaucracies all with different training methods and limitations. There is no seamless transitions. Again we have made some improvement but have 2 major obstacles to still overcome.