If you are talking about Julian Green he was 18 when selected to the WC2014 squad and did have a UCL sub appearance in 2013 under Pep.
Yes we should never let anyone play for the USMNT if they violated some team rule at age f*cking 13. Brilliant, you have my vote for US Soccer president!
I prefer middle ground on this. The X-factor could have just been that efrain family wanted him to play Mexico from the start and waited for a time when things were not at the best for Efrain in a US jersey.
As a former corporate recruiter I'd advise: 1) Frequent contact 2) Frequent status updates, perhaps within a software portal players can login to 3) Outline of potential upward path and opportunity therein 4) Potential commercial sponsorship and brand visibility opportunities 5) Forecast and vision of 3, 5 and 10 year future of the program And it's not hard. Most would be done in a template. I wouldn't pitch around nationality vs nationality but rather, improved organization, structure, goals and vision. Let them feel a part of something bigger. And frankly, someone making 50K a year should be able to do this year round in a highly professional manner.
I was a technical recruiter, so I have a little experience with this (although, not really with things like "brand", and it's a different animal getting a QA to talk to you vs. talking with an athlete). Yes, I agree. This discussion regarding USSF scouting, and scouting of dual-nationals, has happened in a couple of threads. They should have a guy, or a small team, on their payroll whose job it is to talk to everyone in the pool. Doesn't have to be in-depth like how Chelsea keeps in touch with Miazga, but should be frequent email blasts, at least acknowledging that they're being watched. I just think that college recruiting, particularly of high-level athletes, goes much farther than that.
Efrain Alvarez against FCD yesterday...………………………..EeEF. He's 16. That's former MLS defender of the year Matt Hedges that he's nutmegging I believe. Oh and we've nicknamed this save by Jesse Gonzalez as "the one time switch." 👀 @efrain_alvarez1 pic.twitter.com/LVWji1GTZm— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) March 9, 2019
I think he knows that he's wanted badly by the US camp. I see this one going the other way as calmer heads prevail and amends are made.
Dempsey, Donovan, Mathis all were “bad apples” in their teens and beyond. Frankly, Bradley and Altidore were a little soft in that category. Give me the bad apples.
No. He got sent home from one camp for bad behavior and immediately switched sides to Mexico. So he's not exactly the most committed American in the world.
Likely projecting and most definitely speculating...: There is an old saying along the lines of “If you have a problem with everyone in the room you are probably the problem”. Seems like our federation keeps having falling outs with dual national Mexicans. I am apt to think it isn’t the Mexican’s problem.
I mean we got Castillo, Torres, Corona, Jesse Gonzalez, Gomez, Saucedo, Orozco, and Yarbrough. It seems like we win these battles more than we lose them, which isn't bad considering most of those guys probably grow up cheering for Mexico.
You forgot Garza, Omar Gonzalez, and Delgado. And likely Soto, Mendez, and Edwin Lara. I don't want to jinx Ledezma/Alvarez. I can name maybe three Mexican-Americans that switched to Mexico. Gonzalez, a FCD GK, and Zendejas.
Richard Sanchez was never called by the US and it’s not clear if Zendejas has switched. He needs to file a one time switch and has not so far. He is playing for Chivas who have a policy of only playing Mexicans but as far as I know neither full team has called him up. There may be a citizenship wrinkle also as he is listed as born in El Paso and Juarez.
And with Zendejas he's probably just trying to appease Chivas and could be available after he leaves the club. I remember Juan Pablo Ocegueda joined Chivas, and also agreed to reject US callups. 6 months later he was no longer with Chivas and went back to playing for The US U23's
Not hard to win a one-sided fight. None of those guys were players Mexico was seriously interested in.
Except the fact that Castillo, Lara, and Gonzalez, who had youth caps for Mexico. And Castillo had 3 senior caps. If we get Efrain, for example, does it not count that Mexico wanted him? What about Ledezma, Soto, or Mendez? If Jonathan Gonzalez never achieves his potential, do we get to say that he never really mattered? Do we get a pass on Zendejas because he fell off a cliff at Chivas?
Gonzalez was the first guy Mexico really fought for. If you know my posting history on him, you know I was strongly advocating the US call him in. In part because the US naively believed Gonzalez was in the bag, whereas Mexico had decided to fight for him. Likewise, Mexico is not messing around with Efra. And like Gonzalez, the Alvarez family had a run-in with US Soccer. So the US should be working twice as hard to get him back. I still consider both losses due to hot headed US coaches who want to assert their authority in a “my way or the highway” tone. The US has to understand they are in a recruiting war. Mexico knows they have a weak upcoming generation, and their deep-pocketed FMF owners will do, or pay, whatever it takes to get some of the more talented US-based players to switch sides. This is not the arrogant El Tri from a few years ago. So yes. Efra, Ledezma, Llanez, Mendez and more have been and will continue to be approached from FMF representatives. And losing them would be a loss. Zendejas? Not sure either country is knocking down his door.
My quibble, I suppose, is with what "seriously" means. Mexico's youth generation is pretty poor at the moment, certainly depth-wise. But on the other hand, they've been heavily scouting Mexican-Americans at least since the Alianza de Futbol 10-ish years ago. It's also an objective fact that we've been able to keep most Mexican-American dual-nationals. We've gotten several YNT players to switch back, even in the midst of Jonathan Gonzalez switching out, and Efrain Alvarez looking like he might stay with Mexico. Clearly, Rongen et. al were doing a crap job in keeping in touch with these dual-nationals, while Te Kloese and the Mexican Federation have been aggressively recruiting. But they didn't just start doing this a year ago. And they've lured American prospects into camps before. Those prospects panning out or not, for either team, that's a different story. Yes, losing Ledezma, Alvarez, Mendez, Llanez, etc. would be awful.
Mexico did not care when those three walked out the door. They knew Castillo wasn't going to make the grade with El Tri (just as he didn't make the grade with the US). Neither Gonzalez nor Lara look at all likely to be players who will be NT-caliber.
What are the details of the issues at the youth camp? All I know is that he was sent home/kicked out for his behavior. I have no clue as to what the behavior was so I can't judge who was right and who was wrong and how to allocate the percentage of blame.
The US has gotten back players Mexico did not want. They are 0/1 when Mexico decides to fight for a player. The difference now is that instead of fringe players, it appears some of the best young talent in either federation is eligible for both countries. And Mexico is desperate. They see the talent in the upcoming US generation, and the lack of it in theirs. They do not want a dominant US National Team, especially one with heavy Mexican-American representation. The nightmare for Mexico is that the “Equipo de Todos” becomes the most popular National Team for Mexican-Americans. The recruiting war is on. We will see what happens. The US really does a chance to bring Efra back, but they need to be great recruiters to do it.
I don't think there's any question that the USSF and the USMNT has come out in the "plus" column when it comes to recruiting dual nationals. Folks on these boards just pine endlessly for the few that got away. And that's fine. We're fans of the USMNT and want a 100% retention rate. But that's never going to happen. Why we spend so much time discussing players that want to actually play for our biggest rival is beyond me................. And for those of us that have been around a while, we find blaming Rongen for this issues is madness. There was zero dual-national strategy prior to Rongen. It was Rongen who behind the scenes developed "The List" (as it was called) of dual nationals that the USSF/USMNT/USYNTs should recruit. Then he actively went about doing it in his role with the U20s and USSF. The reason that Jonathan Brooks is in the program, for instance, is Thomas Rongen. He went so far as to approach Mix Diskerud at a youth tournament while he was taking a corner kick. The recruiting of German-Americans didn't start with Jurgen Klinsmann for Pete's sake. There's been this long-time blaming of Thomas Rongen for losing Neven Subotic. As if losing one player cancels out all of the other good work he did with USYNTs. People act like this "recruiting war" is something new. Its always gone on. There are just more and better prospects now. I remember a few years ago when in DFW I saw Mexican scout at girls U14 ODP tryouts. Girls U14 OPD tryouts. Also, people spend an endless amount of time blaming officials with the USSF. In many cases this is just a personal decision that these youngsters make. They have to choose where their "heart" is. Everybody should read Jonathan Gonzalez' actual comments about why he chose Mexico, and not believe the endless tripe on these boards. We can't put guns to the heads of these kids and force them to play for the USMNT/USYNTs if they prefer playing for Mexico (or whatever country). All we can do as a program is continue letting these kids know they're valued, and continue providing them with opportunities. If they subsequently choose to switch, then I don't know what we're supposed to do about it. {I actually think the Gonzalez situation is a bit of an outlier. There was no USSF president, no USSF technical director, no full time USMNT coach, no US U23 coach, etc. If he wanted assurances that he was important to the USMNT senior team in the long term, there was nobody there to give it.}