I want to know why people are so high on Jonathan Gomez? I’m not trying to knock the dude and I want him to commit to the US and be a rock star for us... but was he done or shown to be so solid??
What I don’t get is why Mexico pushes for some of these guys so hard? I mean, they are going all out for these sort of predatory call ups ... anyone.... anyone with a pulse and a trace of Mexican ancestry and in the US camp and they’re all in for them. Don’t get me wrong... I get it when it’s a highly prized player... But I would warn these players that the Mexican federation is feeding these players a bunch of bullshit by telling them they’re further ahead than they are in the program. David Ochoa isn’t going to be Mexico’s starting keeper in a long, long time...maybe he gets the third shirt for this World Cup... Julian Araujo is one I sort of get... yes we say there’s a chance for him in our program but that window is very small for him anytime soon. Yes, he projects well because he’s so young and he would be a great player to have for the Olympics. But, in a must win game, who would you select between him and Kyle Duncan? If it were me, I’d take Duncan if it came down to just that game alone. I don’t know if Araujo will even surpass Duncan come 2026. So, it wouldn’t be until about 2030 until you could expect Araujo to surpass Duncan. Now, Araujo could blow up and pass him much quicker but nothings guaranteed either. I don’t see why Pepi would switch at all... if so, that’s just either he loves Mexico over the US or he would have to be really dumb. There’s competition at the forward spot, and I wouldn’t rank Pepi over Sargent, Pefok, Zardes, Dike, and Hoppe right at the moment... but there’s no reason to believe he couldn’t push to be in the World Cup. Meanwhile, Mexico’s center forward seems more settled in 2022... even if it opens up more in 2026. His better shot is with the US now and who wouldn’t want to be part of a US attack that just needs a legit goal scorer? Jonathan Gomez should feel that it’s becoming more difficult to get into the US... especially with Paredes and Tolkin now emerging... not to mention Jones... and then you have Bello, Scally, Reynolds, Dest, Vines, Jedi, etc.... so it won’t be given to him. But if he proves solid... he can get into the picture and compete. Meanwhile, what bullshit is Mexico feeding him? He’s not jumping into the Mexican team right away. And I don’t see where a player who is hyped as much as Gomez couldn’t break in if he lives up to the hype. ...The whole thing is just weird. It’s normal to expect a few defections. It’s not normal to lose so many and all at once. Watching Mexico today is like Algeria 2010 and Qatar... not even trying to build a team... this is just a team of mercenaries. Again it’s just odd that Mexico loses two tournaments to US in a row and all of a sudden Mexico’s response is to start going after our youth players. I suspect something nefarious is underneath all this. ...I just hope our fans chant “C team” or something similar the next time they play Mexico.
Its annoying, it stinks, but our right back depth is flat out obscene. Araujo absolutely has a clearer line of sight for Mexico than the USMNT. All eyes on Pepi now. That one is the real one that we are concerned with
What did Scally do in pro soccer do before his debut performance yesterday or Konrad before his assist in round one in France? The tricky thing with top prospects with European interest is that they can go from youth prospect to getting minutes in a top 5 league overnight. Gomez plans to go to Europe when he turns 18 next month. He's been linked with Real Sociedad. Their LB is an aging Nacho Monreal. Sure, there's a chance it amounts to nothing but there's also real possibility that he's getting La Liga minutes six months from now. We should be monitoring him closely and inviting him to a camp to train like we did with Paredes and Nyeman to stay in the conversation.
I think he’s just a good prospect at a position we historically have struggled to find players. I don’t think there’s much distinction between him and some of our other potential left back prospects.
It really does seem like Mexico has amped up their efforts on this front since we beat them twice this summer. It’s like they need the PR wins, even though I wouldn’t expect any of these players to play a major role for them in qualifying. I also think they see all the players we have in Europe and all the ones who are about to go and freaks them out. Easier said then done but I can only imagine the reaction if the US were to say win a qualifying match in the Azteca. They still have a very good team, it’s just a bit on the older end, and I think they know it and this is about what comes next once this current generation ages out.
Everyone recruits everyone else's youth players. We're not in a position to throw shade at Mexico for recruiting our players. If a MexAm player opts for Mexico then I take it at face value the reasons are cultural. After all, ElTri are a bigger deal in the US than are the US National Team. Also, Mexico have a serious approach to the Olympics. That's a nice sell. Even if a player doesn't make major headway with the senior team he will have a legit chance at a medal. Imo, that's actually a big deal. That's a differentiator.
When it comes to the record between USA and Mexico, I think the most fair standard is competitive matches. By my count, it's 9-5-11 in official competitions since 1990. Slightly in favor of Mexico, although I'll note that the US won one of the five draws in PKs in the Copa America, so that makes it even tighter. If you count since 2000, it's 8-2-8. Either way, I think everybody knows that the US and Mexico are close and competitive rivals at the national team level, even if Mexico still has the advantage in other areas (such as Liga MX versus MLS).
I can only wish the rest of our forwards could stink so badly to the tune of six goals in their last seven Champions League and Europa League appearances.
I mean, I'm not making a stunning indictment here. I think even the strongest pro-USSF person would say there's been a less than great level of outreach across the board. So I think it's pretty easy to take some basic steps. I'm not saying this solves everything, but: Have coaching training courses, PR accounts, talent id camps, etc., in Spanish as well as English -- at least in the in person, make sure someone knows Spanish Have a Latin dual nation in a position of prominence in the soccer structure who has responsibility for some portion of player outreach. Are they an assistant to McBride? A head of youth development? There's certainly enough work to go around and get qualified candidates Work with organizations in the Latino youth soccer community, actually work on talent id there and PR there just as you would in other communities Have a relatively fluent Spanish-speaking member of the coaching staff Promote all of our USMNT alumni, but including our Latin-American players Do an honest self-evaluation of our processes and culture to see if they is something unwelcoming in how the staff/admin acts and works. It's possible there is something they don't even realize. I don't think this changes everyone's mind. It's not going to make the US the primary choice of a lot of Mexican-Americans suddenly. But I think it is worth taking steps to make sure people know they are welcome and that the USSF values all Americans who want to participate in the sport.
I have to agree with this... granted, I want dudes who want to play for us and I don’t want to pander to one demographic... but at the same time, I want the USMNT to represent that this is the team for all Americans... Mexican-Americans included. Hopefully, some of this image changes as MLS improves and as generations of Mexican-Americans have more distance and less connection to Mexico.
So simple question. Go to great lengths to make Americans feel more welcome in our program. Cater to those with ties to Mexico. Do all the things being suggested. How does that make ALL the other dual nats feel? Maybe we need a full time German speaking coach. And a dutch. And a ......I get that the demographic of those players with ties to Mexico is huge. And we need to give them a quality and embracing atmosphere. But this is the USMNT not the MNT. If they see themselves as more Mex than American then I would rather have someone else in that spot.
I mean to be fair when we had a German coach that's when we successfully recruited a large contingent of German Americans. It certainly had some impact in their willingness to commit. I think the outreach doesn't necessarily have to be specific to Mexican Americans but to Latino Americans generally in the ways laid out by @gogorath. None of those things are particularly crazy steps and also just generally help to build support for the team in amongst Latino Americans writ large. And I'm open to other suggestions about other things we can do when it comes to dual nationals generally. For instance I wouldn't be against have an assistant coach who is European based and whose purview includes scouting and recruiting dual nationals based in Europe. And to the extent that there are other diaspora populations in the US that US Soccer could do better outreach to, I'm perfectly fine with finding ways to do that too.
First of all, I didn't say cater to anyone at all. Just make a significant portion of our population feel welcome. Second Latino-Americans represent close to 20% of the United States' population, and some significant percentage of that is more comfortable communicating in Spanish. Players like Sergino Dest and John Anthony Brooks are absolutely American, but the percent of Americans with their demographics where English is not their first language are very, very small. Second, I think we should not only have outreach programs to other undeserved American communities. We should have programs to reach lower income kids, urban kids, kids far away from major communities, etc. My point isn't to disproportionately favor the Mexican-American community. My point is that because we aren't doing very much at all anywhere, we are inherently favoring the people and kids that are able to reach us, or are most like the people in charge. This happens a lot and doesn't necessarily have negative intent. I'm not in favor of favoritism in caps or any of that. But I don't think it is ridiculous to try and outreach to a community that doesn't feel included.
I like the idea of more Spanish speaking coach training just to get more kids good coaching. I still don't think we are going to get a whole lot of extra Mexican Americans. Maybe we'll get more non-mexican Latinos.
The Olympics are a nice experience and shopping window, but are otherwise overvalued on this board. Top prospects are going to Europe, trying to get into top 5 leagues and Champions League clubs. That generally means they won't be released for Olympic qualifying and Olympics, and it isn't causing anyone to delay Europe for that reason. Legit 17-20 year old prospects now should be in Europe before we ever get to Olynpics qualifying for 2024 and that's a good thing.
Yeah, I feel like our best chance to do well in the Olympics is to keep improving the quality of our players and be able to use a bunch of 21-22 year olds who have a year or two of mls experience, but are not really good enough for too European leagues, and get MLS teams to release them. It seems like that’s pretty much the recipe for Mexico.
I had referred to the Olympics in the context of it as a selling point, not what you or I might think of the actual value. Also a decent number of players Euro-based players did participate in the Olympics.
I think that the point is that the caliber of players who are likely to go to the Olympics are not likely to become important senior team members. Most legit 20-22 year olds are going to be part of the senior teams at their clubs, and aren’t going to be released. The Olympics are certainly a cool experience, but they’re not something that most good players participate in.
I was disappointed with how Kreis screwed up the qualifying. With better preparation, coaching, and more balanced player selection, we should have qualified and probably would have done well in Tokyo. But it was obvious we had 15-20 u23 players in Europe that couldn't get released. Our development was in good stead. Regardless of what happens in 2024, the Olympics are a youth tournament and not a major tournament in men's soccer. If we don't qualify because we can't get our top 20 players released, I'm not going to freak out about it. If we do well and medal, I'm not going to pretend that that we won the World Cup like El Tri fans trying to salvage their summer with the bronze. I'm knowledgeable enough about soccer but barely knew half the French and German players because of club release issues. For 2024, instead, I want us to play in Copa America as a guest to prepare for the World Cup. Doing another 16-team tournament and hosting it here would be ideal, kind of how the host used to have the Confederations Cup the year before the World Cup as a dress rehearsal.
Jonathan Gomez is 17. Pepi is 18. Aruajo just turned 20. Ochoa is 20. I doubt of any of them has a crystal ball to tell them whether they're going to be 'legit'. What they do know is that with Mexico they'll have a good shot at winning a medal.
Pepi and Gomez should be in Europe in 2022 and not worried about the Olympics, regardless of which country they choose. Also Ochoa and Araujo shouldn't be eligible to play for Mexico in Olympics because they were on our team in official qualifiers. There is a rule that a player can't play at the same age level in official competition for two countries, unless something has changed with Fifa rules.
I think it depends on the country. Brazil always sends some of their best players for instance. The Spanish FA also has a rule where all Spanish teams have to release players and Spain definitely spent their best team this time around. They had about five players who went straight from the Euro Cup to the Olympics. Argentina in past Olympics has sent their best players and in 2008 when they won the Gold the team had Messi, Di Maria, Aguero, and Mascherano among others. On the other hand you have teams like France who despite all their talent struggled to put together a team (I bet this won't happen in 2024 with the Olympics in Paris). I think this particular Olympics it was much harder to secure releases with the European teams basically having played two seasons back to back and with everything going on with COVID. We were also in this weird situation where our Olympic team is basically our A team. I can't imagine there are many countries where this is the case. I think the Olympics are valuable for a few reasons. For one it's an opportunity showcase the team in the US and build the sport of soccer as the Olympics typically have high viewership here and get lots of attention. I think it's also an opportunity for our up and coming players to get high level reps in an international competition that's not the Gold Cup. I also think it helps serve as a dual national recruiting tool. Had we qualified for the Olympics, Ochoa and Araujo (and probably Pepi and Gomez) would have been in Tokyo with the team and not being invited to camps with Tata Martino. It's also a good showcase for some of the players who are looking to go to Europe (though this matters less than it used to). And finally it's super fun for us as fans to watch the team. Even if you left off every player from the the Gold Cup and Nations League, we have so much young talent these days that it would have been a super fun/exciting team for all of us to watch.