Seeing that i actually used your term "big part" and addressed it, I obviously read what you wrote. I just think its crazy. Simply getting regular playing time for a first year player is not an automatic ticket to a World Cup. Not even at Schalke. We are not talking about a player with a track record. And you didnt seem to to be talking about being a starter either. Let's pump the brakes. And this is coming from a person who is HOPEFUL that he becomes a world beater.
If you are good enough, you are old enough. And any player making contributions to Schalke is good enough for our teams.
The 18 year old could walk onto Almost any club or national team bench so he doesn't count. No sane manager would refuse to give him minutes. My question is will Bruce snub foreign base players because reasons? That's my question for him. I think we will have a definitive answer soon.
I agree with most of that but my point wasn't that Bruce won't play young players, it's that he tends not to prefer them and isn't going to nurse them. If McKennie started getting minutes at Schalke and Bruce called him in and McKennie didn't show well, Bruce wouldn't hesitate at all to leave him off the Russia squad. While it is true that he started those young players, all 4 of them had previous caps and at least some (albeit modest in Acosta's and Arriola's cases) track record of success at the international level. I don't think it's a coincidence that the only player under 24 that has received his first cap under Bruce was Walker Zimmerman in January camp. Even then, I wonder if he would've gotten it if Hedges hadn't been sent home with an injury.
Tedesco gives an update: Late last season, Weinzierl announced the promotion of academy playersincluding Wright and McKennie to the senior squad, and Tedesco told kicker: "They will join us for now but, as is the case for all others, I need to see how they work. "If I come to the conclusion by then that a player won't help us, I will be honest and ask him to find a different solution for the sake of his personal development. "The under-23 team [playing in the fifth league], a loan or maybe even a transfer -- there are several options." http://www.espnfc.us/schalke-04/sto...ennie-still-in-schalke-plans-domenico-tedesco
What do you expect him to say? They are automatic starters? He gave a non-answer, not really worth changing the lettering of the words to make a point that doesn't apply to what he said.
Eh, I think all this shows is that the coach is looking at everyone. Just like any other new coach, he's going to look at what he has. Then, if any of the Schalke-Americans are good enough for the first team, they'll get their shot. Otherwise, he'll find a way to get them into a positive development situation, be it at the next youth level at Schalke, or on loan somewhere professionally. That's what I got from the article, and the highlighted text...
Exactly, and I don't think it could've been assumed that under the previous coach that they were going to get big roles. The promotion to the first team probably came from the Sporting Director, not the coach. What reason is there to believe that Tedesco will regard them so different than Weinzierl did? Heidel will likely find a good situation for them, if Tedesco isn't going to play them. Probably would've been the same situation under Wenzierl and Heidel.
Tedesco's neutral comments should be taken as a positive given the context that the rumors coming from the Schalke camp was that he was not focused on the youngsters, instead rightly focused on strengthening the squad ahead of the upcoming campaign. In CM, Schalke has Goretzka (22) who just scored 2 v Mexico in the Confed Cup, Geis (23) hot young German U21, Bentaleb (22) Algerian Intl on loan from Spurs, and Stambouli (26) who Heidl bought from PSG and is viewed as a disappointment. The consensus from the fanbase is we need an experienced, proven ball winning Cm to get us back to European football this year. First step accomplished, he is taking the youth players. Second step, will he use them in preseason friendlies? Stay tuned.
I hope Arena remembers his last World Cup and the big mistake he made by taking a lot of old guys. The World Cup is a young men's tourney, if he commits the same mistake, expect the same result.
It is such a myth that Bruce Arena doesn't like younger players. I mean in 2002 he gave a lot of responsibility to teenagers Donovan and Beasley along with JOB who was 23. The 2006 team had a lot of problems but age wasn't it. Look at the typical starters. Beasley and Donovan were 24. Dempsey was 22. Eddie Johnson was 22. Gooch was 24. Convey was 23. Bocanegra & Dolo were 27. The older contingent was Pope (32), Reyna (32), and McBride (33). But that doesn't make the team old. The average age of non-GKs at the World Cup tends to be around 27-28 The average age of the 20 non-GKs for the last four U.S. World Cup rosters were as follows 2002: 27.7 2006: 27.7 2010: 26.25 2016: 26:55
Christian #Heidel über @HajiWright, @WMckennie & Luke #Hemmerich aus der #schmiede! #s04 #SchalkeTV pic.twitter.com/fc31VDOuj6— Knappenschmiede (@knappenschmiede) June 30, 2017 No idea what's being said here - but it seems to be about those players making the jump from U19 to First Team with Schalke.
Got it! Well the average age was 28.3, but still consistent with the 2002 and 1998 WCs. So the old guys and young guys sucked together all around.
To give a sense of who Weston will be competing against/complementing, Goretzka was our best player last season. If McKennie can develop some chemistry during preseason and show that he can protect and support Leon, that will be a big step in helping Weston make the 29. http://www.espnfc.us/blog/soccer-us...-leon-goretzka-the-schalke-star-at-confed-cup
"Soccer is a young man's game" was a Bruce quote. The depth for the 2006 game was not good. There were not many good young players, aside from Dempsey--who Bruce game a large role.
Depth was a problem. Bruce was desperate when he seemed to be waiting all cycle for JOB to get healthy. Another problem is that a few good players had a drop in form at a bad time - Beasley, Donovan, Wolff, Mastroeni, Onyewu Then you has older guys like Pope & Reyna who were very good in 2005 but completely fell off a cliff in 2006 And as much as I like Bruce, he was there too long by 2006. He's a good guy for a cycle (or 4-5 years at the club level) but eventually runs into problems if he's there too long. That happens with a lot of coaches in any sport It was a perfect storm of things going wrong
Preseason starts tomorrow for McKennie and Wright. There might not be two American youngsters with more to gain this preseason. If they show very well and earn playing time with Schalke, that puts them into the NT picture. I don't think its that unlikely for either to get playing time, but they will have to play well.
Saturday. This is the start of training. In terms of game action, Goretzka will join late, which should bump McKennie up a spot on the depth chart temporarily, and Platte will join late, which should bump Wright up on the depth chart temporarily.
https://www.facebook.com/S04/videos/vb.8584479036/10154919505979037/?type=2&theater Here's the practice!
That moment when you beat your teammates at football-tennis 👌 #Avdijaj @WMckennie #S04US ⚽️🎾 pic.twitter.com/QHeVEGtsax— Schalke 04 USA🇺🇸 (@s04_us) July 6, 2017