Schalke might not be thrilled with the possibility of Taitague playing that many matches in a short amount of time considering his injury issues the past year.
I would be much more willing to believe that if he was on the first team roster instead of the reserve team roster.
Tataigue has been injured for 4 months and a half already. And the latest update from Schalke was that he was categorized along with a few other players as out with a long term injury.
I think I said this in another thread. My prediction of highly ranked youngster that will fade away in Junior Flores fashion................is Nick Taitague. Can't stay healthy enough to actually gain any momentum and develop. Can't even be loaned out. To be honest, I haven't seen enough right now to say that he'd even make this U20 team. I need to actually see him play at some point.
Looking forward to this tournament. Would love to see Alphonso Davies and Ballou Tabla on each wing against the USA.
from what I've seen of Taitague is that he looks like a scrawny 15-16 year old instead of 19. That he's injury prone doesn't seem that surprising. the same injury that took him out until now is him injurying himself chasing after a ball.
Taitague has a good skillset, but his play last season wasn't all that good. His end product was incredibly mediocre in the U-19 Bundesliga. Look at what Pulisic did in the same league years ago, Wright had great stats in that league, Soto is putting up great stats in that league this season, Sargent is putting up great stats at a higher level. I definitely would not write him off. I don't think talented 19 year olds should be written off because they have things in their game they need to work on, but based off what I've seen, read and his stats, I do not get the sense that he's one of our elite youngsters. Maybe he was a couple of years ago, but likely isn't anymore.
Same problem Green had when I saw him play with Bayern. He was just too small at that time and got knocked off the ball easily. Taitague has the same problem and on top of that is injury prone, such a shame really. Hard to say what his level is until he can stay healthy
he's a 98 so not eligible for the U20 WC which is 99-onwards. but to answer your question, the guy is in limbo. Always plays preseason but then is irrelevant during the season, he's actually like 2 weeks away from reaching 1 full year since his last competitive match for Darmstadt. Struggling to even make the bench. there was even chatter during the Summer that he might get the axe although he ended staying put. With an expiring 2020 contract, he needs to consider either go on loan in Winter, see if it works and if it does than leave. Or just leave permanently. Wasting crucial dev time doing nothing and soon enough will turn 21.
Weah hasn't even made the bench in 1.5 months. Why shouldn't he be available to play the full tournament with this team? Sargent hasn't made the bench yet this season. Why shouldn't he be available to play the full tournament with this team? If Ramos can't get two guys released that don't even play for their club teams at the first team level, he deserves a lot of blame for that.
How can you blame someone when the club just says no? Ramos has no power. He can try to convince clubs to release players but that is it. Maybe the club just doesn't give a s**t about the U.S. U-20 team and believes that a player is better staying at the club to train. FYI, I think Sargent joins the team for the second stage of qualifying. Less certain about Weah. Amon will be a close call. Speaking to your point. Nordsjaelland did not release a bunch of its players to the Danish U-19 team during the last international window - simply because they didn't feel like it.
Part of his job is getting his players released. Some teams and coaches do better at it than others. Last cycle, Ramos also did a bad job of it. Should we just go into every cycle accepting that we won't get anywhere close to our best team because the coach can't convince club teams that reserve/academy players belong playing for their country in big tournaments over the same youth games they play all season long? I'm sure some clubs will say no, regardless of whats said? Getting Pulisic released last cycle was unrealistic, maybe you could say getting Amon released this cycle (during the non-FIFA date part of the tournament) is unrealistic, but I don't think its unrealistic to expect guys like Sargent, Weah, Taitague to be released. Getting none of the three would show that Ramos is not succeeding in an important part of his job as U-20 coach. I think there's a good chance the reason de la Fuente has zero call ups might also be that Ramos has been unable to get him released, but I could be wrong about that.
This is just ridiculous. In any negotiation, you need leverage. Tab has none. He has nothing to offer clubs, nothing to threaten them with. He asks, they say yes or no or set terms and that's it. None of these teams owe him shit and he doesn't have the playing relationships with these European clubs the way, say, a Veljko Paunovic or Emilio Peixe would. There's things to criticize Tab for. This ain't one of 'em.
I await the hysteria on these boards when Atlanta refuses to release Carleton Cuz that's gonna happen...………………….
Check out @DanielSmith1022’s Tweet: 😢Get well soon. https://t.co/sy5fjOTodv— Daniel (@DanielSmith1022) October 7, 2018
Matt Real returned to the field yesterday for Bethlehem and went 90, so it seems that he's fully back to health and available for the U20s.
I feel like if healthy, this team has nice FB depth. Lindsay, Dest, Gloster, Real, Vines, Perez. I mean, Perez might be the top choice in the MLS draft and he's likely third on the RB depth chart.