Youth Yanks Abroad (1997s or later)

I think that was for morale and moral reasons. He was constantly hurt. It was good business for Dortmund to show a commitment to a youth player that was constantly hurt. Either way, they might still think he has value, just like Villareal thinks Akale has value.

 

They don't think its pointless when they do it.......................but La Liga clubs have hosts of B/C players that never play for the first team.

They probably see something there with Mukwelle. And I'm rooting for him. Why not? We have had youngsters in this position with La Liga teams that didn't get that contract (Brandon Manzonelli, Boxi Yomba, and company).

I just see a Sebastian Lletget situation here....................where a kid hangs on at a club for a couple of years too long. Just because a big club offers a contract extension doesn't mean a player should sign it.

 

@Clint Eastwood you should keep your expertise with F C Dallas. Brandon had a two year youth contract and wasn’t given an extension. Yomba signed a six month contract and was let go right after so, congratulations to Akale. Lletget’s situation can’t be compared because you have no clue what happened. Akale is in a good place. The fact that he’s been given a two year extension not a one year means they see value in him. He just needs to keep grinding.

 

Well, I would think that hanging on in Spain will not hurt any eventual MLS career, so why give up so quickly? Lletjet showed you can do nothing in Europe, come back to a better pay day, and be called up to the USMNT and be an All-Star. Canouse came back and was a starter right off the plane and one of the best players on the team. Perez, Akale, Hyndman can exhaust their options, come back, and still probably make more than a guy like Sean Davis or Aaron Long in their career.

 

Konrad scores in a 3-1 win.

📍 FINAL

🏆 Campionat de Catalunya
📍 1/4 de final

⚽️ Juvenil B - Cornellà C (3-1)

🔵🔴 Konrad / Rubén (pp) / De Vega

👍 A semifinals!!#FCBMasia #ForçaBarça🔵🔴 pic.twitter.com/acpVrw0CBa

— FC Barcelona - Masia (@FCBmasia) May 24, 2018

 

'01 CM/CAM/CB Owen Otasowie has signed a professional contract with newly-promoted EPL club Wolves. He'll likely start out playing for Wolves U23s, as he already had been this past season before his 17th birthday.

(He seems to play mostly CM and CAM for Wolves, but the US U18s have been playing him at CB because of his size and the apparently relatively weak CB pool for that year.)

 

Completely disagree. ‘01 looks great at CB. I think it’s their strongest position. Best CB year since ‘97 IMO and might be able to rival ‘97.

 

Check out @D_Yohannes’s Tweet:

1/8 - Another American in the top DUTCH youth football academy system. His name is Aethan Yohannes. He is my son. A few weeks ago, he officially became a U15 AZ Alkmaar player starting the 2018/19 season. pic.twitter.com/TvUgmje4aZ

— Daniel Yohannes (@D_Yohannes) May 24, 2018

 

'04 who was previously with DC United. Do we know if he's a dual-national?

 

Well his father calls him an American in the Dutch football academy system. Wouldn't shock me if he didn't know ins and outs of citizenship but would still be a bit surprising after reading that tweet.

 

Is Yohannes a dutch surname? I get his dad's American, but just curious about that.

I love how Twitter is basically where parents gain attention for their kids. Does USSF do nothing anymore?

 

I believe it's Ethiopian, at least sometimes. I don't know this family, but there are certainly many Ethiopians in the DC area.

 

'01 Los Angeles Galaxy & Nomads SC central midfielder Mateja Milasinovic will join Partizan Belgrade, one of the top youth academies in the world. #usynt #USMNT

— Joey (@USAprospects) May 25, 2018

 

Check out @USAprospects’s Tweet:

Confirmed: '01 AC Milan midfielder/fullback Adrian Galliani is an Italian-American. He has to me that he would be interested in representing the US on an international level. Galliani was used sparingly in 2017-2018 but will move up to AC Milan U18s this upcoming season #usynt

— Joey (@USAprospects) May 25, 2018

 

Interesting situation, and the federation should scout him to see if he's good enough, but I think we underestimate our own players here in the US.

I don't want to comment on this kid's situation because I've never seen him play and don't know much about him, but pretty much any half-decent player at a big MLS academy could be roster fodder in the lower/mid age divisions of big European academies. That in itself shouldn't qualify you for a YNT call up. Usually the players in these big academies who are good enough for our YNT's are the players who are doing somewhat well (or better) in those academies.

 

Any chance he's related to the former AC Milan CEO of almost the same name?

 

I know some saw this in his YA thread, but Gedion Zelalem looks like a different human being in this Instagram post. Looks like he's put in a lot of work at the gym while recovering from his knee injury. Big season for him. Hope he either impresses the new boss or gets a nice loan to put his career back on track.

 

I think he could be a quality #8 if he was willing to put in defensive work and learn to move the ball quicker. I could see him carving out a career as a Diskerud type of player.

 

That would be a low ceiling if he settled for that. This upcoming season will be huge for Gedion

 

Thats only my opinion. I've never been a big fan.

He has nice possession skills, but as a #10, I don't see a very high soccer IQ nor do I see much ability to influence goals directly through goals or assists. Zelalem holds the ball too long. Its not that he's incapable of playing good passes or that he's a really dumb footballer because I think he's a good passer and could develop into having a decent football IQ, but he always plays passes a second too late. The guy is really good at creating space, but I think this big strength of his game works against him sometimes. He holds the ball way too long.

I also think a lot of people often conflate being technically good with being creative. Zelalem is technically good. If you kicked a football at him from 15 yards away as hard as you could, he would be able to control it. If you put him in a closed field, he'll look around, pivot, take two or three seconds and then play it off to a player to his left or right. I never understood the usage of him as a #10.

As a #8, he's a below-average defensive player, mainly due to effort. He's no Pogba athletically, but he's 5'11 and not that slow. I don't know why he couldn't be average defensively. He plays soft though. Weak physically, low work-rate, often out of position defensively, doesn't put in many tackles.

 

He's been out for awhile though. Who knows how he's improved? But I agree

 

Diskerud has 38 caps, won a Gold Cup and made a World Cup team.

If Gedion gets that many caps and makes a WC team, I think we'll all consider it a pretty damn good run.

 

Yup. He's 21 now. Time to get the ball rolling again. Another loan to Holland or elsewhere would work fine for me.

Gedion is a player that I haven't seen enough performances from on a consistent basis to actually know what his ceiling is. Most of the USYNT teams he's played with, he was playing "up" a cycle. The 2015 U20 World Cup team and 2015 U23 CONCACAF Championships (aka Olympic qualifying). He didn't play for our 2017 CONCACAF U20 championships team, and then got hurt in our first game of the World Cup. So I'm left without a clear picture of how he stacks up against kids in his own age group. As a central midfielder I have him behind McKennie and Adams for the moment. Obviously. But what about Parks? I don't know. Parks gets a lot of hype for somebody that most people haven't seen a lot of, and what they have seen was highlights against the dregs of the Portuguese second division.

What I do know is when I watched Zelalem for Rangers in the Scottish 2nd division, he didn't look up to the physical challenges of that league. But he still had an impact. If he's packed some muscle onto that frame, then we're getting somewhere.

There's no reason for me to think that Zelalem can't catch up to the McKennie's and Adam's of the US pool. I'm with @ussoccer97531 in that I don't think he's a #10.....................he's like to be a #8. And as mentioned above, we got a lot of young competition for him there.