While I'm certain that you've never been personally guilty of that particular sin my comment on the depravity of the partisan mind still stands. Camp A sees camp B adopt a position that can be attacked using camp B's past arguments, an argument camp A disagrees with, and then uses it against camp B to attack 1. their position (that camp A may or may not even have an independent opinion about) and 2. the past argument (by pointing out how it can now be applied against its originators) and 3. the camp B originators (for their newly revealed hypocrisy). The specious argument is that the primary factor in deciding who to call up is who signs that player's checks. All those hypocritical attacks can be tied back into a partisan hypocrisy cycle about credentialism. That the act of supporting those "reach" callups is the inciting hypocrisy of one side, in an attempt to defend their figurehead, that is then attacked, hypocritically (knowingly or unknowingly), using the position they advocate for elsewhere. The truth is that competition quality matters, it adds uncertainty to how well a performance translates. I argue that there are things that can be observed that point to how well a player can adapt (Twellman vs. Dempsey being my classic case study) but it takes a lot to eliminate that uncertainty and what remains should not be ignored. What matters more is how good the player actually is and can be in a useful timeframe.
Personally I found Emo's status as the new cause celebre of the defeated remnants of the prior regime to be problematic. I am a longtime fan of his and I knew that selective hyperbole in support of him would lead to a reaction against. Again, I go back to encouraging people to watch the games for themselves and acknowledging uncertainty. And this is the piece of game-tape analysis you're hanging your hat on, a CM coming out to cover wide not blocking an early cross with the FB doing what exactly? This needed to be a big topic of conversation to balance the scales of justice? We have two CM's from the FCD system breaking out and it has to be one vs. the other based on well established party lines. Emo goes on a hot streak and some need him in the A-team (and the A-team only) and Acosta does the same and.... I'll say this again, punishing or rewarding players based on where they play is ********ing stupid. Miazga lost his form way early in 2016 and did not get it back until 2017. You can't play your way into the national team (he wasn't exactly an established player was he) if you are not playing. I think Miazga is noticeably better and significantly more talented than Birnbaum and I want him to overtake Omar but I would not have called him in to must win games before he had regained his match-fitness. Young CB's are especially dangerous to gamble on.
[pulled from another thread] While I understand and respect this opinion, I completely disagree with it. Ussoccer97531's preferences would push our players away from the best training programs in the world as youth (where it would be incredibly hard to break into the first team) in order to focus on making first teams at a lower level (most likely MLS). I don't believe that there a question that MLS is well below Schalke's level and the vast majority of MLS players wouldn't be able to get a sniff of time. For example, I don't think any of the domestic MLS players at the Gold Cup would be first team players for Schalke by any stretch but we are seriously giving them consideration for Russia (which I agree with FWIW). We need our top players playing at UCL semis level and IMO, MLS is not currently a viable path to achieve that for a host of reasons that I can get into in another post. Therefore, we need to encourage our top youths to head to the best training grounds they can as early as they can (a la CP, McKennie, Wright, etc.) and 97531's position diminishes the incentives for that. Whether or not CP made Dortmund's first team is irrelevant - he's good enough even if he was on the youth teams.
It doesn't punish them, it makes them wait a few years until they are more professional and better players. Also, I'm not so sure your point makes 100% sense. Did Rubin wait? What about Hyndman? Both those guys were playing for the NT at 18, they went to lesser teams and appeared with the first team earlier. If you are making exceptions, you have a structure problem, and it reeks of desperation. No 16, 17, 18, 19 year old is going to be the difference between us getting eliminated in the group stage and getting eliminated in the round of 16. Could those players be an improvement over some other players on your NT? Yeah, its possible, but they will not be the difference, not unless you have like 15 of them who are just of a higher quality than the rest of your NT.
Maybe it's just me but the extra hundreds of thousands of dollars and a quicker path to millions and fame and prestige provide enough incentive for players to sign with one of the biggest teams in the world. Plus if I breakthrough there that's an automatic call-up while becoming an above average starter in MLS isn't. I mean it's not like those European teams keeping our players from playing for youth national teams at world championships has stopped the flow of players.
I wish there was some way to see a parallel path for McKinnie at Schalke and FC Dallas. He's possibly made it to the first team at Schalke but would have been on the first team at FCD and they wouldn't have gone after Cermeno who has already received first team minutes. As soon as Acosta was gone he'd have become a full time starter. He may do all of that at Schalke (like Pulisic he may be good enough anywhere he went). However if he doesn't make the first team at Schalke or just sits on the bench for a year or two it may not have been better than staying. There will be much more data points on these things in a few years but will likely still be case by case examples.
McKennie looks a superior player to Acosta in all facets to me so it would have been a problem if he had to wait for Acosta to move to get a chance. We'll never know though. Something else though is if you watch McKennie, like Pulisic, they think and see the game differently than any youngster in MLS. Part of that is the natural IQ/awareness of the player but a major part also is the training environment and coaching. Acosta had a deer in the headlights look about him vs Panama's B team. McKennie seems to process action far quicker. For me that's generally a product of every day environment where you're taught what to see and what to map out in your head at tempo. There's a reason German reserve products are so tactically astute. Of course, you need the talent too. FCD deserves credit for that. IMO it's a problem Acosta/Roldan didn't seem to process the action vs the Panama B team and Martinique types near well enough. Would it be different if they hypothetically had been taught in a Schalke like academy? I'd lean towards yes. At the same time there's an argument for playing regularly in MLS as they do.
You may be right but it could also be having teammates with similar talent who are on the same page vs a bunch of thrown together players who have different styles and haven't played together. I imagine a midfield of McKinnie, Hyndman and Acosta would play well together and not look like deer in the headlight types because they were taught a similar style and are all good players. We'll never know because that won't ever happen.
Question is were those skills developed in less than a year in Germany, or were they developed playing 7 years in Dallas or is it a combo and which skills were developed where? how do we assess that?
Pegasus, Assuming all went well, when would Acosta leave and MLS Mckennie get to start for MLS in your opinion? Thanks.
it is almost certainly a combination of both. It is quite clear that McKennie was pretty strong coming out of the Dallas system else I doubt a foreign based team would so easily give him the arm band for the U19's almost immediately. No one can answer the question of where a player would best develop where because of the massive variables involved (culture, teammates, coaches etc) unless one pretends they have a magic crystal ball. Ultimately raw talent coupled with a strong mental make up can push through these issues but for some players, development can stop on a dime simply because a coach does not fancy the player. It happens in every league in the world and there is no way to predict. To me the best formula is to find the highest possible level of competition and still get on the field (this is less important the younger you are but by the time you are 20 or 21, it would be great to start seeing more and more American's as regular parts of first teams).
I separate the individual skill part from the mental part, meaning IQ, awareness, ability to read action at tempo, essentially tactical acumen. It's that part I think is better taught/groomed in a system like Schalke's. So I'd say McKennie would still be a damn talented player had he signed with FCD. I'd also say the mental part mentioned above wouldn't be at the same standard he's showcasing now which appears to me, to be able to step right into a Schalke level squad and look the part. IMO Acosta will need about a year of instruction/teaching to get up to pace if/when he moves to Germany.
There is no one all mighty path to development IMO. If we followed this logic above exclusively, the US team could easily be filled with Julian Green's as it is with Pulisic's. Green is a perfect counter example. Every one and their grand mother assumed because he grew up in the German system and trained constantly with some of the best players in the world that he was going to be a top notch player for the US. We found out that this was not the case.
I am very very optimistic on McKennie (probably too much) but I also don't think it makes sense to compare McKennie playing in preseason friendlies with players who have played World Cup Qualifiers in Azteca. We are talking night and day pressure differences. Lets let McKennie's talent be shown in some league games first. I am very hopeful that if he gets a chance, he is going to shine but I am tapping the breaks a little until he does.
I probably need a different term as I was not referring to the playing side of the mental game. When I was talking about having a strong mental make up, I was referring more to off the field than on the field. Having the ability to deal with different cultures and languages as a teenager is not easy. Landon collapsed under this. Pulisic himself credits having his father live with him to help him through the rough patches.
While there is not "one mighty path" there should be a preferred path. Furthermore, I don't know who "everyone and their grandmother" are, but most here don't confuse training in Europe to be a sure-fire way to success; rather, it's a high-risk, high reward option whereas staying in MLS is a path that I believe limits the upside of our talented youth. Lots of talented youth players at the best academies flush out and don't hit the top level, irrespective if they're American, African or European but the modest probability of success is frankly infinitely better than the nil percentage that MLS has of developing a UCL semifinal auto-starter (because it's not currently built to develop youth talent and sell onto better leagues, not because it's a poor league itself). Therefore, the USMNT should encourage as a preferred path that highly ambitious young talent go all-in; ideally, we'd have a sizeable number of kids training with the best in the world so that we can have a few (1-5%?) pan out as globally elite players. We're on the right track with CP and hopefully a path is worn that McKennie, Wright, and dozens of others follow (of which only a lucky few will strike gold and if they don't, well, if Julien Green is a perfect example of a "failure", he's already had a great soccer career and corresponding compensation even if he never suits up for the USMNT again). Finally, even if the large majority of our most talented kids go abroad to leading academies, MLS will have plenty of other up-and-coming youths to develop as our pool isn't tiny and it's growing all the time. Hothouse flowers like LD could still stay home and develop here - we will always have MLS players as part of our squad and the coaches need to determine who can rise above MLS' level of play for the WC - history has shown that MLS level players can do that and I expect that to remain constant.
I was responding more to mattjo. Skills were developed in FCD but the application of them, the IQ, I'd lean more towards Schalke. As for off the field stuff, sure, going abroad to a different culture isn't for everyone. Better have the mental makeup for it. McKennie however spent a few years there as a kid and arrived to Schalke speaking fluent German. But having Pulisic, McKennie, Haji and Taitague hanging out in their off time likely helps. Haji now speaks German too. I hope Sargent is taking lessons.
Again you could be right but Pomykol has a very high soccer IQ and he hasn't gone anywhere yet. Carleton has a high soccer IQ. I think the training here is so much better in the last few years that German teams are raiding players for good reason. They may take that and make an even better product but it's improving so fast here it's a sliding scale.
I think there is some confusion as to terms and what can be taught and where to attribute their development. What stood out to me about Weston as a youth player with FCD was his ability to spot and hit medium/long range throughballs from midfield. That's actually a pretty rare ability. Beyond that he was also able to spot and execute quickly and on the turn. These were signs of "innate" mental and ball skill attributes. I don't think creativity or true insight or real-time, full field vision are attributes that adults can add to their game. Speed of play and decision making and tactical understanding are different. The above mental abilities limit the ultimate effectiveness and quality of a player but coaching and environment can make a capable pro competent at a higher level. Basically people can learn what should be done and when it should be done. Learning to see what is possible and how to make it so is different.
One thing I've read about all our players from the fans in Germany is that they are astounded how well they speak German. McKennie obviously had a head start, but Pulisic and Wright supposedly picked it up very quickly, and speak it pretty well. German might not be the hardest language for someone who speaks English to pick up, but still, its very impressive to pick it up, all while trying to make it as a professional footballer, and having to worry about that.
I'll amend my statements above that I think there's a reasonable argument that goalies and defenders have the time to play in MLS as a teenager and then transfer later on, given that their peak levels last longer than for attacking players which I feel is better suited towards youth/speed.
Biggest differences I've seen cited by American soccer players, ranging from Bobby Convey to Bobby Wood, are culture and professionalism rather than IQ or whatever.
This is from Paxton Pomykal*: “The most beneficial was my first trip to Manchester United as I was 11 years old and it opened my eyes to the professionalism of international soccer,” Pomykal said. “The most important have been the two trips to Germany because I lived and trained with first class youth pro academies.” The youngster is realistic about what it takes to make the cut in Europe. “I recommend it because [the European] view on the game is completely different from ours in the States,” Pomykal said. “They train everyday with the mentality of becoming a pro, you just don’t get that here.” Players can and do develop skill and vision here. Replicating the intensity, ruthlessness, and professionalism that can be found in the top European clubs/academies is pretty impossible, however. * = topdrawsoccer via