I know it is defend the Fed all the time; but come on. It is ok to change coaches. It is ok for coaches to move on. Not hiring any coaches for years, literally years, is not acceptable. Mothballing entire YNTs for 18-24 months, pre-Covid and after is not acceptable. On the business side, actually hiring a coach (Hudson), paying him, and having no camps or games is dumb in itself. If you are going to abandon one of your main functions to save money for legal fees or whatever, then do it smartly and go all in.
Hugo Perez (now head coach of El Salvador) was recently interviewed and one of the questions he was asked was his role with FMF. He says that Mexico has a top world class infrastructure and organization with their coaches comparable to Spain and Germany. They are all in constant communication (even by zoom during the pandemic) with coaches and with Tata Martino. Perez was to look and scout for Mexican-American talent and the best players would be sent over to Mexico where they would be trained in their camps. By reading the comments on here by people who do keep up with US Uxx teams and finding out that camps haven't been made nor coaches have being assigned to several Uxx teams, what Perez says about FMF being more advanced over USSF now makes sense. Here is a link for those who can read Spanish or use Google translate. https://m.elsalvador.com/deportes/selecciones/hugo-perez-selecta-bases-reto-mundiales/834508/2021/
lets be honest the coaching situation with us soccer is bad, but coaches talking over zoom hardly seems very advanced
One of the big things that Earnie was brought into do was to build an organization where this kind of communication and integration was occurring. So I expect that US Soccer is already somewhat more along than when Perez was there. I've also heard that Perez liked to do his own thing, so I find it interesting he sees this as a plus. That said, they need to start getting back to camps. Games will be able to sell tickets in June, and very possibly at full capacity, so revenues are back. Get going.
My updated ideal 11 for this age group GK: Alex Borto, Fulham RB: Mauricio Cuevas, LA Galaxy 2 (soon Europe) CB: Justin Che, Bayern Munich CB: Bryan Okoh, RB Salzburg LB: Jonathan Gomez, Louisville City 6: Daniel Leyva, Seattle Sounders 8: Moses Nyeman, DC United 10: Caden Clark, NYRB LW: Cade Cowell, San Jose Earthquakes RW: Malick Sanogo, Union Berlin ST: Ricardo Pepi, FC Dallas There are numerous players who could be rotated into this 11 and we’d still have a very high level team. This is a very high quality u20 cycle. Cycle depth: GK Beckham Sunderland Anthony Ramos Gavin Krenecki Chris Brady Gabe Slonina Antonio Carrera Jeff Dewsnup Emmanuel Ochoa RB Michael Halladay Kayden Pierre Erik Dueñas Nati Clarke LB Anthony Sorenson Jacob Greene Bo Cummins Noah Allen Caleb Wiley Tristian Viviani Curtis Ofori CB Casey Walls Eric Kinzner Jalen Neal Dante Huckaby Antonio Leone Brandan Craig Efrain Morales Kobi Henry 6 Daniel Edelman Elton Chifamba Tarun Karunmanchi Matthew Leal Allan Rodriguez Kenan Hot Reed Baker Whiting Brooklyn Raines Diego Lopez 8 Jack McGlynn Alex Alvarado Javier Casas Zach Booth Rokas Pukstas Aethan Yohannes 10 Paxten Aaronson Jonathan Perez Evan Rotundo Victor Valdez Quinn Sullivan Juan Alvarez Julio Benitez Sergio Oregel winger Dante Sealy Kevin Paredes Chris Garcia Sam Sarver Edwin Azcona Patrick Bohui Alex Monis Patrick Leal Sam Sarver Kaile Auvray Fede Oliva Dantouma Toure Leo Torres Ozzie Cisneros Daniel Sebhatu Chris Thaggard Felipe Valencia Sebastian Carbajal Serge Ngoma 9 Patrick Weah Matthew Roou Christian Torres Austin Brummett Darren Yapi Marcos Zambrano Isaiah Chisholm This cycle is loaded
He’s come around this season so I should’ve put him on there. Out of the fire homegrowns he underwhelmed me the most in the DA
Nice to see cuevas putting on some muscle https://www.instagram.com/p/CPlErhtLq-s/?utm_medium=copy_link
Azcona has been getting some minutes with Inter Miami. Has anyone seen him play? I wonder if he would be a starter for the U20s?
Not starting him over Dante Sealy or Kevin Paredes. You also potentially have strikers who could play winger like Cade Cowell and Malick Sanogo. Azcona is good but really has to come in and get it done in a camp
I think Azcona can compete for the 10 spot and plus to get the out of Sanogo he needs to play the 9 imo.
Not saying you’re wrong. Just hard to incorporate all the strikers we have with Ricardo Pepi, Malick Sanogo, Cade Cowell, Patrick Weah, and Roald Mitchell. We could easily move Cade and Sanogo to the wings and use one of Weah/Mitchell as a backup 9 and still boss teams at this level
The 2003’s who have made the Gold Cup Premiminary roster: Justin Che Caden Clark Cade Cowell Jonathan Gomez Moses Nyeman Kevin Paredes Ricardo Pepi Per @bshredder on twitter Moses Nyeman is in the process of completing his citizenship!!!
Overall, these guys are all in my “lock” tier for the 2003 age group. The only other player I have in this tier for the 2003’s is Mauricio Cuevas
——————Pepi—————— Paredes——Clark———Cowell ———-Nyeman—??—-———- Gomez——————————?? ———-Che———??————— ——————??————————
Right back is locked in Mauricio Cuevas. Defensive mid is a toss up but Leyva for now. The other CB is a toss up between a multitude of guys
I don't usually do this, but really the talent that this cycle has is unique. In combination of 2003 and 2004 I think this would be the best team: GK: Chris Brady, Jeff Dewsnup, Antonio Carrera CB: Jalen Neal, Nigel Prince, Antonio Leone, Brandan Craig RB: Mauricio Cuevas, Justin Che LB: Jonathan Gomez, Caleb Wiley CM/AM: Danny Leyva, Moses Nyeman, Jack McGlynn, Zach Booth, Caden Clark, Quinn Sullivan W/ST: Kevin Paredes, Dante Sealy, Yaya Toure, Cade Cowell, Ricardo Pepi, Malick Sanogo This cycle is so good that players like Gabe Slonina, Alejandro Cano, Casey Walls, Marcus Ferkranus, Jackson Gilman, Michael Halliday, Noah Hall, Tristan Viviani, Justin Reynolds, Alex Freeman, Elton Chifamba, Kenan Hot, Rokas Pukstas, Daniel Edelman, Evan Rotundo, Pax Aaronson, Fabrizio Bernal, Leo Torres, Sam Sarver, Chris Garcia, Roald Mitchell, Christian Torres could be out of the list and still have good careers as professionals. I'm not adding Alex Borto because I haven't watched him. Bryan Okoh is with Switzerland U21, so would be strange if he is with US U20
We said that the 2019 cycle was going to be our best cycle because of the 00’s, but they were the younger age group and the 99’s were pretty weak. This cycle should actually be our best cycle yet. That’s because the 03’s look like they are the best age group we’ve produced yet. That’s as the older of the two age groups. The two other top age groups we’ve had so far were even year age groups (‘98 and ‘00) that were better suited to performing well at the U-17 level, and the 00’s did throughout, while the 98’s did until the end of their U-17 cycle when Richie Williams destroyed the team. While the younger of the two age groups isn’t the strongest right now, ‘04 compliments ‘03 very well. By far the biggest weakness of ‘03 are the keepers, and that’s by far the biggest strength of the 04’s. Also, I think if we are looking at some of the 04’s for depth roles on this team that it helps to have big, athletic, physical, versatile players in those back ups spots. The 04’s have a lot of those types of players. Players such as Leone, Prince, Craig, Sullivan, Toure, Viviani, Cano, Reynolds, Hot, Booth. The top 04’s have very few so-called luxury players among the top players. The main thing that could make it a little more difficult to be able to win the U-20 WC would be if we had too many 03’s (or a few 04’s) on the senior NT by that point. Players such as Gomez, Che, Paredes, Nyeman, Cowell, Clark, and Pepi have already made a NT provisional roster. It’s hard to believe a few won’t be capped by 2023, although the positive there would be that it should be harder for young players to break through into the senior team as we improve and 2023 only has a Gold Cup the first year after the World Cup, so there could be some discretion used to send players to the U-20 WC.
This cycle is so good that a huge percentage of the guys I see on your lists will never play a game for the U20s. There's going to be an imminent exit to Europe, which is already started with Clark in January (and likely Gomez too). So we can already start the refrain of "yeah, but we won't have most of these guys for qualifying" refrain. We need to start U20 camps so that we can start building up depth here.....................
This will probably be a recurring theme from now on for the U20 and U23 teams. USSF is going to rely a lot on MLS for the U20 and Olympic Qualifying. It's a good thing MLS is producing better players so depending solely on MLS won't be that bad in the near future.