Many things go wrong with development of young players - just look at Rubin, Pelosi, e.g. nevertheless, Parks and McKennie are already light years ahead of Nagbe and Kellyn/Arriola. To say that we are repeating the mistake we made when we hyped Nagbe and Kellyn would be fallacious. Some of us didn't think they were any good to begin with. Durkin and EPB have the natural ability of Bradley so once again it's just the vagaries of individual development that stand in the way of improving that position over the lame 2017 version of Bradley. It's always risky to hype a goal scorer or a "9" which is what Sargent is. Not to mention that having just one doesn't mean anything as Jozy in Brazil showed. I think this particular camp is a great way of seeing what our depth is. I'd be much more worried about the choice of manager going forward. We don't need another manager who thinks the way to exploit Pulisic is to let him roam and run at people; we need a manager who wants to develop a team that will deliver the ball to Pulisic with advantage. Players like McKennie, Parks, Delgado, Trapp, Polster, Zardes (as a midfielder) can do that job, more or less. And who thinks a serious National team manager would have had Zusi playing fullback against the likes of Quioto and Ellis @ Honduras.
I think it was discussed quite a bit when looking at the youth results of the players of the players born in the 1990-1994 years ("The Missing Years.") That was a big part of the article. Players of this age were bad at the U-17s (2007 and 2009 U-17 WC teams were awful) They were bad at the U-20s (The 2009, 2011, and 2013 U-20 teams were awful). They were bad at the U-23s (2 Olympic qualifying failures in 2012 and 2016). And guess what? They were bad with the full team too. It's been a remarkably consistent feature from this group of players for over a decade. But when you look at the recent results from the U-17s and U-20 teams, they vastly outperform those from the missing years. The USMNT screwed up in T&T, no question. But if people are going to focus on that one game or one roster, they're missing the point. Bad games can happen to anyone at anytime in any sport. The real story is that it was a horrible cycle essentially dating back to the 2015 Gold Cup.
I think anytime the US misses qualifying to a major tournament we have massively under performed. Look at the players on the 2012 squad Shea: frequent USMNT starter and got an EPL contract. Agudelo: USMNT roster player and got an EPL contract. Mix: frequent USMNT starter, WC2014 roster and MLS DP. Corona: Liga MX starter. Opara: When healthy one of the better CBs in MLS and now at Cupcake Kitchen: lock MLS starter with recent Euro move. Hamid and Johnson: lock MLS starters. Boyd: Dortmund bench and 28Gs/59 matches in Austrian BL. We also had Chandler, DWill, and Morales waiting to be released if we qualified. The 2015 squad is poor by comparison
I almost got lynched for telling people I didn't see it with most of our youngsters, although I must admit I was wrong about Rubin and Green. I expected them not to flop. Same now with Pulisic, who I think will be a fine player but not the "world class" type our fans are making him out to be. I know all fans are a bit irrational, but our YA fans are beyond embarrassing. It's as if they started watching soccer yesterday. At any rate, I think Klinsmann was nefarious to our program and the full effects of his tenure will be felt for the next decade. Nothing improved under his aegis, our youth teams did worse than ever, the pipeline MLS to Europe dried up, we capped duals no one wanted, we lost our style without developing a substitute, and wasted a World Cup on this side of the pond by not doing any better than we usually do in World Cups outside Europe. American soccer fans are completely obsessed with Europe, though, so they will cover their eyes and go la-la-la when players like Brooks or Johnson are having a stinker. Watch the game, don't just focus on the club where they play or the salary they earn! That's what fans who know soccer do, they watch the game, not their Playstation. Since you cannot buy players for the NT, at most can only seduce some into switching by promising them World Cup spots, when the system is falling to pieces you can only change the coach. Here it was falling into big chunks, so it was time to change coach and see. It didn't work either, so now we're in panic mode. There is a lot of talent in MLS that has not been looked at, but as someone who follows that league I doubt we'll find several diamonds in the rough. Personally, I never understood the fascination with guys like Nagbe or Acosta. They'd be considered pedestrian in most any other system. What matters in the international game is adaptability. A player with his club can live up to his potential because he spends enough time with his teammates and the coaching staff. That's not the case for NTs. So, you need players who're not just good playing soccer, but also adaptable and not stupid. That's our biggest problem at this point. Even our guys who are decent soccer players, be it in MLS or in Europe, are kind of stupid. And you see that on the field, when the Plan A is not working and they try going the same route again and again. So we need that bright bulb, and at this point I'm hoping for Pulisic to mature ASAP, or for McKenney to show a certain degree of brilliance. Something good has to happen already.
I'll be watching the game from home even though I'm local to the game. There are only 2 players that I'm interested in seeing...Lima & Ramirez.
I don’t think ever seen you say you think a player is going to make it. Your views on our youth players comes across as very safe as most kids don’t make it. Rubin’s career was obviously impacted by his injury. I never expected him to be our top forward, but he is kid that seems to have decent technical abilities and a lot of fight in him. Pulisic may not end up being a “World class” player, but he is already take him over any other American player in his prime, including your beloved Landon. He is more talented and well rounded than any player we’ve ever had. I think it was Klinsmann who said our fans were naive and Reyna who said Americans are arrogant about the sport (with little to back it up). There are many on this site in different forums who don’t understand the sport that well, don’t have an eye for talent, and/or understands what it takes to be the best in the world at anything. I’m sure even exerts of the game get over excited about certain players at some point. I don’t consider myself in either of those groups and have been wrong on my fair share of occasions. I find your thoughts on Klinsmann absurd. He isn’t a great coach but was fine for our program based on where we were. We didn’t need a great tactician, and if you think we did, we could have just seen if Bora wanted another go at it. The pipeline to Europe didn’t die, MLS didn’t sell and over paid for anyone who was abroad. We have continued to have players move abroad and at a much faster pace than a couple of years ago. The majority of our best players under 23 are overseas or have interest and should be looking to move soon. It’s very likely that our 2022 roster will have as few MLS players as the 2010 one. Judging youth by tournament results is one of the stupider things that I see on here. The 2015 u20s made it PKs in the QF against the eventual champions, and while many players from that team has been capped, Acosta is the closest to a regular (undeserving, but Arena). The 2015 u17 were a bust bust, but we already have Pulisic and McKennie from the 1998 year and waiting to see if Wright, Olosunde, Perez, de la Torre, Gaines, etc make the grade. Even though quite few attacking players weren’t released, adding the 98s to 97s made a decent u20 team, again losing to the eventual champions in the QF. The number of -youth players that have potential to help us has been increasing year by year. We would have never lost Gonzalez under JK’s watch and even if he didn’t become a world beater he would be quality squad depth being better than any Mexican-Americans that have represented us so far. All the dual nationals did provide depth that we have lacked for so long. Blaming anything on Klinsmann for our result in Brazil is as naive as what you were saying about the YA fans. Your 3 WCs outside of Europe don’t really make a trend and assuming we should improve every World Cup is similarly naive. We had no where near the talent as Belgium and had no business beating them. That is one of my favorite USMNT games once I rewatched it. LD fans were unable to enjoy it and realize that a style was evolving, but we still needed more talent... those who paid attention to games in the Copa two years later would see bits of it as well. The biggest problem with Klinsmann era was the people who fought against him and his changes. I personally didn’t really see much wrong with anything he ever said that sent people into a tizzy. Saying guys coming back to Mls would create a challenge for them to maintain their form was him sh!tting on MLS, but in fact played itself out in a very ugly way. Suggesting players play the highest level they can is in no way controversial. While there will still be a lot of resistance to change, missing the World Cup (Arena’s fault and the poor MLS or MLS/Arena related players he chose) will provide lots of support for indeed changing things. I don’t even think our federation or MLS can hold back this next group of players coming through. There won’t be a lost decade going forward as it has already happened with MLS softening our players. Playing in Europe doesn’t mean the player is always going to perform. All players have bad games and some of our Euro based players have had bad games for us over the last 3 years. Brooks isn’t a surprise and part of the processs with young CBs. Johnson was often mediocre, but was much worse under Arena and still better than Villafana. People can talk about poor games Chandler played, but I don’t recall him playing worse than Zusi did in Honduras. Who are these MLS diamonds you speak of? There 30 players in camp now and I don’t see anyone born before 1997 besides Ramirez and Steffen that I have much interest in seeing. I think we are already starting to see smarter players and it’s expected when they play against tougher competition and have better coaches at younger ages, whether it be 14 with Wood and Hyndman or 16 with Pulisic, and 18 with a bunch of others.
I would say the height of naivety is supporting an objectively bad manager because he says things one likes to hear.
My lineup... GK Steffen RB Polster (Lima)46 CB Glad CB Parker (Zimmerman) 80 LB D.Acosta (Vincent) 46 RM Arriola CM Adams CM Roldan LM Rowe (Lennon) 60 FW Sapong (Ramirez) 60 FW Morris (Agudelo) 80
--------------------Hamid---------------------- Lima---Zimmerman---Glad---Danilo -------------Roldan----Delgado----------- -------Paul-------Tyler------Lennon------- --------------------Morris---------------------- We need a better young striker desperately, btw.
I don’t know what that has to with enjoying the Belgium game and the respect I have for the players effort that day. I don’t believe he was an “objectively bad manager” and think you are quite arrogant think you know why I supported him (that is actually a bit strong but anyone who didn’t hate him and attack everything he did got that label).
You've kind of done an entire 180 over the last 2-3 years. You used to be of the opinion we were looking at the greatest player pool we've ever had and Jurgen just wasn't using it correctly. You also used to get angry at anyone who questioned the quality of our players in MLS. But ever since we missed the WC you might have become the pessimistic of all posters here about our talent. Now you're almost convinced outside Pulisic, no one will pan out and even on Pulisic you've limited his ceiling. A few years ago you were telling us how great our players are and that it was embarrassing how many people didn't rate them. Compared US fans to El Tri fans. Said there was anti-American bias against our players and Europe doesn't rate them enough. Now you're saying it's embarrassing that people do rate a few of our players. I see nothing wrong with fans getting a little excited about McKennie/Parks/Sargent types but also admitting we're still generally horrible at developing players, the cupcake roster is largely awful and qualifying for 2022 is no guarantee. But it's a bit odd for you to label certain opinions/viewpoints as irrational and embarrassing when that was the exact stance you held for years on here. You basically were calling one side irrational, then switched over to the other side and are now calling your previous side irrational. So if these kids pan out and we have a good 2022 cycle, are you then going to jump back to your previous side and argue everyone who doubted these kids were irrational?
a) I still think there is anti-American bias in Europe. I cannot find another explanation for what is happening to EPB, who's not wanted by any club, while other players who looked much worse in the U20 WC already have juicy contracts. b) I think there is decent quality in MLS. I've never ranked the league above #23 in the world, but that a league is poor doesn't mean all the players or all the clubs in it are. I think, though, that right now, none of the young players there are ready to make a difference and improve the NT setup. c) Yes, I thought for a while that this was our best pool ever. But I also noted that our "best pool ever" didn't mean a particularly good one. We're small-timers here, our best pool ever pales to the best pools ever by teams like Chile or Serbia, that only qualify half of the time. d) Everybody here is doing the 180. I even remember Susaeta remarking of Bruce Arena, "how not to love the guy?" And you yourself were always putting our players in Europe far above anything MLS has to offer. You were one to attack me when I noted how slow of thinking Zelalem was, or how terrible was Johannsson's positioning. For some reason, you think a guy playing a few games in Europe is automatically better than anyone in MLS. That's very naive. e) That the players don't look good enough doesn't excuse the terrible tactical positioning that Klinsmann did time and again. Playing guys out of position, and putting 3 defensive CMs against teams we should have dominated, or placing CBs as SBs and DMs as wide midfielders, or putting a guy like Sacha as our left winger, or (worse of all) playing for set pieces only while having under 40% possession. Klinsmann was a coward as a coach, and the decline started with him, including in the team time and again guys whose only merit was playing in Europe over guys who had looked better. At least in the end he realized Fabian was half-arsing it and stopped calling Chandler. f) I was very skeptical about Arena when he got named, but after his opening games --and more so the tie in the Azteca-- I had hope. I had mocked his starting lineup for the game in Mexico, and I made the bet with myself that if he got a result with such a funny setup, I was going to use him as avatar. Somehow he managed the tie, so I had to put him as my avatar. g) I had serious doubt about qualifying, even wrote here that it was a good thing the WC was expanding because we could miss '18 and '22. After that, though, I tried to convince myself we'd make it. That was entirely the fan in me. Missing a World Cup is in my opinion devastating. There's no silver lining, no compensation, no way to atone for it. Next summer I'm going to have a hard time watching, but I'll still watch because when you grow up loving the game, the World Cup is much more than just the biggest party on Earth. I'm just going to feel like the guy watching it through the window.
Suyuntuy, please don't misrepresent my position in making your point. You and I both know your phrasing is not correct. It's not a respectable debate tactic to attach "naivety" to an argument you made up. There's maybe about 10 yanks in Europe I'd turn to right now despite there being over 100 throughout various levels over there. You're better than this, which is essentially making up arguments and then responding to made up arguments. Being excited about a McKennie or Parks or thinking a Williams could have helped us in no way equates to thinking anyone who's played a few games in Europe is better than anyone in MLS. You don't see me calling for a Kitchen or Morales or Ream do you? Exactly.
Williams is not a good player. He's a situational workhorse. Even David Wagner knows it, reason why he only uses Dwill in certain circumstances. So it wasn't you calling me out about Aronjo? My apologies if it wasn't, I can't remember everybody here. Also, unlike bsky, who is now our Official Optimist, you've moderated your position with respect to our European prospects recently. And it's not Trumpian criticizing the Germericans when they don't look good. I know you have a soft spot for them, but let's be honest: the only one who lived up to potential was JJ. Most of our duals, and I say this as someone who's very much left-of-center politically, born outside the USA, having lived in Europe and now Canada for many years, most of our duals have been sub-par with the NT. From Aron to Chandler, from Mix to Fabian, from Green to Morales. Some of them are genuinely very mediocre (or worse) players. But some of them really didn't look to be in the same page with the rest. Of course it's much worse when someone like Bradley strolls to take a corner kick in the Trinidad game, or Jozy hangs back when he's supposed to be the point of the spear in attack in that crucial second game vs. CRC. Those two were part of the setup from the start, they didn't have any excuse. But anyone who's watched Chandler and Johnson with us knows they were not giving a crap either. Johnson crossing was entirely lackadaisical, he didn't care if the ball went to one of our guys or to the keeper or one of their defenders. He didn't even look up before crossing at times! And Chandler stayed back when he could have gone forward accompanying Jones, even though JJ was calling for him to come forward, in that game in Columbus. They just didn't give a damn. And it was like an infection, that not-giving-a-damn spread all over. Zusi may be a very limited player but there were times when only he and Wood were pushing for it, screaming at their mates, trying to make something happen. Watch those games and see yourself. Criticizing the dual nationals has nothing to do with having anything against them, just like noting that Nagbe is a dumb guy has nothing to do with hating MLS. Because Nagbe, with the NT, was often a dumb guy, putting himself right in the spot where he was going to be surrounded and unable to do anything but pass it back to Bradley, who was going to run a half a second too late (he often looked surprised when the ball came back to him!) and force a foul.
Addressing only a): Companies often don't hire the best candidate for a job but instead they hire the guy who fits best with the coporate culture. This is much more so in Europe than in USA. I'm a a dual nat of sorts. I consider myself American 100% but I can easily play the European when the situation calls for it. Many of our boys cant. Sometimes ability isn't enough.
I have to be optimistic or I’d have to give up rooting for this team. While I’m optimistic about much of our young talent, I’m very much a realist about our history. The only thing I’ve ever taken for granted since 2005 is that we should qualify for the World Cup. We’ve never convincingly gotten out of our group at the World Cup and don’t buy that it is some magical thing that occurs if we aren’t in Europe. I’m optimistic because we have two 19 year olds that have the talent to be our best ever players at their position. I’m optimistic because of the much larger numbers of players with high potential that are in top rate environments. We used only have a few players that we thought could help get us to next level and when they didn’t work out (Adu) or got injured (Renken, Holden, Davies), our team was immediately weakened or future looked much bleaker. Today, there are at least a few prospects (u22) at most positions, and if Zelalem doesn’t work out there are couple of other guys who can fight for that spot. I’d expect by 2022 or at least 2026, we will have talented players (ones that might have started on past teams) nowhere near our rosters. I think we will have high end difference makers and more quality depth. This will mean our team will be materially better than in the past. All that means is that we should easily qualify, but may still not get out of our group or win a round of 16 game because there are a lot of good teams that we can come up against and anything can happen in a soccer game with reasonably talented teams. I probably come off as optimistic because so many people are so negative out many of our players. Pulisic isn’t meeting expectations, McKennie might be tried as defender, Parks is only bouncing back and forth between the first and second team, Perez is only being used as a sub on the top team in Serie C, Akale in a similar place in Spain, etc. Fifteen years ago, any of these guys would be seen as great hopes. I’m not naive or stupid enough to think all these players work out, but don’t see why we don’t see how they pan out instead of being the first (smartest) in writing the players off. Much of the arguments I read about the players are superficial and formed when they were quite young. The easiest example is the view that Zelalem is a slow thinker, which seemed to be based off his play at the u20 WC when he was 18 or a second division Rangers side that plays very direct, while ignoring many times he played quite quickly with Arsenal’s youth team or on a preseason tour. The idea that an 18 or 19 yo can’t improve in almost all areas of the game is odd.
Maybe our coaching sucked. Just maybe. And maybe our talent level overall was average at best and needed great tactics to excel. It's so moot. Unless we don't make big changes. And unless that youth that looks so promising at times today doesn't stay healthy with the drive to keep improving.
All I can say is that regardless of our disagreements, someone like you is very necessary in a forum like this.
I liked this piece by Joe Lowery (@JoeInCleats on Twitter) on Kelyn Rowe: https://mlshocker.wordpress.com/2018/01/23/kelyn-rowe-the-usmnts-undervalued-creator/
There may be players that are better than Rowe at individual positions, but his "jack of all trades" skill set makes him a valuable asset.
Parks, Guido, Delgado and a few other youth players. I'll be surprised if Rowe even makes the bench for us in 4 years.
I get where you're coming from for sure, but I'm not even thinking about 2022 right now. You know what I'm focused on, as a fan? Putting out the best team we can for the CONCACAF League of Nations games in September-October, a team that's going to fight their asses off for that crest and that jersey. That's what I'm focused on. Could Kelyn Rowe be on that team? Absolutely.