First #preseason #U19 match for Zyen #Jones on Sunday vs. #Hanover 96. Part of the seven day summer training camp. Final score: 2-2 #S04 #Schalke #soccer #TeamUSA #Fußball #Juniorenbundesliga #Knappenschmiede pic.twitter.com/jZzfD6lChg— Volker Barth (@barthvolker) July 15, 2018
looks like he pulled a muscle injury and is out for now. Not like he's eligible until end of August anyways.
#Preseason tournament aftermath: Zyen #Jones (torn muscle fiber) & Andriko #Smolinski (acromioclavicular joint separation) won't be able to continue #U19 season preparation for some time. Best wishes, get well soon, guys! #soccer #Knappenschmiede #TeamUSA #Schalke #S04 pic.twitter.com/EyWAuezttm— Volker Barth (@barthvolker) July 24, 2018
This is Jones' only year of eligibility for the U19s. It's a crucial year both for his development and for a U19 player's chances of staking a claim for a future in the club. He's going to miss a big chunk of it, it seems, which is a real shame.
CAPTAIN AMERICA !!!!!CHAMPIONS🔵⚪️ this one for all my haters I KNOW YALL HURTING RIGHT NOWW YEEEER pic.twitter.com/br3J1gqTGA— Zyen Jones (@Kingzyen) August 5, 2018 Who said I was hurt ?— Zyen Jones (@Kingzyen) August 5, 2018
🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇#U19 gewinnt Top-Turnier in Oberndorf (u.a. mit @FCBmasia, @Inter, @SpursOfficial) & holt den Fairness-🏆! Wahnsinnsleistung, Männer! 🙌🙌🙌 #s04 pic.twitter.com/DLvW8p2i7I— Knappenschmiede (@knappenschmiede) August 5, 2018 Another pic of the entire squad.. So Zyen Jones, at 17 years old, is captaining Schalke's u19 team? That seems... significant. Saw him play a lot while he was in Atlanta and always loved watching him. Would love to see him play again to see how much he's improved since he got to Germany.
Some comment on Schalker Block 5 (German Schalke forum) suggests that one of those trophies is for being the player of the tournament. Also another translated comment: If he continues his way, this Zyen Jones will be with the pros next season.
My understanding is that this is his only eligible year at the U19 level, so the age isn't that remarkable. The captaincy, on the other hand, is.
Other 17 year olds have posted much worse on Twitter. Looks like he's just having fun and joking around anyway.
Did a bit of research about this tournament. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure he didn't even play. Found some decent highlight footage of this tournament and I only saw Zyen twice, both times on the bench. Zyen wasn't used as a sub and didn't score according to the box score from the official website of this tournament. Zyen also appears in this video of the final a few times in casual clothes. At 1:06 you can see him running down the sideline with a noticeable limp and a brace on his right knee. Wish I could've found some official lineups to see if I'm correct however I have a strong belief he didn't feature in this tournament unfortunately.
Wow, some nice research there! It does seem like something is a little off. If you pause around 3:30, you can also see that a different player is wearing the captain's armband. Plus, if you look closely at the pictures of him with the trophy, you can see the brace on his right leg and that he is not wearing cleats. He also has navy shorts while the rest of the team has grey. So it seems like he was indeed joking, which would help explain the tone of his tweets. Nice one, Zyen, you had us fooled... But then those Schalke fan forum comments...
Yeah that's the strange part and why I looked into it more. It would be really hard to win player of the tournament without scoring any goals though. I'm thinking they saw him posed with the best player trophy and just assumed he had won it, leading to those comments.