If someone said he was the greatest LB born, is a bit of a stretch, but think about it, we have never had a good LB. The closes was a washed-up LF that did an outstanding job during a WC.
Sure but we also have Vines, Bello, Robinson, Paredes, and Tolkin. Joe Scally just started at left back against Bayern Munich and acquitted himself very well. Gomez is a good prospect who may turn out to be really good, but he is by no means a make or break player at left back. Every player I just listed is similarly young and already playing regularly at a higher level than he’s ever played.
It reminds me of 8-10 years ago the Mexican-American players we got from Mexican leagues were just non-difference makers for us. Just utility players.
Scally is a physical monster with a good brain to boot, but he is not going to win any dribbling contest. He is your typical forward-thinking US player. I see one day him being tried at the #6.
I'll speak about Konrad. When I saw him as a 16 y.o. I saw a kid with flair to his game that had inside moves and speed. He was always the youngest for his age group. When he moved up to the U20 he was still playing with the same flair, this time, inexperience got the best of him against bigger players that knew his next move. Since then he has gotten better at hiding what he is going to do next and became much faster. So, in a nutshell, he passed the eye test from the beginning.
At one point, Griffin Yow had played at a higher level than Gio Reyna. Gomez is a bigger prospect than all of the players you named, and that’s why we should want him. Do all prospects pan out? No, but our best players now were almost all the top prospects. If we want to keep increasing the level and pushing to be among the best, then we can’t settle for guys because they are good enough.
Gomez is playing in USL, which makes difficult realistic superlative comparisons to players in better leagues. He looks promising, though.
Inevitable....................................... The pool of players being developed in the states means we're going to be a heavily recruited hotbed for most of CONCACAF.
I mean we want all the top prospects we can get because you never know which ones are going to be the one who hits. Every good prospect is like a lottery ticket and we want as many as possible to up our chances. I don’t know how it’s possible to say though that Gomez is a bigger prospect than the rest. He may turn out to be a better player but that’s not quite that clear cut yet. Now if he goes to Real Sociedad and immediately starts playing games than we’re having a different conversation. But easier said that done and I also won’t write him off if that doesn’t happen. Griffin Yow and Gio Renya were also on the same U-17 team and it was pretty evident then who the better player/prospect. Not that it means that much, but that was also a U17 Gomez didn’t make because of some of the players I listed in my previous post.
Yup. He's only 17. Based on his play he's superior to other teenage fullbacks playing at that level. [And a higher level than he'd like be playing on if he'd stayed with FCD. He wouldn't have supplanted Hollingshead yet. NTSC is in League One.] How does he compare to a guy like John Tolkin? Hard to say. But we just saw Bello, Vines, Dest, and Robinson. Frankly any four of those guys would be fine for the position against most of CONCACAF. Basically with Gomez its all projection in terms of international ceiling. But its clear that both Mexico and the USMNT see that ceiling. So who is going to rush to cap-tie him before he can actually contribute? Who's going to use a WCQing roster slot on a guy who isn't going to play?
He was in the stadium during all that nonsense during the NL Final; I really wonder if that experience will spin his thought process.
I think that’s pretty insensitive and mean, but I wouldn’t call it racist. If I was an American woke white person I might try to virtue signal on that, however.
FCD could have just moved Hollingshead to literally any other position on the field, where he would still be their best player. That guy is criminally under appreciated. I don’t know who he grew up playing against, but he’s more of a South American style player than we are used to seeing in the US player pool. If he was faster, he would be a superstar.
With the potential for Bello, Jones, and Paredes all to make moves, I wonder if he gets called up for January camp.
No doubt, and I don't see the equivalence, unless I'm mistaken, basically that's the one incident that went sideways and at least some people behaved like epic d bags. I can recall as far back as 1998, Jim Rome, yes, Jim Rome, quoting and talking about Alexi Lalas losing his mind over the behavior of Mexican fans throwing piss bottles, garbage and all manner of nonsense at our players at the Rose Bowl during the early '98 Gold Cup Final (the tournament where Keller stood on his head against Brazil and got some love for that performance). This crazy nonsense goes back more than 20 years whenever we host it in area's with large enough concentrations of El Tri fans. I definitely think things got dark over the past five years with Trump coming in, and the rabidly racist b.s. he was spewing at Latin-Americans in general. You can see in Ochoa's twitter feed a clear sense that he's of a piece with the politically activated portion of young electorate, there's definitely a sense of an identification with the fight against that kind of bigotry, and a desire to embrace more strongly his ethnic heritage which could have also played into this.
Of course. I believe USSF shouldn't be permitting Mexico to host matches in the US until the chant is cut out. And it's fair to criticize Mexico National Team fans for it, no matter how much they grumble. The good news is that with American fans, it looks like the chanting was a one time incident.
'04 US-eligible forward Mansour Ouro-Tagba made his senior cup debut for 3. Liga side 1860 Munich. He was at one Germany U16 camp two years ago. https://t.co/J0cU82G0OE— ChuckMe92 Soccer (@ChuckMe92Soccer) August 18, 2021
Just for those thinking this discussion is just about mexicans. All of CONCACAF has taken notice of the talent being developed. Hugo Sanchez and El Salvador are being VERY aggressive. They're calling up US-based kids who've done nothing to their senior national team. Congrats to DCU homegrown Jeremy Garay and Dynamo homegrown Danny Rios, both '03s, on their senior El Salvador call-ups. Both have been with USYNTs and would have been part of the upcoming U20 pool.Still no Tomas Romero, who may well have turned down an invite again. https://t.co/eWl01OMc43— ChuckMe92 Soccer (@ChuckMe92Soccer) August 18, 2021
re Gomez, he is another off the FCD factory, rumored headed to spain, at which point, no, sorry, he is not just another USL player. he is a 17 year old who went where he would get played as a platform out to europe. every year in a young player's development matters and next year he will be 18 and maybe playing in spain and we may or may not be shopping for left backs still. a lot will have to do with whether some set of vines dest robinson seizes the job, or whether we are still pulling hair out in a year heading towards qatar. his trajectory is not massively different than che's, who was in senior camp. it's premature now but with the amount of reynas and pulisics we have running around, it may be a matter of time.
We don't know for sure. I and others are just going by the eye test. Once he goes to La Liga we should have a better idea, but if he hasn't committed to us by then, then Mexico might have an advantage over us.
Going to Spain does not make Gomez a La Liga player. Let the kid breathe. We have other players at LB.
US Soccer gets a ton of money from the Mexico matches (as well as adding a lot of money to the overall US soccer economy).