YNT identification

To hopefully spice up the board,

Many, if not all, of our Full WNT have come through the youth identification system at some time in their careers. Most WNT players, excepting the youngest, were originally identified through ODP. ODP was unique to most current ID programs in that it did not require a coach's recommendation to try out and be considered for further identification. The player, alone, decided to throw her hat in the ring. I think that this model (not the ODP of today) offered a better chance at identifying a higher percentage of the top players in the country. Now, even at the regional levels, the ODP pool is considered so watered down that the national scouts attending these events are not confident in the ability displayed before them, since the competition's quality is suspect. Instead the scouts are more acutely observing id2, ECNL showcases and especially the NTCs for talented children for potential inclusion in national programming. These events require a club doc for recommendation and it is clear that all clubs, and all regions, are not created equally.

Is there something in the water in Colorado?
Of course, the most famous Colorado youth player is Mallory Pugh. Indeed she has found some early success at the WNT level, but many forget her relative lack of YNT success. The 2014 cycle U17 team failed to qualify after a 1-1 loss (she was not the goal scorer) in pks. The U20s to which she was then promoted, performed in a remarkably lack luster manner falling to N Korea, I believe, in the first of the knock out rounds. She started as a 10 and then was removed to outside forward after a poor first game where Horan, a natural target, was pulled back to the 10 and Lavelle a natural and exciting 10, was pulled back to a 6 or 8. By all estimations Pugh should have dominated the field...but she didn't. Now she is playing a balls-out straight ahead game that can be very successful in a winger- and she is successful. But I take issue that some have said she should replace CL at the 10. Neither player is the type of exciting creative player who is unexpected in her decisions and possesses supreme technical ability to lend a wow factor and consequent entertainment value for the fans. This entertainment value, in my opinion, is sorely lacking and one of the main obstructions to women's soccer gaining viewer popularity, and therefor financial success, in the US.

Why this tangent to Pugh?
Because I am about to say that Colorado enjoys a tremendously disproportionate number of youth players in our national programs and... before anyone flies his child to Colorado to drink the mountain water... I don't think it's a coincidence. In 2013 April Kater was hired by Ellis and Heinrichs as a full time USSF employee and given the title of "Head Development Coach" He roles include the maintenance of a national youth soccer player database on which children are entered from various events, chief among them the NTC programs and head coach of the entry level u14 pool. Children are placed into tiers with the national camp attendees at the top and tier 1 etc. falling into place behind. The databases are updated after children and adolescents are scouted and especially after skills testing during the NTC programs. Of significance, she also runs and oversees Colorado's NTC programs. If she wants a kid included in national camp, that players gets a call up- and she wants lots of Colorado's youth players included. Just about every moderately successful ECNL kid from Colorado has been invited to YNT camps . I haven't done the math, but there is no doubt a statistical anomaly in Colorado's dominance. A simple graph of Colorado's players included before and after 2013 may be telling.

Similarly, though not as easy to investigate, should a club coach be named as a youth NT assistant, just about all of his/her club's kids who are moderately successful will be invited to a camp. Many don't stick, but they take up a slot for a few camps, will be forever favored in their "top drawer" ranking, and will have a path paved for them to the college game thus bringing accolades and potentially money to the club and coach. It is believed that some coaches actually recruit players with promises of national camp invitations. Shouldn't those same players be included in camps regardless of their club affiliations?

Human relationships influence much in the history of man, and such relationships clearly influence the make up of all of our national teams from u14 through the adult programs. From Gulati, to Ellis, to Heinrichs, to Kater, to Snow...the relationships are legion. Ever wonder why the best female player ever to play the game, Michele Akers, has been cut out of the USSF machine? I have... While I applaud people hiring those whose judgment they trust, there needs to be more accountability for success, more effort put forward bring in kids from lesser known programs, and more thought directed to those whose ceiling may be higher than the early puberty superstars now commonly "identified". (I could write another discourse on that topic and bore you all yet again). We have full time people paid for by the USSF and no, I don't appreciate a great value as yet.

This is a problem for obvious reasons. The most significant being that we are doing a cursory job, at a conceded Herculean task, of scouring this huge country for the players with the greatest potential to impact the Full NT teams of the future.

Disclosure: my children play for a nationally recognized club and college and have been more than adequately scouted. I have a growing interest in youth development and look forward to rekindling my youth soccer coaching career soon when my own children are less demanding of my energies.

 

I think I am trying more to make the point that the current model of ID is flawed rather than that the individuals can't get it done. I do think they need more accountability. But I don't think they are doing as comprehensive of a job as they could with the reasources the USSF has given them.

 

Here is a 9/15 piece with Colorado girls soccer congratulating themselves on their success. No mention of April Kater's influence over the selections

Colorado emerges as girls soccer hotbed



By Mike Woitalla
Seeing several players from the same state on a U.S. national team roster isn't surprising when they hail from California, which has the nation's largest population, nearly 40 million, and year-round soccer-playing weather.
But Colorado? That's a state of 5.6 million with a real winter.
Yet the current U.S. U-17 girls national team's 26-player roster includes six players from Colorado. Next is California with five. Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania each have two players on the roster. (Interestingly, there are none from Texas, a traditional youth soccer hotbed and the nation’s second most populace state with 27 million.)
The Coloradans on Coach B.J. Snow’s most recent roster are Alexis Loera of the Colorado Storm, the Colorado Rush’s Coriana Dyke and Civana Kuhlmann, and a trio out of Real Colorado: Shae Holmes, Jaelin Howell and Sophie Smith.
“It is amazing when you compare the number of players you have out here compared to other states,” says Real Colorado executive director Lorne Donaldson. “There has to be something going on. I don’t think it’s anything special. The competition between players and coaches is high. We train at a high level. I think it’s a matter of coaches doing a good job.”
The weather is inconvenient, but may also instill fortitude in the players.
“We have a fairly long winter,” Donaldson says. “The kids are very resilient out here. They train in the cold. They’ll get out there no matter what the conditions. They’ll shovel the snow and train. I give the kids a lot of credit. They work at it. …
“We have some good days in the winter but we don’t have a lot of indoor facilities. There’s a good amount of FieldTurf in this area. If it was grass, we couldn’t get on it.”
Besides those players on the U-17 squad, Colorado is also home to the most promising female teen in the USA, Real Colorado’s Mallory Pugh, the 17-year-old who at age 16 started for the USA at the 2014 U-20 World Cup and leads the current U-20s who are aiming to qualify for the 2016 U-20 World Cup.
Lindsey Horan, 21, became the first American female to forgo college soccer and sign a professional contact in Europe when she went from the Colorado Rush to Paris St. Germain in 2012. She has made two appearances for the full national team.
“Another thing clubs here are doing – we do a good job of training them up,” Donaldson says. “Our younger kids, we train them with the older players. They don’t stay in their comfort zone.
“Mallory Pugh, she trains with the Academy boys a lot of times. Like today, I’m having her train with the Academy boys.”
U.S. U-17 girls convene in Carson
Coach B.J. Snow has called in 15 1999-born players and 11 born in 2000 for a 26-player U.S. U-17 girls national team camp Sept. 13-20 in Carson, Calif. -- six months ahead of the qualifying tournament for the 2016 U-17 Women’s World Cup.
The USA, which failed under Snow to qualify for the 2014 U-17 World Cup, will compete at the U-17 Concacaf Championship in Grenada next March to earn one of Concacaf’s three spots at the Jordan-hosted U-17 World Cup in September of 2016.
U.S. U-17 girls national team
GOALKEEPERS (4): Hensley Hancuff (Oklahoma FC; Edmond Okla.), Laurel Ivory (Sunrise; Surfside, Fla.) Savannah Madden (San Diego Surf; San Diego, Calif.), Katie Meyer (Eagles SC; Newbury Park, Calif.).
DEFENDERS (10): Kerry Abello (Team Chicago; Aurora, Ill.), Claire Constant (McLean; Alexandria, Va.), Chyanne Dennis (Lauderhill Lions; Sunrise, Fla.), Rachael Dorwart (Penn Fusion; Mechanicsburg, Pa.), Paige Franks (Richmond United; Henrico Valley, Va.), Naomi Girma (Central Valley Crossfire; San Jose, Calif.), Shae Holmes (Real Colorado; Highlands Ranch, Colo.), Jenna Nighswonger (Slammers FC; Huntington Beach, Calif.), Karlie Paschall (Tennessee SC; Brentwood, Tenn.), Sydney Zandi (Penn Fusion; West Chester, Pa.).
MIDFIELDERS (7): Coriana Dyke (Colorado Rush; Littleton, Colo.), Samantha Fisher (Real So Cal; Simi Valley, Calif.), Jaelin Howell (Real Colorado; Windsor, Colo.), Alexis Loera (Colorado Storm; Thornton, Colo.), Brianna Martinez (New Mexico Rush; Albuquerque, N.M.), Olivia Wade (LaRoca FC; Kaysville, Utah), Summer Yates (Pac NW; Pasco, Wash.).
FORWARDS (5): Rachel Jones (Tophat SC; Lawrenceville, Ga.), Civana Kuhlmann (Colorado Rush; Littleton, Colo.), Sophie Smith (Real Colorado; Windsor, Colo.), Francesca Tagliaferri (PDA; Colts Neck, N.J.), Jordan Taylor (Ohio Premier Eagles; Wadsworth, Ohio).


This isn't a problem if we are capturing the 3-5 very top players in the country because the rest of the pools and rosters are not going to play for the US full team. But are we?

 

I obviously started this thread well before the 2016 WCs. I re read it and see a really interesting point. These YNT head coaches are Full time employees of the USSF. When they aren't running camps what are they doing exactly? Learning more about how to be a better soccer coach? Watching game tapes? Analyzing individual kids' performances? Is this a full time job? At least in off years or in years when there aren't camps every month, it seems these are jobs could be well filled by Youth coaches or college assistants. Yes that will favor the coaches home club, but no different than it is now and maybe even damped by my model. Now the assistant coaches names aren't published. They can covertly impact player selection. The head coach will be under more scrutiny and the chance for abuse would be less. He wants to keep his USSF check, he'd better produce players. Youth club coaches, college assistants and DOCs are already researching these things for their own teams and clubs. Would it be more cost effective if they quit their day jobs as teachers etc. and combined their club salary with their YNT salary.

Use the extra money to pay more scouts and be more creative in their deployment. Provide scouts feedback on players recommended. Tune them to your frequency.

Many of these guys probably understand the landscape better than the current heads. The USWNT coach should pick coaches after watching his/her teams play and whose teams most closely approximate his/her vision for the full WNT. Of course that requires a style of play to be identified preemptively. Has that happened?

The boys are experiencing more success ( Nike friendlies) while the girls decline. French's inane comments after the loss to Japan alone should prompt a pink slip.

I watched a kid absolutely tear it up against my kid's team this past weekend. Most technical player I have ever seen at my kid's age. Relatively unknown as far as accolades as far as I can tell. What happened to Emina Ekic after the NTC friendlies in 2015? Again a technical player no longer in the system. Tess Boade? Luca Deza or, in fact, the entire Deanza Force team? Actually her father and coach might be an ideal u17 coach. They play nice and successful soccer and the US would be better to emulate them. Pretty sure they are not interested in girls, but how about Brian Kleiban? Or if we want to go Japanese- the Florida state assistant?

Bring back Tambi?

 

I am referring to the latest national event. The Nike friendlies with the new cycle is remarkable. Do you know about that? I know the previous cycle was also successful, but not like this.
Christian Pulisic is remarkable in his American soccer sophistication. That's evidence of progress worth noting. But really wasn't the main point.

 

Yes thanks for helping me to clarify. My concern is regarding relative trajectories given recent results and having watched both genders during international competition over the last few months. No comparison in overall historical success.

It would be great to see if our top teenagers could do some type of cooperative or loan program with NWSL or European professional clubs. These venues may help the ID process along. There is a reason that there is much more overlap in u17 and u20 rosters than there is from u20 to u23. College provides a better venue for ID purposes.