Great Win Today

If they dont get it worked out they will have trouble with Spain. Not getting out of the bracket would be another epic YNT failure....but on the bright side it will get the college kids home an awful lot sooner

 

Not surprised. US players continue to be selected based on beep tests, heading for distance, speed and agility test, vertical jump, 40-yard dash time etc. Class on the ball and soccer IQ appear to be of less importance. Results like this have been happening for awhile with the YNT. What remains puzzling is that when the Japanese ladies reach the full WNT, the US then owns them. Does anybody have any ideas as to why this is?

 

Apart from the fact that the owning wasn't so constant (there was a spell, about 2011-2013, when Japan Senior Team was basically playing head-to-head with USA in most matches), i guess a big factor could be the fact that at youth level (despite the tests you mentioned) physical differences are less relevant than at Senior level.
I was at the stadium in Concarneau today, and the difference in size between US and Japanese girls seemed to me less obvious than it uses to be at Senior level (heck, Pickett was even shorter than most Japanese players! ).

Of course, there has to be much more than that (for instance, US Senior players get to play in a professional high level league as NWSL, while Nadeshiko League, at the moment, can't reach that kind of highly-testing envinronment), but I guess what I said is anyway one of the factors.

 

Having the NWSL is really important; US Soccer should use it's millions in surplus to expand that league . e.g. Boston no longer has an NWSL franchise. If you remember, crystal dunn was basically not in the WNT pool but then lead the NWSL in goals so they kind of had to give her a look. Without NWSL it's highly unlikely Dunn and Mewis would be there. In the US if you are not picked up by a major D1 school by your sophomore year as a girl in high school, you basically have no chance of getting on the radar of soccer coaching at any level. I still have no idea what hinkle was about. She is clearly one of the best outside backs but is blackballed (I do know about the lgbt backlash but still why call her in just to cut her.) seems like letting Dunn have extended time at wing forward and playing hinkle at OB would be a better team - but I'm not a coach with a foreign accent. Quite frankly WNT doesn't seem to have consistency in who gets called in. Is Carli lloyd really going to be an integral part in 2019? shouldn't that spot go to someone younger? etc...

 

After watching the selections for the last 5 years or so I have a couple of conclusions. The YNT started to really decline when AH decided that the YNT coaches were a full time position. Good in theory. Should have plenty of time to search our big countries corners well for potential NT players. Should have time to study the game etc. But in reality the top level coaches don't want to leave their 6 figure college gigs. As long as they keep winning they have a job. Not too hard at the top colleges to keep recruiting the best.
So now they have coaches who i don't think really understand the game. They don't see a kid's relative quality compared to another when it comes to more nuanced parts of the game that are hard to measure. As you said I KNOW they rely on these metrics and more than you have cited in choosing and keeping kids. How do you measure creativity? When a kid is trying unique solutions to problems on the field and is successful breaking lines and creating chances, but others would never have even conceived of these solutions, what metric can be applied?

 

So, the US senior team is undefeated in the last year, against probably the toughest schedule the team has played over a 1 year period, and posters are saying the developmental program is a mess. And this, notwithstanding that a bunch of younger players have been brought onto the team. That's some kind of mess!