Thinking of something like a Booth, Roberts, Nyeman midfield for the next U20 cycle is exciting. I'm guessing Reyna will not be there and project him more on the wind, anyway, but there doesn't seem to be any let up from these last couple of really strong cycles.
I think Araujo is the best player in '01, and I see no reason to move him out of that spot, but I think Booth has a good argument as being a better player than Konrad. I think the gap has closed significantly in the past six months. Booth has earned very good reviews from his first couple months at Bayern, while Konrad didn't have a great U-20 WC and didn't have the best season at Barcelona either. Llanez might be another name that some mention.
Konrad (like Lederman before him) has been placed in a certain position in the minds of USYNT/USMNT fans due to the club he plays at. I've yet to be convinced that he's actually better than domestic talent that plays the same position. He did have "moments" at the U20 World Cup. He did attack defenders on the dribble in ways that we don't typically see young Americans execute. It didn't always work, but he was giving it a go. He put himself in very dangerous positions, but the end product would then not be there. Still a player I'm interested in, but not convinced yet.................................. Booth is a bit of a mystery too. I can't tell ya the last 90 minute game I've seen of him. Same for Blaine Ferri.
In fairness, there have been good-looking highlights of Konrad floating around, so it wasn’t purely club resume hype. Good prospects have looked bad at youth tournaments before. Mediocre prospects have looked better than they really are in highlight reels before. We’ll find out soon enough!
My take on Konrad is that while he is certainly a good player, he's not rated as highly as other younger players within the Barca academy. For example, Anssumane Fati and Ilaix Moriba. I think he'll have one more season at Barca where he can get minutes with Juvenil A and hopefully with Barca B before he should be looking for a new club. Not that he isn't talented because he certainly is but breaking in at Barca is already very tough and even harder with younger players ahead of him. Who knows, maybe he'll light it up this season and prove me wrong.
I doubt he’s going to make it at Barcelona, and I think there were too many overreactions because of the U-20 WC where he played up an age group. I think the more worrying thing was that he didn’t have a good season at Barcelona. He didn’t produce much end product. At the same time, it’s all relative. He’s not a bad prospect, by any means. He’s better than 99% of the relevant prospects in the pool.
Llanez played up a group and it didn't stop him from creating offense. Ochoa played up a level and he was the squad's best keeper. Araujo would have been playing up a level and I'm pretty sure would have fared better. The previous cycle Sargent was the player of the tourney playing up a level. Claiming he's better than 99% of relevant prospects is major hyperbole. He could show some inventiveness to beat somebody off the dribble w/ more than speed when he's not even that good in the dept against young men. And show more ability to play distance balls. He's stopped progressing up the ladder in Barcelona's system. He went from being a standout at Juvenil A, to making benches w/ Barcelona b out of sheer circumstance, then back to Juvenil A where he wasn't even playing as well as before. It's time for him to develop a change-up and prove himself against better competition.
Adams didn't play well IMO playing up a cycle in 2017. Zelalem got great reviews from some playing up a cycle in 2015. EPB was criticized by some for a performance against Ukraine in 2015, while Carter-Vickers was among the best performers on the team in 2015. The roles were reversed in 2017. This stuff is highly unpredictable, and its context dependent. I've watched enough of Llanez and de la Fuente that I don't need to make much of a short tournament, and I think judging players in their age group is the best barometer of their ability. It's not hyperbole from how I view it. I made a list of relevant '01 prospects earlier this month (https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-u18-program-2017-18-thread.2077845/page-14), and I said that I think there's one player better than him among those players. If he's a top 5 player in '01, at which point its a matter of 95-100% of relevant players he's better than, its statistically true or its a statistically insignificant percentage that makes it untrue. I think most would agree he's top 5. If you are going to say he's not a top 5 player in '01 and you think he's actually 28th or 45th, it wouldn't be true (in your opinion), but I think thats a ridiculous opinion. Saying de la Fuente isn't one of the best 01's would be like saying Weah is not one of the best 00's or Reyna isn't one of the best 02's.
Adams was pretty good relative to the rest of the group, let alone for a 17 year old. He just got pushed around at times, which is not shocking for a kid against young men. He developed physically. KDLF is already physically mature unless he has a late growth spurt and he was straight up bad. The tourney wasn't short. It was 5 competitive games. He didn't even play in regionals to pick up more. This was by far the best sample to draw from. Dest back doored a solid tourney after a rough couple game start, which could have been subject to a small sample. Why couldn't KDLF do the same? He never improved his performances. Adams was also progressing with his club and playing at the top level. Kind of hard to play at the top level with Barcelona, but KDLF has never succeeded outside their 4th team which is a grossly inferior standard to who Adams was starting to look competent against. I don't care much about birth years. It's too narrow and arbitrary of a measure. I care about youth WC cycles and how players in the same general age range have compared. I gave you a few playing up who on that team alone played better or would have if given the same opportunities. I don't think there are 100 relevant prospects in a cycle. He'd have to be top 1-2 to be better than 99%. It's indeed major hyperbole. Weah and Reyna?!?! They have superior physical tools, creativity in mind, and skill; and haven't looked out of place against men. KDLF arguably has against kids. He emerged early. Other prospects are starting to bypass him. Make the adjustment until further info presents itself.
The 99% being hyperbole depends completely on the definition of "relevant prospect" and according to that definition how many "relevant prospects" are in the age group. If you have a broad definition and include any name every mentioned on this board them there are 100+ "relevant prospects" and KDLF is pretty close to Top 99%, but if you think "relevant prospects" are only players likely to succeed in a Top 5 league than their are probably only 10-25 and KDLF isn't close to the Top 99%. Regardless, I think most will agree that you would hope that KDLF isn't in the Top 99% of any definition of "relevant prospects" because if that is the case then it is probably not a great year.
The hype was so strong around Zelalem that "some" gave him great review despite him being extremely mediocre, one of the worst starters on the team. All the games against good opponents looked the same, we were totally surrendering midfield and prayed that our CBs and Steffen would save our lives.
So far it doesn't look like a deep year. But it still might be "great" as a few guys seem to have very high ceiling.
For you to be considered relevant it should be realistic (5-10% shot) you will help the senior NT in the future. That should be the primary goal of youth teams - preparing players for the senior team. Of that group, he ain't close to top 1% or even top 10%. One would have to really be playing fast and loose w/ the concept of relevance in order to give him that lofty of a classification. It's telling there is a lack of perspective on his prospects if he's being compared to Weah and Reyna at this point. They're arguably head of the class when it comes to the respective u20 and u17 WC cycles. KDLF ain't. He's miles behind them at this point. His improvement would have to be rapid to reach that level if he's getting out-played by Llanez, Ochoa, and probably Araujo at similar stages of development.
Is this actually true? Are there a whole bunch of nations that have a lot more good prospects in Germany than the US right now? I don't know the answer because I only know that we have more high talent prospects there than we ever have but others could have more. There's also other leagues of course and we have a few in those but Germany seems to be the place where our young players are appreciated.
Since we're talking about "big footballing nations", I think the point is that: Germany has way more German prospects than US prospects France has way more French prospects than US prospects Spain has way more Spanish prospects than US prospects etc.
Considering I was the one who made the claim, I think I'm the one who would know what I meant by relevant prospect. Which players in '01 are better? So many of you criticize this kid because you saw a few bad games in a short tournament, but I've yet to hear about better alternatives. Maybe our players aren't future world stars and the overwhelming majority of them can be criticized to a certain extent for a bad stretch of games or an area of the game where they struggle.
The reviews from that New Zealand game were insane. The way some reacted, you would've thought Zelalem was a professional in a pickup game at a local park. The New Zealand players were scared to be on the same field as a player who played at Arsenal, so they wouldn't get within 10 feet of him. Meanwhile, they actually weren't that much worse than him, but they stood off of him so they never had any chance to take the ball from him. The rest of that tournament he was mediocre, but he got great reviews because of a game against New Zealand.
I think most people don't really have a strong Konrad opinion because we've never really gotten a great gauge on him. Personally, I think Konrad is a bit overrated, but he'll be a good pro. Just not a great one. He's already very polished, looks like he's done athletically, but doesn't look like he's going to grow in the future as much as some of our other prospects. I won't name other guys who I think will be better because that's just throwing more variables in, but I think Konrad is going to be an Arriola-like player with perhaps a little more offense. My guess is he's an average player on a mid table La Liga team in his prime. Nothing amazing or flashy, but a good pro, and useful for the national team in the future. But definitely not going to move the needle very far.
I know you’re trying to be relative here, but there is nothing Arriola-like in mid-table La Liga. Just a bridge too far there.
I mean that type of player. And I don't mean a player you would know the name of. There's a lot of guys on those mid table teams in Spain that are just good soldiers and never play once in Europe. Wouldn't be surprised if that's Konrad's career.
The problem I have with the commentary about de la Fuente is that it’s a sudden shift because of one tournament that I think isn’t a fair barometer for such sudden shifts in opinion. How many games do you think he played in the last 12 months? It must be around 50, if not more. If you take a random five game sample and draw sweeping conclusions, I think you are bound to be prone to errors in judgement. It doesn’t help when these are the five hardest games against the five best teams he’s faced. He had a bad tournament against older players. It happens. Of course, it’s also not easy to judge on games we don’t see where he dominates an amateur team in Catalunya. It’s important to take all games into account and find the best representation of his game. There are probably very few people who’ve seen all or most of his games and can give a very informed assessment. When in doubt, I think there’s a need for some middle ground analysis. The answer is usually always somewhere between the different schools of thought. I mentioned during the season that he wasn’t having a good season at Barcelona from the few games I saw in UEFA Youth League and what I was reading. It’s not a new phenomenon that his stock has dropped some, but I also think there’s no context being applied here that lends in his favor. None of us are experts, so it’s always imperfect analysis from fans, usually not the most rational either. I think fans tend to put a lot of emphasis on a select few games that they happen to see because that’s what allows them to think they are informed. Sometimes what they see is right and sometimes it’s not. I think it’s right that he’s not as good as initially thought, but I think the degree to which we are seeing some state is way out of proportion. We are all guilty of this type of analysis at times. None of this stuff was said prior to May. I’d like to try to add some context to all of this because I think it’s been missing recently in analysis of this player. He probably isn’t Sancho (a player he was compared to by some US fans) and this could’ve been said six months ago, but he’s probably also better than the average US fan that watched the U-20 WC thinks.
I'd be very happy if only three more nations have more prospects than the US. I believe there are more than three but my point is I don't believe there are a lot more than three at this time. We have a lot of prospects right now and there aren't a lot of countries that have more. We obviously don't have the most but I'd say we're top ten now and eventually that will show up in our full team.
For most fans, their original opinion of De La Fuente was more based on highlight videos and the shiny stars of Barcelona. From what I saw, and I've only seen full games in the U20 World Cup, I think people are being too harsh on Konrad. I think athleticism is a real concern. He doesn't have the explosiveness of some top prospects right now. That can change, but it's tougher to improve than most things. But he's very, very skilled for an American prospect, if one footed. But I'm not going to put a ton of stock in his lack of production / final ball in the World Cup. It wasn't great, but it was only a few games, as you point out.
1156386117018632193 is not a valid tweet id Hearing that U.S. Youth National Team member Caden Clark (@iamcadenclark) is on trial with Wolfsburg this week. Clark is one of the top 2003s for the US.— J.R. Eskilson (@JREskilson) July 31, 2019 1156304150080212992 is not a valid tweet id
I have seen that they have spoken very well of Caden Clark several times. I don't know how he plays, but it will be interesting see how his development continues.