NWSL is the best league in the world by a big margin. Name another league where the Houston Dash finish 7th or the Red Stars finish 5th? Now u can argue that there r better clubs in the world than NWSL clubs. If u listed the top 10 clubs the distribution would be much more even throughout the leagues but the NWSL has more quality top to bottom than any other league by a mile.
Yep: Even the best European women's leagues go maybe three deep and then the bottom falls out. The English league will probably be 5 deep before long as ManU just started a women's team and they surely will spend the money to be competitive with Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal, and sooner rather than later.
Well, not sure how you can be so confident in your statement. When was the last time she played with any consistency? Not recent enough for me to make any conclusions as to her current form. 2 years ago she wasn't as good as Sanchez or Watt in New Guinea; most pundits would and did agree with me there. She has had the advantage of pro experience since then and therefore you could well take that position, but for the fact that she has been injured for much of the last year.
Top to bottom, I would say it's the best league in the world. I think England has a good league, but not France, they're too top heavy.
I'm not sure Solo was a polished product at 19 years old. All the players make mistakes, even the really good ones. I wouldn't get too down on them. If they keep fumbling in big moments, however, then I'd let them go.
Man, it would have been nice if Watt was age eligible in this tournament. She is even more of an overall athlete than Pugh is. Her athletic ability is off the charts.
The words "Solo" and "polished" in the same sentence without the qualifier "not" between them is something I never expected to read. Of course many "great" keepers are not polished at all.
Well, this U20 team needs something. They are just poor or Spain are that good. Our midfield has been non-existant - howell in particular has been very poor.
They also need to think outside the box in terms of the players they are developing at a young age. Even think of players outside of soccer, in terms of their athleticism. Volleyball, basketball, lacrosse, even field hockey players. Alex Morgan was a late bloomer. You never know what you may discover from late bloomers of other sports.
totally agree(and I do usually watch the Bundesliga game of the week). There's no drafts or allocations, just who ever wants to spend the money. There;s no 'the world has caught up' in fact, a lot of talent has left perennial #2 Germany all read' since their pay is so poor. Their now reduced to a two team league, with Bayern Munich gobbling up half of their domestic NT starters & Wolfsburg doing it with a strong international cast. France is just a 3 man league & in fact looks like PSG lost lot of vets & hasn't been able any notable as they were gunning for Sam Kerr(but apparently failed to get her after the Aus Fed said they would match any offers). So all you got is Lyon, which can boast 6 out of the 10 of FIFA's POY short list, but lost anyway to NC Courage is last month's tourney. Their complained was they were off season & only had a week to prepare, but that's about how much college teams usually got before their seasons start & besides, Riley was stripped of 6 starters by Ellis for that tourney England has probably the most balanced due to having so many of their rich clubs are getting into woso, but their two top clubs don't look so good as Chelsea got destroyed by Wolfsburg in the Champions League semis & Man City likewise by Lyon in that summer tourney(just days before Lyon would loose to the Courage) I wouldn't dwell too much on the US u20 loss, if the team only played year round(like a lot of the other youth NT's in this tournament, they would of done a lot better/or even win it. Consider how good an year round squad like Haiti did yesterday where despite loosingm they dominated the Germans. And that was a team that gets a grant by the US government to come over & get trained during the summer by colleges coaches. If we only spend this much time with our own team, obviously the results would way better
I find this result unacceptable and think the entire program needs an overhaul... top to bottom. I don't like the way any of the Women's team are playing these days and am not sure if its just per chance or if they are all following Jill Ellis's lead? I do know that we can not continue to be a top team if we rely on winning on athletic ability alone. Spain and Japan are advancing and both were better on the ball then the USA. In fact, quite a few were better. We have to start playing a more sophisticated game and should be starting NOW. This U-20 fail should be a wake-up call for US soccer though I doubt it will be. If we don't change, this result will be our future
Agree on the coaching. How do you not adjust your RB to Spain's continued attacks there? Our players could not play a one-touch pass, could not retain possession at any time and continually gave the ball away even when not under pressure. GK distribution was awful. The fact that we scored two goals during 'sloppy time' is a credit to our players resolve, but till then we were beaten for every 50-50 ball and basically out-played over the entire pitch. I hadn't seen any other games and was watching this one to see who could be coming up to the senior team anytime soon - I saw one player with a chance, Smith. Very disappointing.
There are still some really good American college players who weren't on this team, due to either being too old to qualify to be on the U-20 team, or they were just not selected. Here is a top rankings list: https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer/college-national-top-100/women Tierna Davidson is obviously #1, followed by Jessie Fleming (Canadian). Devon Kerr got the shaft. They only list her as the 5th best goalkeeper, and #66 player overall. She should be ranked higher. https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer/college-national-top-100/women
Of course, the Womens Champions League (is that what they call it?) , is probably better than NWSL or equivalent and soon to be better.
This is what you heard (and still hear) on the Men's side as they had very disappointing YNT results. Held over veterans masked the problem at the Senior level until Couva. It starts with youth soccer and the fact that winning gets you players. Pay to play means more players more money. Developing soccer players gets you nothing. The easiest and most effective way to win is to have a superior athlete up top and just punt balls near them. Particularly effective on the artificial turf most young Americans play on and the cow pasture the rest play on. The Men's side started to change, some attempt to identify players that think for solutions and have technical skills. Still though, size and speed are valued most. The Women's side has probably regressed looking at the U17 and U20 teams. Maybe the DA vs ECNL rivalry has put even more pressure on winning at all costs to development. Maybe that the Senior team has been able to afford to wait for players to actually start developing at 23 instead of 15. The unlimited subs in NCAA Soccer also puts even more emphasis on athletic ability over technical and tactical skill. You can run all out for 20 minutes, take a break, and do it again. With such rules, the USA would run over Spain; but with FIFA rules, they play the ball around us and through us. NWSL is contracting and many players from the last two draft classes got very little playing time and are out of the league. It is a great league for keeping the USWNT players fit (and the Australians); but it hasn't really developed anyone for the USWNT. Some of that is that the USSF tends to identify players young, invest a lot in them, then stay with them until they repeatedly prove they are not good enough. U20 and U17 rosters are never as static anywhere else as they are in US Womens soccer.
I know u know this but cause and effect at USSoccer defies the laws of Physics. After the U20 win in 2012 Heinrichs & Ellis got the big idea that they needed full time coaches for youth team which removed all the successful college coaches from the mix. They then hired French and Snow who both had major ties to Ellis and past US teams. Both coaches then proceeded to lose in 2014. Effect would naturally be replace the coaches but instead they got another cycle. Where they lost again. Effect this time saw Snow promoted for his fine work with the 17s while French moved on to a college position. So they hired Klimkova and Carr, both promoted from within the system. Both qualified for WC and the jury is still out on Carr I guess. Klimkova failed to get out of group for the first time every at U20s. Her qualification for one of the plum positions in international youth soccer (US has won 3 out of 9 U20 WCs) was working for Heinrich before in various capacities. Now ud think effect would involve removing a TD who has accomplished nothing in 7 years and the hand picked coaches who have done equally well. Color me doubtful.
Can you expound on this? What happened with Kerr and her federation? They paid so she stays in the NWSL?
I really think that some countries have their youth teams drill like crazy for much longer periods of time (think N. Korea). Look at the men's side, it doesn't coincide with all the WC winning national senior teams either.
It is correct to blame coaches and other staff for poor personnel choices and even poor game time decisions but that is not the biggest problem that I, and it looks like many others, have seen with this U20s and other youth teams. The problem many of us see is basic technical failures like failure to make good choices and failure to execute simple skills, Those skills should have been taught many years before and then simply refined over time. If the skills are lacking then the problem is throughout the US soccer program. I think the reason that those skills are lacking is that basic skill development mostly stops in this country at about U15 and does not start again until after U23. That is 3 years of high school and four years of college that are years in which skills are not really developed in this country due to the flawed system of high school and college soccer development where skills are deemphasized in favor of simple athletic ability. In both college and high school you can win by simply having OK skills and running the other team into the ground. Many years ago either Anson Dorrance or Tony DICicco (I think it was the latter) said, "There is a dearth of soccer development in the US from U15 to U23 in this country. The system is just not designed to develop top soccer players in the high school through the college years." That observation did not exactly endear him with the soccer establishment in the US but, even though the college program has improved some, it remains true today. Many players do not develop much in the skill department through the school years and that reflects badly in our youth programs and tournaments but our depth in the women's program is so great that it has not, yet, reflected much in the senior program. But that is changing. It is true that we, the US, are so ingrained in the idea that college is right and good for everyone that we are very unlikely to ever change and that means that other, more forward thinking, countries will continue to close the gap. I doubt that even failing to qualify out of CONCACAF at some future time will awaken the US soccer establishment to the need for divorcing soccer development from the education system.
Remember, when pointing to the American development system for the women, and then the senior NT, the following all have played in France or England and improved greatly upon returning: Megan Rapinoe Alex Morgan Lindsay Horan Crystal Dunn Tobin Heath
Nearly all of the good 14-18 year-olds in America play club (ECNL or other) soccer; they do not play high-school soccer, at least not when they are juniors and seniors in high school. I think there has been a lot of skill development in ECNL players over the last several years, and of course the USSF has just started a development academy for young women. Nearly all of the good club/DA players go on to play in college programs. I can't imagine that our major-college programs are not refining the soccer skills of our players. Certainly, there are a lot of athletic young people in this country, and that has been a competitive advantage for us, in some respects, but our players are also skillful--the great success of the senior NT is proof of that. But it is also true that we and a few other countries got a bit of an early start in women's soccer, and a lot of countries with great soccer cultures are beginning to catch up. It's the normal evolution of things. It is silly to think that we are going to always dominate this sport.
PSG wanted Kerr after the NWSL season, but the AUS soccer federation wants to keep her instead in their W'League(from Oct-Jan) & will pay match any offer from the French since her own club(Perth Glory) can't afford the PSG offer( since it's been suggested that we copy the best of the world., than obviously no better choice than the u20 reigning world champs, the North Koreans! guess we could lock up our team in a soccer boarding school, plant ease dropping devices & hidden cameras so they don't go all decadent, give em an extra bowl of rice if they behave, lol but oddly enough, their senior squad failed to qualify for next year's WC we're NOT searching for the best 'lookin' GK., just merely the best, lol but it was Spain that ran out gas! Besides, I all ready hyped that's by far their best player, Patricia Gujarro,(#8) as an emerging superstar in the post from March as she lead their senior NT into victory at the Cypress Cup https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/cyprus-cup-2018.2079588/page-3#post-36426680 without her, we would of beaten Spain(as she scored one goal & assisted on the other& had 5 tackles to boot -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------the unlimited sub rule, along with rec, high school , mom & pop select and of course college/title XI have made woso a wildly popular game in the US. I wouldn't say it will make a better player than getting selected by the Barca youth academy.. But if you look at stats from other countries; I've often read, France has only 50K registered woso player(this should mean all ages as you they simply don't have rec soccer in small town, France) The Bigger population Russia, only gives a figure of 30K registered. Compare that to something like 3 million females registered at a given year in the US, I think we're doing something right! .