Amazing kid is banned for the league championship... kid was banned from the victory parade... that means he really pissed important people off to get banned not just from the biggest match of the season but the victory parade. None of that is a 'positive' development. It doesn't mean he is done but its not a positive. He got banned from two things which means he was literally banned for the rest of the season. So he either did something so bad that caused that or had multiple issues which means he probably hasn't learned from other things in the past. kid has the social media red flag and has had it for a while. he literally likes and retweets everything positive any writer says about him. meaning he looks himself up non-stop and reads his press clippings both are bad ideas. the other thing is his ability and on the field needs a lot of growth. He is obviously a talented kid but he has a ways to go on the pitch. If you want to read into his play on the field and the issue off you could say they are similar. He is about the show he wants to show what he can do on every pass, he wants to score great goals he wants everyone looking at him. He needs a lot more basic things in hi game and consistency. He is literally in his most important years when it comes to his grown and his family is tied to the club so the fact they suspended him means something there is no way he was five minutes late for curfew once and that is it.
That's a pretty dramatic take. Despite this suspension and your negative impression of him, he's still arguably the most talented youth player in our system. That doesn't mean he's made it yet, and he needs to understand that better than anyone else. My point is that this episode helps him understand exactly that, and by the beginning of next season everything will be right on track for him to have a massively successful career. Time will tell if there truly are bigger issues here, but it'd be a bit silly to make any conclusions at this point of his career based on what we do and don't know.
He is absolutely not the most talented youth player and it cant be argued that he is. At this point he has done little. Not making any conclusions but facts are facts and the kid has a long way to go at this point. He needs to clean it up off the field and do much better on it.
He's actually done really well on the field across DA, youth MNT, USL, and MLS competitions. Maybe you haven't been watching, but his transition from each level to the next has been what you would expect from a top talent. Next year should be very interesting as it should mark the start of his professional career in earnest. He's easily one of the most talented youth we have. Easily. Off the field.... meh. There's nothing there I can evaluate since I don't really know what's going on. He's 18 and has plenty of time to get that straight -- not diminishing the importance of this at all.
he has done well....with the kids but careers aren't defined by performances with the kids he has been ok in the usl which is a really low level and hasn't done much in his very limited mls minutes. it has been what I'd expect for an slightly above average prospect. he is 18 and doesn't have plenty of time because the next prospects are right behind him and he will get left behind. he is putting more pressure on himself.
I don't think you have been watching him play all that much. He has not just "done well" in youth environments -- he has completely dominated the competition and compared well to other huge prospects like Foden and Vinicius Jr. The latest example of his youth level dominance was the MLS homegrown game, and he has done the same many many time with the US. In USL and MLS, his performances have overall been really good, especially considered we're talking about a 17-18 year old in his second season as a professional player.
I have watched him play. always looking for the highlight pass/goal often misses the easy pass/touch while trying to force a highlight play. Very inconsistent will go long stretches of being anonymous and look for the one moment to make a highlight. Needs to learn to play the full match and not just look for that single moment but to have an overall bigger impact on the match from start to finish. I don't know if you watched but foden and england dominated the us in that match foden was named the best player in the tourney if you think AC outplayed him in that tournament well....sorry just didn't happen. He did play pretty well but not that match and wasn't as good over all in the tournament as foden. Also he isn't anything like vinicius jr I mean come on be realistic. Dude gets minutes at real madrid...ac gets scraps at ATL and mostly plays in the usl. Neither real madrid of man city would trade either for AC and its not even close. I don't know how to tell you about the mls homegrown game. a) its literally a one match 'all star' game...its not an overall reflection of anything b) kortne ford luis alberto marquez leon quinones jon kempin wondering who those are? those are the other four 'mvp' winners for the match. I am thrilled he won the 'mvp' in a sort of all star type youth match but lets be honest it couldn't matter much less. oh and do the numbers 35million 15million 450k jump out at you? those are the market values of jr,foden and AC I'll let you figure out who is who. I like AC I really do he just has a long way to go before he convinces me he is a good player because I couldn't care less about the u17 world cup or the mls homegrown game or the DA. I could argue that one of his biggest on the pitch issues is his lack of physicality and he gets manhandled a lot and that is why he looks good against kids his age but anytime he has to deal with kids a little older he struggles they are just too physical for him.
Nah Carleton is the most talented player in our pool followed by Sergino dest. Only issue is his athleticism, and knowing when to do a highlight play better.
He's not better than Dest, or Mendez, or Ledezma. I don't think he's nearly as good as people make him out to be, and I think Sargent and Durkin were/are further ahead of him from that same U17 team. He's been hyped up beyond belief from mainstream media, and while I think he's a good talent, he's not the next great American hope.
He was not dominating in youth competition. Last U17 world cup I had very high expectation on him but was quite disappointed. He only shined against Paraguay, and could not dominate against opponents like Ghana, Colombia, not to even mention England.
He's only 18. When Clint Dempsey was 18 he was just starting at Furman............................ Carleton is a talented kid. He apparently made some mistakes off the field this year at ATL which impacted his opportunities to play. For the punishment to be so severe, I doubt this was a one-time occurrence. So good news. He starts with a clean slate next season with a new manager. He'll either learn from these mistakes and grow...............or he won't.
When Carleton has been on the same field as Vincius Jr. and Foden, he has compared favorably to them (I am not saying that he is a higher rated prospect, and of course their salaries are not even close to each other due to the teams they play in). The World Cup was not the first time that he was on the same pitch as Foden. I thought they had played against each other twice before, but the first was actually against Sancho's England. Carleton is a huge prospect, and if he were English or Brazilian, he would be in the same type of spot those two are in.
Ok.... Your assessment of his game is vastly different than mine. I see him produce loads of chances for himself and his teammates. Yes, he has some flash and swagger about his game, but I think that is a good thing. Apparently some people would rather players do the safe thing all of the time and fall more in line with the robot-types. I see the need for creativity in a squad and would have it all over the pitch if I could. I think the number of errors and poor decisions that you see are vastly blown out of proportion based on reality. I didn't even remember that he was names the MVP of the homegrown game. That was not the point -- the point is that it was yet another game with supposed elite youth players on the field that he dominated and showed his quality. Who cares who the other MVPs of that game have been, as if that proves anything in this debate.... I find the knock about his athleticism hilarious, and your last sentence says it all for me: "I could argue that one of his biggest on the pitch issues is his lack of physicality and he gets manhandled a lot and that is why he looks good against kids his age but anytime he has to deal with kids a little older he struggles they are just too physical for him." This seriously makes me think that you haven't wathced him much, and you are just going off of your bias of what a red-headed white kid can do. His minutes in MLS this year alone showed that this was nowhere close to the truth and simply not an issue considering the way that he plays the game.
Again, this is what make this game so great...the fact that we can view players so differently. No one would say you are wrong and I think his story is largely still untold. What does the future hold, none of us know. I will say that I have scouted him extensively, for different clubs in Europe and unfortunately, he doesn't make the grade for any of them. That doesn't mean that there will eventually be one that thinks he fits well into their system or player pool, there very well could be many down the road. His game will grow over the next few years and we will begin to see more of a finished product. Is that finished product MLS All-Star, MLS above average player, European starter in a top 5 league? My guess is somewhere between MLS All-Star and above average player. I can admit I have been wrong before and I will be wrong again, but that is my assessment with him.
Much respect. However, the fact that Carleton is a professionally contracted youth player alone makes him fairly unattractive to European teams, the combo of Vinicius Jr./Real Madrid notwithstanding. Once he signed with ATL, it basically meant that his move to Europe would only happen after he had proven himself with the first team removing the "youth prospect" label (which, to some degree, Vincius Jr. actually did in Brazil). Definitely appreciate your point about seeing players so differently....
I have changed my opinion he was brilliant in mls led atlanta down the stretch and just brilliant in the playoffs put together a great season. he is up there at this point with the great like keaton parks...best passer the game has ever seen.
I am confused this looks like the 2016 match. This alone will tell you have their careers have taken different trajectories in the two years since. you are arguably the only person in the world that would compare those two players on any level.
Believe me, this is myth held by many of those that follow in the US. If a player has the quality to possibly fit into a first team, splashing a couple hundred thousand $ holds very little risk. Unlike here in MLS the finance side in Europe is pretty cut and dry? Is he good enough? If yes, at what cost? There is typically a 20% buffer that won’t scare anyone off. The fact that some of our kids move over on free transfers is just icing on the cake for these clubs. Most of not all would have gladly spent the money in order to purchase them if it was needed.
Its pretty easy for anyone to say anything on the internet but if you really are a scout for international clubs and have scouted Carleton, this is really all the support I need for the claim he is not as good as many on this board seem to suggest. I have no doubt he has been seen by just about every big and small club in Europe with the exposure he got and the fact he is at Atl United and no one has come calling for him is telling.