Bye Jonathan, we don’t care how you felt, feel or will be feeling in the future. We have bigger fish to fry at this point!
For what it's worth, Gonzalez got benched by Mexico U21 for the Toulon Tournament final, which they lost to England. Another Mexican-American, former third-string US U17 GK Abraham Romero, got benched for the whole tournament.
So Mexico comes into our turf, recruits our players and then our American media tells us to root for them...…………..……….SUM/Garber supreme. $$$$$$
Yep. It can be challenging to be a star at a young age. Just like at the 3 most prominent examples of recent years that are US citizens - Rossi, Subotic, and Donovan. Rossi - very successful with Parma and Villarreal until the age of 24, but after that has been plagued by injuries which hindered his chances with Italy. His only Italy squads were the 2008 Olympics and 2009 Confederations Cup. Subotic - very successful with Dortmund until the age of 26, but his career has mysteriously spiraled downward since 2015. He started for Serbia in the 2010 World Cup, but Serbia did not qualify for any other tournaments until this year, and he's not in the 2018 squad. Donovan - near-perfect health until his 30s, though his club career was controversially played in MLS mostly. He flat out never missed a tournament or even 1 match with the US until the age of Klinsmann, where US fans demonstrated in 2014 to Donovan that gratitude is a disease of dogs. So when it comes to the future of players like Jonathan Gonzalez or Christian Pulisic, nothing is guaranteed. You would assume that players like Rossi and Subotic would have kept getting opportunities with the US National Team even if they had injuries or form issues in their club careers, but Donovan demonstrates that that argument can sometimes be hollow.
https://www.theringer.com/soccer/20...ual-national-jonathan-gonzalez-efrain-alvarez Anyone see this? First confirmation I've seen that the Portugal friendly omission was the main driver in the Gonzalez switch. Also alleges the issue with Alvarez in the U.S. youth setup was that one coach "just didn't like him", saw him as a little kid just joking around. This bit interested me as well: “That’s something that the MLS clubs value very much,” he says. “The Mexican federation comes from a different approach than the U.S. federation. The Mexican federation approach is that it’s the club’s player. He’s your player, and we’re happy to work with him, where U.S. Soccer comes in and says, ‘It’s our player.’ That is foolish.”
I saw it yesterday. It is a good read. Unfortunate,y doesn't have all perspectives as some opted to not be interviewed.
Different perspectives don't change the reality that Gonzo and Efrain will be El Tri players. Similar to Germany, dual nationals who we would want, probably want to play for El Tri. Duals nationals that Mexico doesn't want or need, can always play for us. But there is also the reality that there are forces outside of the game that make kids choose for whom to play that US Soccer cannot control, so it doesn't make a ton of sense to spend a lot of time worrying about how or why the kid made his choice. He made it, it's done, I hope that US Soccer can learn from it and make a better attempt in future to change hearts and minds of other talented dual national youth.
Read that piece and all USMNT fans should. There's much to glean and much to question in there. Like, weren't people debating the Gonzalez switch talking like the USA only had one scout? And this article says there's more like 120. I'd hardly call not being picked for Portugal. More like: “I always saw myself as playing in the U.S.,” González said earlier this year when asked about switching, but said he made the decision because Mexico provided “ more opportunities.” Ya think? One team was going to the World Cup in 8 months, without a convincing d-midfielder - on a big, loud, and colorful bandwagon. The other team had just epically failed, and wouldn't see a World Cup for 5 years at the earliest. The US bandwagon was blaring a tune of confusion and recriminations with more doomsayers jumping on by the minute. One thing the US did seem to have was lots of competition at D-mid.
Anybody think this is funny /ironic? "Over the course of the day, two under-15 players stand out above all: LAFC’s hulking center back Antonio Leone and pacy winger Kevin Jimenez. On the left side of the pitch, Jimenez scores twice at the start of the second half to put the match out of reach for the Galaxy, while Leone locks down the defense in a 4-2 LAFC victory. Both players are eligible to represent the U.S. or Mexico. Earlier this year, Leone and Jimenez attended a U.S. under-15 national team camp. Whether Mexico attempts to recruit the duo remains to be seen, but Van der Most admits both players impressed him today." Etc. Expert scout poaching US players for Mexico successfully identifies the big kid in the back and the fast kid up front. Yet, in our frenzy of self-criticism, this is one of the oldest and most commonly cited faults of US Soccer talent identification in comparison to Mexico and other Latin American countries. And yet again, Osorio wanted all tall players, right? (Correct me if that's not true.)
More funny evidence we're just wracked with self-doubt: “Representation matters,” says Herculez Gomez, a former U.S. men’s national team striker and a Mexican American. “What gets to me is why these kids feel the need to go right outside of their birth country to find first-team opportunities. Why aren’t we giving these kids first-team opportunities right here in the States?” But later in the same article, the magical scout from the "Doin' Things Right" MNT system says: “They have got to be better than the [players in Mexico],” he says, speaking generally about scouting. “[The Mexican federation] cannot just bring one in to prove that having a scout in the U.S. pays off. It has to be quality that’s better than players over there.”
didnt the article even say one of the guys they liked for mexico was the captain of his usynt? i mean theres not a lot more you can in good faith do with kids this age is there?
Not that it makes a huge difference but it’s actually the person giving the interview saying in Efraín’s defense that he was just a kid messing around. The coach that didn’t like him apparently took his behavior too seriously and treated him as a bad kid. In regard to MX-Americans the sad bit is this - Despite the club’s success developing players, Van der Most recalls that his teams made up mostly of Latino players weren’t always welcomed in the world of American youth soccer. “We had referees calling our players ‘********ing spics,’” he says. At one youth tournament, he says hotel officials reflexively blamed his team after guests complained about rowdy soccer players. When Van der Most investigated, it turned out the offenders were a group of white players from a Texas club. It wasn’t the only time his team would get blamed for something they didn’t do. “I’ve been called out twice. ‘Sacha, we need to talk to you. A bag was stolen. They say it’s your players,’” he remembers. It’ll be easy for Mexico to convince MLS-made youths to play for us with stuff like this going on.
Well, I'd agree and so did folks at US Soccer. Jonathan Gonzalez was a captain, right? And some of the occasions he didn't get picked for were older age group competitions.* The fact is these kids have two realms of opportunities to pick and choose from. We're not going to get them all. Sure we need to try to address the obstacles and concerns of these kids and their families, but I'm skeptical of many critics who take their post-switch rationalizations at face value.
I don't need to take Jonathan Gonzalez's "post-switch rationalizations" at face value to believe USSF blew this one. He was fully involved in the US program, so much so, he was named captain of one of his sides. The US not only had the inside lane to having him select them, he was almost secured. That is, unless they allowed a mistake to be made by an old school coach who was in a caretaker position. Nobody learned anything about the shortsightedness of Sarachan in their analysis of his tactics in the qualifiers? The game has passed him by, but here we are, starting a new cycle with an old idea.
How anyone could read that article and think its a "neutral" look at what happened would seem to lack objectivity. That was written as completely anti-US Soccer with only one side of many perspectives. They aren't a competent federation, but why should the defectors be portrayed so well? They voluntarily chose to leave the program.
While I don't believe the article was 'anti-US Soccer,' I'm willing to concede it was one sided. There was no rebuttal of the facts, or even an attempt to present another side. As I read it I thought that possibly he tried, failed, and eventually gave up trying to get the USSF side of the disagreement. But that didn't prevent him from at least trying to surmise their side. That being the case, and since you seem so certain in your opinion, why don't you give us an opposing argument, one not biased to either side. Or, since we already have the 'anti-US Soccer side' just the 'pro-US Soccer' argument.
I also think it's funny/ironic that the two key adults in this story are cut from pretty similar cloth as Thomas Rongen.
The good takeaway here is that competition always helps you improve. There is nothing really damning in the article. Just some small stuff, really. But the desire to get all the little details right is the mark of a great program. And remember, a large percentage, maybe even over half, of our prospects are dual nationals. We are in competition all the time. The other takeaway, though, is that out development is in ascendancy. The real truth is that González wouldn't be today a difference maker in the U20 of 2017 or the NT of today. That is McK and Adams, who are better prospects. Meanwhile Parks or Durkin are a currently similar level of prospect.