Without a doubt, this is upcoming generation is the most talented we have ever had... I mean, look: Chelsea Schalke Red Bull Leipzig Lille OSC Werder Bremen Ajax We just added too: Aston Villa Borussia Dortmund Not to mention guys who are a bit older, but not too old for even 2026: Newcastle Fortuna Dusseldorf (x2) and maybe soon to include PSV Eindhoven Wolverhampton Barcelona Wolfsburg Bayern Munich AC Milan (if transfer goes through) If someone would have said we would have approximately 8 under-23 starters for some of the biggest clubs in Europe 10 years ago, they would have been laughed at. Hell, I’d say outside of Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, England, and maybe a few others, who else possess such talent? For the first time in USMNT history, I’d say that if all goes well, by 2026 we will legitimately be a top 10 soccer nation. And once you get into that category, well, anything can happen. That is... if we don’t screw it up.
The reasons you give arent true. The only reason is due to those making the decision. If you look at the rosters across 2019, there appeared to be a higher standard for foreign based players. The majority of foreign based players were starters on the only guys who were on a MLS heavy bench were Boyd (originally viewed as a starter) and Morales who was ignored for the first half of the year and then surprisingly benched after being one of the few bright spots vs mexico. This will have to slowly change as more and more of these kids break through and show they are clearly better.
as long as GB is head -- and i think based on LoN group ball he will be given license to crash and burn if it happens -- given his personnel history, you will see moderate 2022 involvement but then age and career progression will force 2026 swappage. plus we will automatically qualify so there is literally no way he can miss, no matter how suboptimal his contribution is. the way this schedule sets up, anyone not called up by march will be seen as a risk from LoN this summer through qualifier #6 in november. there will be some windows in 2021 for a conservative coach to take risks. but i don't see him like JK as the sort who would run out pulisic the first time in a qualifier. he lacks the attachments. in 2021 i would then anticipate mostly obvious windows. U23s, players he has already called. maybe someone like richards or reyna or a dual national who can force his hand. there should be little pretense he will broadly consider the prospect pool or take advantage of the youth bubble in bulk. he will pick and choose and a lot will be ones he's already picked. this is a man who works within his ensemble. we know who he's picked and who he hasn't. beyond adams that's not dramatically changing. but to me the "first team" and "playing time" obsessions -- and a general arena-like fandom for players roughly 23-24 -- will result in the slow walking of some/many of the prospects. i think some will slip through, not in an orderly, stars-first way, but enough where he and his supporters can act like he has no issue with youth. but to me you have an issue with youth when you'd rather play some 25 year old mediocrity over star prospects. and when your youth decisions seem more premised on dual national "ginned-crises"** or "playing time." by the 2026 cycle this will no longer be possible because the key beneficiaries of slow walking will be well into their 30s or retired, including Zardes, and the kids will be more established and get a fresh chance as of 2022. the question will be, does he burn a cycle being stubborn. people coming in now at 17 or 18 will be 20-21 by qatar. people on the edge of first team now will be established or at least have first team track records. people on age groups may even be to the edge of where green and others were for their world cups. i think his reflex will be "veteran" and "playing time." i think that will show some for 2022 but the passage of time will erode away any possible defenses next time. i do think that if he errs on the older side of the team this cycle and shows up with his silly tactics we will be marginal for qualifying. i think a forward-leaning selector with even vanilla tactics could easily qualify this pool. that's the impact i think GB has. it would initially look risky and then as with all USMNT, the players who used to be novel and "who's that" become the poster boy core stars. **if you wanted to be on GB's team this cycle the Dest Tactic seems to be to threaten to leave. many coaches would respond with don't let the door hit you in the _____ but GB might respond favorably. that might even get some dual nationals who should already be high on the queue anyway, back in consideration.
Yep. If we only had a coaching staff that could actually look at the various parts of our team and put them together in such a way as to maximize performance we would be well set for a good run in the World Cup tournament. But that is not to be because we have a coach and staff that has tunnel vision and sees only one way (his "system") and therefore cannot play many of our best players in such a way so as to maximize their performance. We have many good and a few maybe great players. It is too bad they are put on the field under a coach and staff that seems to want to minimize their performance. That is they have mastered the art of producing and under-performing team. It is a good thing we are in CONCACAF. By being in such an extremely weak federation we still have a real good chance of qualifying for the World Cup.
what gives me hope is come 2022 zardes is 31 johnson is 33 hamid is 32 guzan is 38 ream is 35 bradley is 35 jozy is 33 even brooks and yedlin are 29 headed to 33 and then +4 for 2026. and so a lot of the problem players age out beyond any possible debate. it's absurd and a demerit on GB they get another cycle but at a point father time is undefeated. and then steffen is 27 sargent is 22 richards is 22 ledezma is 22 Mendez is 22 soto is 22 weah is 22 reyna is 20 pulisic is 24 pomykal is 23 mckennie is 24 adams is 23 dest is 22 holmes is 28 morris is 28 vassilev is 21 de la Fuente is 21 the "age" and "experience" arguments start to naturally fall away -- even if i think they are bunk now -- and with a couple exceptions that's a 2-cycle bubble even if GB holds it back and a 3 cycle team if he gets head from tookus. my only concern is defense. ages are as of '22.
i should say concern 1a is that a team playing possession ball should probably be a tougher team defense. it is a really dumb concept to be like we will tip offensive in the back and then run things in a way that is broken by the press and sends odd man rushes at the defense. to me pressing and a defense that gets forward pair up better with counter tactics. and i am looking at next cycle and long will be old and brooks will age and you'll have basically richards and maybe dest left of the high end prospects. this is another reason we should be digging through the CCV EPB etc. pile trying to find someone who can get their act together. is i can imagine more attackers than we could ever use coming up, but who plays defense? and to me we can get out of the region fine with semi functioning defense and high octane offense, but at the highest levels you will need a defense that works as well.
re forward, i could see a qualifying scenario like recently where zardes starts one game and sargent the other. in terms of the others, i think we could use a target guy like siebatcheu and include him in my lists but ventriloquizing GB that was a sarachan rumor we haven't heard since. and while i would be pushing the kids from GB's perspective he hasn't elevated soto from U23 ever and isn't much "first team playing time." that's like weah. i still think that an interesting out of box idea is Landon/Dempsey it. Pulisic goes to striker with Sargent or Zardes as bench. if you look at the chile goal i think he'd be fine. arriola and morris wide and if a kid emerges you upgrade. personally i think pulisic trying to set up Zardes has it backwards. i want the raw speedy wingers setting up the polished finishing. not the polish setting up the scattershot. send him back wide where he belongs.
i should say as individuals, not everyone turns out -- i know this even when i pimp experimentalism -- and as the talent piles up there will be more pointed questions about "where does mckennie really play," about some players with more raw goods than a position. there may be some surprises where some players who have positions squeeze out ones with mere talent. but as a group, in the attack, so much talent, and even if there is a "flush rate," if you have a bunch of prospects like this, you could have some surprise failures or a percentage of breakage and failure to launch and still be darned good.
i know some people are all aboard the U23 train of them trying to qualify -- and take or leave that -- but i think U23 is most useful as a GB barometer. GB is fairly transparent about his selection -- even if foolishly so -- and thus i would expect the future strikers to be players either already called to the NT or on the U23 that i think he to some extent controls as a quasi B-team. to me U23 is more useful as an indicator of him than U20, which was ramos' team. he acts like he only takes U20 play or decisions semi-serious -- he might favor a less esteemed player or a cut before a perceived star -- and U17 do not exist. thus, heading towards 2026 sargent soto toye before siebatcheu. i would say i could see a bradleyesque scenario where a 31 y/o zardes gets to hang around some. but he'd be 35 at the end and that's pointless for most speed players.
After a fallow period, we are producing stars again. There is no doubt about that. I am a little more ambitious. I want those stars to be surrounded by a deeper pool of talent. Producing stars and producing a deeper squad are slightly different propositions. I guess I hijacked the thread to pivot toward the latter.
and part of my point on flush rate is that every U20 cycle has a mix of stars, journeymen, and people who end up in USL or worse. i think there is depth in the front two lines. any particular one doesn't have to be special for us to have another one be a star. one of the reasons i push experimentalism is without fail some of the golden boys turn out "ok" and someone else surprises. to me you want to run some bodies out on the field and see what happens. we tend to instead want to declare winners at the starting line. personally i think you should already have a "book" on the current NT players who have gotten decent PT. if you are talking about McKennie or some others, i might agree. i am not sold he is the A+ of the future. i see Dest as potentially problematic on defense. i would be surprised if there weren't surprises over time. i seriously hope we can get out of this quasi-college-tenure thing of once deemed the Next Big Thing at 20 we don't revisit that until you retire.....Yedlin, Brooks, etc. i think you'll know we've arrived when a new star doesn't have to wait years behind questionable choices. the real surprises will be the ones you haven't seen. the ones we have seen, you more or less know what you're getting. maybe more polish over time. maybe not. in terms of creating stars, i see that three fold. one, you need throughput. more talent, more chances. i don't like our tendency to focus laser like at early ages. or even as adults. you're better off making 3 good players for a position as opposed to obsessing about one player like pulisic. two, we need to get behind the careers of the best prospects. if we think reyna is the next big thing, don't fart around, don't wait on dortmund, promote them, keep pushing them. to me we are going to be slower about producing stars, and maybe lose some to frustration, if we put their careers solely in the hands of the club to start. we should be pushing along our own favorites. that way if nothing else they have our momentum behind them. and maybe both. three, i think they need to be more responsive to how U20 saw the players. you don't let that top half dozen prospects cool off while they await whatever matrix gets them a NT call. the ones the U20 coach raves about and relies upon should be into the NT camp as fast as we can get them. try to keep the momentum going. to me if we leave the ball in, say, PSG's court, we give PSG the chance to self servingly derail their career by saying, good, but not enough for us. and then because we put no effort into their success, they can fizzle. if we are putting effort in as well, then the elite club decisions aren't so conclusive. if you're like, i want the one that PSG picks instead, well, go back to YNT and development. by U20 it's too late. you then should be raising hell about domestic academy quality and whether we need a centralized alternative again. to me the snobs who talk up "Champions League players" are often confusing effect with cause. The cause is the effort that goes in from U15 on up with the YNTs, and the academies and clubs here. By the time they are signing, they are pretty well cooked. You might get the long-gamers (Adams) or the late-bloomers (Cameron, Long), but the ones who decide to make elite club deals at 18-20, the future is Now. FCD produced McKennie and Richards (and some others). you would want to ask what they are doing different.
It is funny how prospects work out (or don't). A couple years ago, we (me included) all thought we were stacked at CB with Miazga, EPB, and CCV all being high-end prospects with guys like Glad and McKenzie not being far behind. Now, if all those guys aren't quite busts, it's getting to be clear that none of them are likely to be starters in Big 4 leagues (kinda the baseline to be a real difference maker for the USMNT). As you said, we're basically left with Richards as a high-end CB prospect, but Bayern doesn't even him play him there. Conversely, the competition at winger later this cycle is looking to be insane by US standards. We already have Pulisic, Weah, and Reyna in the 1st team at very good clubs, and then Morris, who was arguably the best overall player for the USMNT in 2019. And on the horizon, we have guys like Llanez, De la Fuente, and Cameron Harper, the latter of whom apparently really impressed at the U-20 camp.
I'd take the other two now and expect difference in talent to widen significantly over the next two plus years. Sargent has already shown it with the national team. While Siebatcheu's minutes are less than I would like but he is still playing in roughly two thirds of the games of the team in third place in Ligue 1 that played $10M for him. He banged in goals at a very high rate in the second division. It isnt juat the minutes and leagues but how he plays. I'm not sure of anything that Zardes does better. I'd certainly take a look before settling on a guy who has shown he isnt effective at the level of Mexico
one thing to consider would be residential boarding school type set ups for the top academy teams. we have a lot of people and land area to cover. so maybe a web of feeder teams who do local scouting from which you promote the best prospects to the residencies. a boarding school set up would deal with travel and also allow more practices than currently, which ends up more like traditional select if everyone has to commute. if you want the players turning out better than select you have to professionalize beyond mere MLS-branded select teams. i also feel like in an era when people are narrowly focused on "skill" that it needs to be remembered that different positions have different needs and that being tall or fast or a shot or someone who can mark or someone who can catch are their own ends. sometimes i feel like when skill becomes end all be all then the focus often becomes a sort of not fast semi-technical rubbish. klinsmann and maradona and mbappe are not just skilled but also athletic. i can use their speed and also hone their skill. they will have various uses. the juggling king who can't run is pointless without a jetpack. i feel like i have to fend off this becoming some pure skill exercise.
The prospects are doing both. The sheer volume of kids with a good chance to break out this year and next could change both dramatically. Assuming Reyna and Vasilev continue to develop, two guys from the bottom part of the roster will no longer sit on the bench and will be depth for injuries. I dont know much about Vasilev, but have gotten the sense that his potential is more of a solid player than star. With those two and healthy Pulsic and Adam's, we are pushing four attacking players off the team. Ithink Trapp and Roldan are obvious but not so sure about the other two. I'd likely select between Yeuill, Lletget, Arriila and Boyd. All have shown that they can at least play a role for the side so having them as cover is what depth is all about. MID: Sebastian Lletget (LA Galaxy; 12/2), Weston McKennie (Schalke/GER; 17/6), Alfredo Morales (Fortuna Düsseldorf/GER; 14/0), Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders FC; 18/0), Jackson Yueill (San Jose Earthquakes; 4/0), Wil Trapp (Columbus Crew SC; 20/0) FOR: Paul Arriola (D.C. United; 30/5), Tyler Boyd (Besiktas/TUR; 8/2), Jordan Morris (Seattle Sounders FC; 37/7), Josh Sargent (Werder Bremen/GER; 11/3), Gyasi Zardes (Columbus Crew SC; 54/10)
like i said above, i think some fizzling is natural percentages. but i feel like you can fight some of it by backing your players and pushing them in your program. right now we follow the club lead. if wood or horvath gets benched we abandon them. i know we used to have less to work with but that is not how we did this in the past. to me that is "waste." you know you have talent, you just have to reboot them. you put in effort, you get back more useful players to use. you defer to club, you're stuck with the hand played you. and then wood, who has scored on most hex teams, becomes somehow termed a washout. we have starters who couldn't score on those teams to save their lives. same thing for U20s. you can try and keep the momentum going and promote several within the NT setup, or you can grab a couple and "let the market sort out the rest." to me if you leave the market to its devices you are going to have more bad outcomes. nothing says i have to sit here passively and let Lille or PSG or Bayern or the like decide this all for me. you can flip the script and bring in the Greens and Pulisics and essentially upon their success then toss the ball back to the club and say your move, i already know what i got. and then no matter what bayern thinks green always has the career momentum of "the guy who scored on belgium."
people don't realize this but Morales is 29 and would be 32 in Qatar. it's kind of like trapp (now 27), been on the periphery so long you think of them as youth prospects but they are both in the later half of their 20s and might arguably have one more tournament left.
personally i don't understand the selection conservatism when the experienced core couldn't win the 2019 gold cup and barely survived canada and cuba. personally i would have faith in the boom coming up and give it a 3 world cup run. but even if you wanted to give the incumbents their shot, they already got it and lost. we played to win again in the summer and fall. the results were modest. if your goal is 2022 success, you should already begin taking risks because losing to mexico twice, jamaica once, canada once, etc. hints at the low ceiling even if we qualified. but we have this odd mix of blind faith and the desire to win at all costs where we like the 2018 cycle will run out a previous losing veteran team convinced it remains our best chance at success. veteran teams either win today or not at all. there should be basic cognitive dissonance. how are the people who couldn't win the gold cup and barely survived LoN on a tiebreak going to win qualifying? this is one reason i think the system bit is over-stated is that is the only possible x factor that makes a loser better than what it is. but there is no objective winning streak on which to hang that. since the system hasn't fixed it yet, faith in such is basically religion until shown otherwise. we have much religion. we keep believing dog teams will magically right themselves and remain our best chance, when the objective response should be roster churn. who else can i try besides the people who lost to mexico twice and canada.