The weirdness I was referencing was the "Who the hell is gonna actually play for this team?" weirdness. If top players are with the MNT, European players are generally unavailable, MLS will be in playoffs, and FIFA doesn't require callups to be honored...
To answer your other question, I also haven't seen any tournament/roster rules or an official announcement of the timing/location.
Hey @bshredder, did Ramos give you any sense of when the remaining 2 (based on his statement that there will be 5 camps before qualifying) U20 camps will be? And is anything expected on the U19 side?
Also.....................the business end of the NCAA season. Tab Ramos is going to have to work overtime getting players released for this event.
So let's play the "Name a roster" game -- 20 guys, 2 GKs, nobody outside CONCACAF, contributing to a team in current MLS playoff position, or with MNT caps.
Ramos will have to go down to USL guys or even USSDA guys playing regularly in USL to scrape together enough players to supplement MLS types.
Here's everyone who Ramos has called in, isn't a MNT player right now, and isn't based outside of CONCACAF (in descending order of callups): 3 Brewer Shaft Carleton Andrew Perez Emmanuel "Manny" Real Matthew Rennicks Justin Uribe Angel 2 Amaya Franuel "Frankie" Becher Simon Cappis Christian Goslin Chris Ledezma Richie Llanez Jr. Ulysses McKenzie Mark Mendez Alex Mendoza Glademir Pomykal Paxton Rogers Sam Stanley Aedan 1 Carranza Jose Dorsey Griffin Durkin Chris Fontana Anthony Haji Abdulkadir Harris Wilson Lindsay Jaylin Lopez Eric Maher Jack Marks George McMaster Justin Morris Jake Muse Trey Nicola Chris Ochoa David Perez Brian Richards Christopher Sands James Servania Brandon Stiebel Seth Tracey Greg Verhoeven Noah Vines Sam Vom Steeg Carson Zarris Aristotle
Not from Tab's mouth but I think there is mid/late July domestic U-20 camp. I believe that's the next one.
Have we talked about the new qualifying format? There are 34 entrants and all of them are going straight to the final tournament. There will be a single round-robin group stage of six groups of 5 or 6 teams. The six group winners will advance to the Qualification Stage, which consists of two groups of three. Top two in each group advance to the WC; group winners advance to the CONCACAF final.
Interview with Tab. Says there will only be 2 more camps before the start of the tournament. https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...h-tab-ramos-on-2018-concacaf-u20-championship
7 or 8 games, if we do well and if I'm counting correctly. We will see heavy squad rotation with...whoever the squad actually is.
Goes without saying. We just need Philly to not make the playoffs. Rewatched #PHIvTFC from last night. People are sleeping on how good Mark McKenzie is – had Giovinco in his back pocket for the entire night (sans Rosenberry's throw-in). Should be a lock starter for the US U-20s.— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) June 9, 2018
For U20 qualifying, certainly. For encouraging more teams to invest in youth like Philly, we need them to be as successful as possible and for their young players to be instrumental to their success.
RSL missed the playoffs by one spot last season. I don't think their philosophy is looked down on. If Philly can put up a somewhat decent season, I think what they are doing will be held in high regard. I think most see that they lack top-end talent that other teams have.
This may have been posted somewhere else, but here's a nice interview with Tab about his experiences about becoming a top youth coach in this country. https://www.onceametro.com/2018/6/1...idfielder-and-u20-coach-more-than-a-world-cup Here's a tidbit I liked: You wonder what he does if he doesn't get the senior NT job. If he finishes this cycle out, this will be his fourth complete cycle. Do they Red Bulls offer a guy from Harrison with similar philosophies on youth a job if Marsch moves on? The Union need a sporting director. Does he even stay in the US?
I see him potentially as a Mike Petke type: willing to take chances on youth, but outclassed tactically by the stronger managers in MLS. I do think he has grown as a manager somewhat over his U20 tenure, but it will be interesting to see what happens when he finally leaves the sheltered cocoon of his USSF gig.
a genuine question as an interested observer with no real tactical nous - has he ever shown anything as a manger that in isolation would lead people to believe he’s ready for a next step?
You might need to define "ready" here. Plenty of people with less to offer on paper have high-level club jobs -- Brad Friedel, for example, was given an MLS team to run after 1) playing 2) doing some broadcasting and 3) coaching some YNT friendlies. I'm sure you could find all kinds of opinions about how Ramos might do with a similar job, but he's got an extensive playing and post-playing resume that includes winning competitive matches. You could argue that his background resembles, say, Greg Vanney's, minus some MLS assistant coaching work. With all that said, I have no idea what Ramos wants from his career. It's mildly surprising that he hasn't done more pro coaching (at the head or assistant levels) since retiring.
I have no opinion about Brad Friedel's coaching abilities, but he's been on the teams coached by top European managers for the last 20 years. He definitely knows the latest training methods, at least as practices go and, probably, tactically as well.
Sure, but you could say that about just about any player who played for a good team for a reasonable length of time. Hey, maybe Friedel's great! I hope he is. It's good guys get chances to see if they can make teams win and players better.
I don't know whether Friedel can coach, I just mean that for me on paper he has more reasons to be given a team than Ramos.
Well, he's the guy running a team, so I guess New England agrees with you! My point, however, wasn't to suggest Ramos should have been given this job or that job, but simply that it doesn't seem crazy that someone might consider a guy like him a candidate if they were contemplating first-time types. He's played at a high level; he knows American players; he's coached competitive matches; etc. None of those things guarantees that he takes a losing MLS team and makes them win in 18 months, which seems to be the job description these days, of course. But hey, you don't want the heat, stay off the porch, etc. etc.