The current state of our youth national teams

Not in those exact words. But if you have heard any of their interviews about challenging themselves in Europe, one can somewhat read between the lines.

You would think if they say things about themselves like, “if I want to be the best, I have to be around the best (paraphrasing)”, they would apply that to other American kids that didn’t take the gamble they did.

This isn’t to say they don’t respect their teammates, but it certainly is the bond only they share with each other that can be a driver in their friendship.

 

The old never say die mentality is largely gone. It’s hard to say why but it started to leave the national team post 10. We could do a cultural pathology about a sport that went from ridiculed and ignored to niche but accepted. Maybe it’s just the loss of key players like McBride and Bocanegra but that doesn’t exactly explain the YNT’s. Maybe it’s a shift in the importance of the club game versus the national team now that guys are making real money. Maybe we lost a comparative advantage in fitness due to the adoption of American sports science and improvements in nutrition in some developing countries. It can be changed, to some degree, but it has to be part of the project.

Pep Lijnders on Liverpool defending as a team from the front, and playing a high line.

"Our identity is intensity." pic.twitter.com/MdVFupRwpH

— James Nalton (@JDNalton) October 29, 2019

 

I saw a guy that played on the U17 World Cup team in Japan in 1993, last Sunday at the fields and we were talking about the current U17s getting bounced in Brazil. His thought was when they played back in 93, they won every 50/50 ball and there was no doubt who was going to be the most physical team in each game. He conceded they often weren't sure what to do with when they got it, but by god they were going to get it in a tackle.

I like the idea of trying to be a possession based team but you can't lose your grit and desire to win every tackle in the process.

 

The only comment I have is that I know it is easy enough to misunderstand based only on the words that are on paper (or come out in the interview). When reading between the lines, it becomes even more of a slippery slope.

 

I think blaming all the players from 12-30 for losing something is bonkers. I think it is an excuse for bad coaching.

DId the U20 team roll over against France?

Players don't risk injury on 50/50s if they have no confidence it will make a difference. If players think the coach is out of his mind or incompetent, why would they?

Further, to suggest every player in the pool is that way is also bonkers. When your veteran leaders are cerebral, not energetic, and rarely try or win 50/50 balls, that is going to also effect your team. It is again bad coaching to have leaders like that unless you don't care about those qualities. When you pick a player like Bradley over Canouse or Adams, Roldan over Morales or Holmes, and Ream over Miazga, you are making a choice.

When you play defense in an ultra passive way, you get passivity. Gregg and Earnie, and their pick Wicky, are just not interested in playing with grit and determination.

 

this u17 team couldve approached every 50/50 with aggression and still not won half of them. they seemed athletically inferior.

 

This weekend I overheard from parents that 2 former US national youth coaches advised them to send their dual national kids to the Mexican Federation youth programs because “US youth federation is in complete disarray and will not benefit your child’s development”. That was heartbreaking to hear as an American fan.

 

YNT's don't develop players, so I don't know why people make any issue towards dual-national players over the federation's disarray. It would be one thing if the program was struggling to put talented players on the field and couldn't get results. It seems more like these coaches were sour that they are former USYNT coaches.

 

also not too hard to guess one of them!

 

At the end of the day when you're wearing the U.S. crest you're representing the USA, not the USSF, even though they run soccer stuff here. There's probably not a poster on Big Soccer that doesn't want improvements in how U.S. Soccer functions, but is that really a reason to play for another nation? If we go down that path we can get into all sorts of reasons why a dual national should play for either the U.S. or Mexico.

 

There are different considerations at the youth level. In addition to the patriotic pull, players and parents/advisors are looking at future opportunities.

If a player sees one federation as a clown show with no permanent coach, a lack of direction on the selective process, disorganized play and poor results while the other one has good coaching, spends money on their program and gets results that showcase the players to top level professional teams, then the choice becomes clear. They understand they can do a one time switch at a later date but once in an organization that values you the decision to switch would be tough, especially if that federation had helped you land a nice professional contract with a top team.

 

It's still bold to even choose Mexico tbh. The turnover from their youth teams to their senior team is abysmal and they're a national team that has also had it's fair share of turmoil in the 2010's include only qualifying for the 2014 World Cup because USA won the last match of the Hex. They fired a coach after one game during WC qualifying and the fans boo'd their team multiple times in Azteca in 2013.

 

This is all true, but they also sense weakness in us and they are acting on it. Organizationally, we are just barely understanding that it is possible that we may have some kind of vague weakness. This is the type of problem that is never taken seriously until we hit chronic crisis mode - when we are consistently losing our best prospects to Mexico. Until then, every step toward that end will be met with rationalizations that everything is okay.

That is what is so amazing about watching this unfold - this isn’t about Mexico’s weaknesses. It is about them figuring out ours before we understand them.

We ran off some impressive results against Mexico when we figured out that they didn’t like having fast, athletic guys run directly at them with intensity. It took them several years to get past that and it made us look better than we really were.

Right now they seem to be getting the best of us and I think it will take us several years to figure out that if we don’t get great at getting the most out of the families that care the most about soccer, we won’t come close to reaching our potential on the international front

- and neighboring countries like Mexico will be in a position to exploit our weaknesses and make them look as bad as possible.

 

wish i could rec that twice

 

That might all be true, but the Mexican federation also is not well run. Mexican fans are constantly complaining about their federation. I don't think there are very many countries that have a well-run federation.

 

Also, let's not downplay the emotional attraction Mexico has for Mexican-Americans. It goes beyond any sober analysis of the respective federations, the poor track record Mexico has in connecting Mexican-American youth players to senior opportunities. This, I'm sure is a major selling point for Hugo Perez. Yes, we're perceived as being weakened, but it's emphasizing that players are wanted by a soccer mad country that has a culture and people that are simpatico.

 

This is such a great opinion. How many federations have run into corruption problems or it may be easier to ask which ones haven't. There are stories all over the world about administrators and coaches getting bribes. Brazil used to be the absolute worst (at least that I read news about) and then FIFA itself is no better. We look at our bunch and think they're the worst but lately their ineptitude seems limited to policy and actions but not absolute corruption although having brothers in important positions isn't a great look even "if" nothing untoward is going on.

 

Just to piggyback on both or your thinking - bureaucracies are necessary. Without them, large groups of people could not coordinate their actions. You have to have minimal rules and standards.

But people who work in a bureaucracy have to learn how to be political. They learn that if they don’t put power ahead of ideals, somebody else will fill that power vacuum, and their ideals don’t matter if they don’t hold the bureaucratic power at a given moment.

Tab Ramos learned this lesson. It didn’t matter that he was doing the best work of his coaching career at that moment. He didn’t have the bureaucratic power, so he needed to leave before someone kicked him out.

Earnie Stewart was a really effective administrator in the Netherlands where he was familiar with how things worked. In this country, not so much. People with bureaucratic power can control him and, if we are being honest, he is allowing it to happen. Would Earnie Stewart allow a long, drawn out hiring process for national team coach where absolutely nothing was done so that Greg Berhalter could be hired at the exact moment he was ready if he were operating in the Netherlands? No, because in that country the repercussions would not have allowed it to happen. Here he is given a promotion.

There is no question that Earnie has compromised himself, but it is also important to understand that you are going to see the worst from anybody who works in a bureaucracy if they stay there long enough. You don’t succeed in a bureaucracy by accomplishing things. You succeed in a bureaucracy by being political. That is just the reality of it. So ANYBODY who stays in a bureaucracy will have to get super political, or else they don’t survive.

I was critical of Tab because he kept choosing to stay in the bureaucracy of the federation rather than dive into the hyper-accountability of the professional game. He actually wanted to become national coach without ever having coached professionals. Now that he is out of the bureaucracy, I wish him nothing but the best.

We need to stop demonizing people in the federation. That is how federations work. Instead look to individuals working outside the federation for leadership. The federation will follow once the model has been created for retaining these players, but it will have to be created by MLS and USL academies. Once those practices have been established as to how a professional academy recruits, develops and retains it’s players in this country, the Federation will just naturally copy them.

 

To go off of what I said which sparked this mini debate. Ussoccer has a lot of problems on their own which USMNT twitter is constantly exposing for dual-nats to see every day. But just because we have our problems does not mean that we are hopeless for keeping players. Mexico has their fair share of problems as well that we could easily exploit like you all very well know they're doing to us. We shouldn't be looking at dual nats like all hope is lost when they don't get/accept a call up at times. If ussoccer actually turns on the pressure they can keep a lot of our guys.

 

I actually think we've done pretty good in keeping the best players. Doesn't mean we will keep doing that. I also think players in the US and MLS system have a better chance of progressing to Europe than those in Mexico and their league. We judge our federation and MLS harshly but if you compare to Mexico I think we are way ahead. Now we need to either proceed to Argentina and Brazil levels or have MLS rise to the level of a top 5 league (or both to be greedy).

 

The problem with MLS imo is the salary cap which at the same time is a good thing because the big city clubs would become unstoppable while the rest are meh. When looking at the way our ynt's are selected were a lot better than Mexico who almost exclusively looks at their major clubs. We have room to grow...a lot of room... but Mexico isn't really ahead of us organizationally. They have a talented team now but if you look at the youth coming up for both countries we are in a much better situation.