He has really been a roller coaster of form. If his good form in the late first half of the season got him on Germany's radar, his incredibly poor form the last few months has probably crossed his name off the list. He is young and will probably be thinking 2022. If he isn't playing for Germany or Croatia at the Euros in 2020, we should definitely start a hard romance and try and get him to switch.
there are players who don't need to go to Europe because they are self motivators and "naturals". Delgado is an example and I'm guessing Carleton, Morris, too. Donovan was a good example. Guys who need Europe more are guys like Durkin, Adams, Glad, Brown. American soccer doesn't demand good passing out of the back from cb's altho it is getting better.
18th goal in league play for Nova, 19th across all competitions. Second-most in the league. Nice dinked finish from @AndrijaNovakov3 to score for Telstar against FC Emmen - his 2️⃣0️⃣th goal of the season! 👏 #readingfc pic.twitter.com/6zvNgs0CKr— Talk Reading (@TalkReading) April 10, 2018
I don't know why, but I like when the local announcer mentions that the guy is American in YA goal scoring clips. It's silly.
They don’t need to go Europe if they can accept being very average internationally or not an international player at all. I don’t see much of an international career for Morris and the probability of Delgado taking a few more jumps is very low, especially if he stays in mls. I could see Carleton getting to a decent level if he could play in a system like Atlanta has now, but would be better served abroad. Donovan underachieved his talent level by a wide margin. There is no better poster boy for illustrating how the comfort of MLS can affect a player. That Iraqi-American just mentioned this weekend how beneficial it was to get out of his comfort zone in Columbus and how it has helped him grow as a player.
You can count on one hand the amount of guys in the past 10-12 years or so that have over 30 caps and never played outside MLS. Wondo, Besler, Zusi, Zardes, Beckerman Out of those five, only Besler and Beckerman were regular starters and not for terribly long stretches. Lifer in MLS is not a path to consistent USMNT starts.
Rear view mirror is just one way of driving the car. Take a looksie at what's ahead of you. I said there are exceptions. Donovan. He had a few caps. I am also taking into account, most importantly, that MLS quality is improving. There is no denying that a player is going to be a much better player for having played against/with David Villa, Lodeiro, Zlatan, Vela.......do I have to go on? I mentioned Delgado and Carleton as guys who don't need Europe- Delgado plays with Vazquez, Giovinco, Bradley; Carleton will be on same club as Barco, Martinez, Almiron, Gressel and will be coached by Martino.
Its also worth noting that MLS is paying a lot more (with GAM/TAM, etc.) to keep domestic players at home. In the past we had a big group of "middle class" players go to Europe for increased salaries that don't need to do so now. [Not the highly paid stars or the highly paid young prospects.] There used to be a much larger contingent in Scandinavia than there is today. Quite a number of players people are talking about here as "MLS lifers" had plenty of options to go to Europe. Somebody mentioned Matt Besler above. Following the 2014 World Cup he had quite a lot of interest from Europe (reportedly clubs like Fulham, Sunderland, Freiburg, etc.). He could have gone..................but why? I always return to the fact that Eddie Pope turned down an opportunity to play for the defending Champions League winners. MLS/DCU accepted a bid from Borussia Dortmund in 1998. Eddie chose to stay at home despite how his salary would have skyrocketed. He wanted to live in the US and help the league grow. That was an outlier at the time...................but not so much today.
I think injuries will limit MOrris going forward but looking back it should be noted he won the Gold Cup for us with his goal and he delivered the assist to save a point in Honduras away in the hex. He already had an international career. b.t.w., MLS lifer Graham Zusi had two crucial assists in the 2014 WC. All this stuff about "I dont see an international career" for such and such MLS lifer doesnt reflect very good judgment based on cold, hard facts.
The #6 League in the world (according to UEFA coefficients) is Russia. Their team stinks. The domestic league strength doesn't correlate at all with national team strength. If it did, either Brazil would have the best league or England would have been a perennial semi-finalist at least. So whether MLS gets better or doesn't is irrelevant. I just bought MLS tickets. Go watch a game! Enjoy it. MLS is not important to the USMNT outside of developing 16-22 year old Americans and moving them to Europe. Donovan played in Europe. He is not a player that exclusively played in MLS. The facts are indisputable, there have been very few players that have had a significant impact on the USMNT that never played anywhere but MLS. Besler really is the only one in recent history and Beckerman for 18 months. I don't know why people always bring up examples from the late 90's in these discussions. It was a different world. The players world wide are better conditioned and better trained now and the gulf between Champions League quality and NCAA All-American is the greatest it has ever been. NCAA All-American is USL starter quality now, for the most part, and when Pope, Reyna etc. played it was MLS top player quality. The idea that all Americans can stay in MLS and the league will grow in quality and the USMNT will be a WC contender is just a fantasy that is not based on anything real. As in real world examples of such a thing happening. Even if it were possible or even practical, it would take generations, not years or even decades.
I think the point was that MLS has very little track record of developing players to make an impact at the international level. @Patrick167 probably missed the biggest guy of all in Eddie Pope. He was the only guy who actually went to two world cups. After Pope, there were 3 guys that were either role players or the first guy off the bench, a back up forward who only saw limited minutes after Altidore and Johansson were injured and Zardes. The list is very long of of 18 to 22 year old player that looked to have potential but plateaued and never played internationally. Maybe a guy or two will make it, but I wouldn’t bet on it. LD doesnt come close to fitting the criteria described. The guy wasn’t owned by MLS until after he was 23. He spent two full years in Germany before moving to MLS on loan. The one thing I really about LD is that he was played for the USMNT while only only playing in the 3rd and 4th division of Germany. Playing 29 games for Leverkusen in the year and half before being loaned to San Jose means he hadn’t only played in MLS. Then he went back to Leverkusen for an embarrassing few months in early 2005. Then he went on loan to Bayern 4 years later and didn’t impress. The fourth and fifth time was the charm, when he went to Everton on loan in early 2010 and 2012. The guy might have not been happy, but he played 29 games with Leverkusen’s second team, 14 games in the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal, 2 games in the champions league, and 22 games in the EPL, FA Cup and Europa League. While the league has added more DPs and TAMs, fewer Americans are getting minutes. It will should have an impact those who get to play, but also makes less likely that an American player will become a key player. The structure creates a class system where moving up a level is a very big jump that is very hard for a player to achieve. Except Delgado still has to defer to Giovinco, Bradley, Altidore, Vazquez, etc. He also has a situation where Toronto doesn’t have any big/must win games until the playoffs after the CCL final. He also doesn’t have pressure to maintain his starting spot. He’s made a lot of progress in the last year, but has a long way to go and what normally happens in MLS is that players plateau for some time. I don’t think anyone outside of North America would view that as a successful international career. A Gold Cup and 10 seconds out of a miserable game against Honduras isn’t the type of player that is going to help us be competitive at the World Cup. Zusi has two assist at the World Cup, I am appreciate his hard work and eking out out every bit of potential, but he isn’t even close to being a player that could be an impact player. We had significantly better players who played his roles before him and coming up. The greatest all time MLS lifer probably wouldn’t start in this cycle. Neither would Besler. The rest of those guys were average at best. You are missing the talent that is bypassing MLS. McKennie and Pulisic are younger and better than the MLS options, leaving two starting spots. I still believe Hyndman is a better option than Delgado and is almost a year younger. Green is a similar age and could fight for a spot in midfield if not at forward. I believe Parks is better and if not will be within a year. I suspect an even younger Taitague will enter the picture in a couple years. The numbers of players with potential is growing at a fast pace... we won’t be set back with an injury or two or if a guys don’t pan out like we were 10 years ago.
you guys are trying wayyyyyyy too hard. What I said was that some players don't have to go to Europe. b.t.w., (that stands for "by the way") does anybody agee that going to Europe and getting a scholastic education in football at an academy has its downsides? Where is the creativity in a guy like Pulisic.? I can't tell if Delgado is using his right or left foot here (see :04). You don't learn this at a German Academy. Sure, Adams has to go and be an Academy beatch but not everybody has to
What do you have to base that on? The top midfielders to support that are Beckerman and Zusi. You are just guessing. I gave MLS the benefit of the doubt for over 10 years. I had disagreed with many of their practice all along but unfortunately they have done enough in the last 5 years to cause me to change my stance. The onus is on them to show they can actually develop decent players. In the meantime, I hope every American gets out who can. Of course there are downsides. It only a subset of naive people who think any place is perfect. With those downsides comes a mountain of positives and some of the negatives in the short run become long term positives. First, being creative in soccer isn’t the most important thing... it’s being effective. As for CP being creative, I don’t know what to tell you. I know CP disagrees and would think you could find a few creative players on the following videos. In your quest to prop up Delgado now going to cause you to denigrate more players to try and make your point. Sure looks like a simple right footed one touch pass. Nice play. I think players can learn just about anywhere though. Again, not sure what you think is creative. If it is simple, incisive passes, I’d think cp’s two assists to Dempsey in the Honduras game might count or there are a few from Hyndman in his clip from 1:25 to 2:00.
Excellency- Are you saying that MLS does a better job of teaching creativity than Dortmund? Players “don’t need to go” to the major leagues because (a) they won’t be any better if they do step up or (b) that they’ll be good enough to contribute to the usmnt even if they stay in the minors?
Other than besler, who had recently chosen to stay in MLS over majors? I can only think of Morris but would guess there are others. Thanks
Everyone playing in the Champions League this week went to a European Academy and got a "scholastic education in football". You are completely right, none of them show the slightest creativity. They should have all gone to Chivas USA Academy.
Nagbe and Morris are the current poster children. Maybe each generation has its leader and the previous generation were led by Donovan. Donovan was totally fine with leaving/skipping Europe, even before his prime, for big MLS money. His example was followed by Bradley, Altidore, Zusi, Beckerman, Besler, McCarty, probably others who never made it to the USMNT consistently. Nagbe and Morris just don't seem ambitious; but both had European offers but chose not to go for comfort reasons. Zardes, K. Acosta, Trapp; they could have probably gone but haven't; hard to know why. Hamid just went at 28, Sean Johnson never left. Was there no interest? Now, the leader in this generation is Pulisic. His example is to get to Europe as early as possible and try and be the best in the best competition (at least so far). He is being followed by Mckennie, Booth, Taitague, Sargent, Wright, and many others. Some of this is not only Pulisic, but that these kids grew up with European soccer on TV, MLS rules and contract policies make signing there less attractive, and the success of Pulisic and now McKennie make American teenagers in vogue and they are free.
Donovan took a pay cut to return to the US. But MLS pay is now good enough that elite mid-career guys are less likely to be tempted by offers from non-elite teams of mid-tier leagues. Even small budget teams of the top leagues, aside from the EPL, aren't as competitive in salary as they once were. Youth players going abroad is nothing new. MLS can't compete for those who are the best of the best.
If he really took a pay cut than I guess he just didn't have what it takes to succeed. More likely, MLS rules prohibited him from making more but he was given backdoor money from sponsorship and such. Donovan has done a lot of commercial work; I'm sure he was paid a lot of money by SUM and others under the condition he play in MLS. I doubt you are so naive and are just being disingenuous.
WTF is wrong with you? The man took a pay cut to come back home. If he made it all up on the sponsorship side then great, but I wasn't commenting on that.
Pretty sure Acosta wants to go but sometimes timing isn't right. Just as some major players in Europe have gone to lesser teams to get playing time to try and get into another World Cup sometimes younger players don't want to move right before a WC and qualifying so that get called into the national team because they are starting somewhere and don't want to put callups in jeopardy by moving to a new league and team and having to work there way up. Ironic that McKennie has leapfrogged him because he had nothing to lose by going to Europe and took off once there.
Retro flavor "Neo Klinsmann" - Ventura Alvarado went 90 in MexCopa final. Klinsmann talked about seeing him as dmid of the future. https://sbisoccer.com/2018/04/ventura-alvarado-necaxa-win-copa-mx-thanks-to-stunning-toluca-own-goal The trophy is Alvarado’s fifth following two Liga MX titles and two CONCACAF Champions League crowns with Club America.
Lynden Gooch, for all the great reviews hes gotten, all a sudden doesnt see even the bench for Sunderland??? Thats currently paying wonderful dividends........ Wonder if he picked up a knock or something, but Reading are up 1-0 on them and the way results are falling that might be curtains for the black cats.